New mailing address

At the regional house in Kaolack. I will probably be posting entries from here and cybercafes in Toubacouda from now on. It's a pretty neat place to just chill and relax with other volunteers, and it is stocked with a library of books that volunteers brought over the years, a guitar, and NesCafe. Yes, we drink instant coffee because the alternatives are either difficult and time-consuming, expensive or non-existent. But I digress.

As the title of this blog indicates, and the main reason for me posting a blog entry two days in a row, is that I got my mailing address today! See side bar -------------------->>>

So now all of you lovely people and can send me stuff. It is a shared box with 3 other volunteers, which is good because a) I spend less money to have the box and b) if my site mate happens to be in Sokone, she can pick it up for me and bring it to me, enabling me to receive mail slightly more often. I don't know what the situation will be like for making it there, but at the very least I will receive the gifts that you bestow upon me every other week or so.

This morning we went out and bought a ridiculous amount of things for install. We need to buy all sorts of new tools for gardening, kitchen supplies, storage containers, buckets and baskets for showering, etc. I will also have to aquire a bed at some point along the lines, but I may end up buying a cot to hang out on and sleep on until I can find a better solution. Most volunteers said they found an artisan or someone in a road town near them and hired a charet- a horse-drawn carriage- to get it back to site. I’ll take pictures believe me.

Side note-while writing this blog entry my homestay family called me to say hi. They call me every day to tell me that they miss me and make sure I’m ok. I miss them. Senegalese phone conversations are very bizarre; I’m pretty sure the cellphone has not been a common item until recently, so local phone etiquette is much different than it is in the states. People will answer their phones no matter what- Aissatu used to answer her phone in the middle of the class all the time because it would be rude not to. My two older brothers from homestay- Mousa and Alisou, call me all the time just to tease me and reference our old inside jokes. I used to call them my “nari jafe-jafe,” my two problems. They teased me so much that I joked about how I loved everyone but them because they were “sy-sy” or teasers. I definitely want to go visit them all whenever I get a chance to get up to Thies.

Ok I’ll wrap this up for now seeing as I’m probably blabbing on now, but I will soon have stories about install and my site. Ba benen yoon (until next time)

~E