I'm finally at site!

The ponty of Dakar, where the hard sell happens.













Maren, in all her photographic glory















Hello all,

A few weeks have passed and so much has happened. Friday was our swearing-in ceremony, replete with speeches from the higher-ups in the country. For those of you interested in joining the foreign service, fyi being an ambassador is pretty sweet, although you do have to put up with indigent brats like us from time to time. The ambassador's residence, where swearing in took place, was probably the nicest house in the country, even if it did eerily remind me of the final scene of 2001: A Space Oddysey. After swearing in we went to the American club, which is what you'd expect from an establishment bearing the name. Of course there was a swimming pool and tennis courts and a clubhouse and pizza and burgers. I imagine it being the last bastion of the bourgouise if a revolution were ever to come, probably where we'd be airlifted out by helicopter if it ever came to that. In reality, Senegal is far too cosmopolitan and Dakar too ruch for such generalizations, but they're fun to make besides.

The weekend was spent in Dakar, and it involved drinking for the first time in many months, eating much Lebanese food, gambling, and seeing the occasional prostitute and madame at the bars. That is Dakar in a nutshell. It's also a place where you can get a haircut for fifteen dollars or thirty cents, depending on your preference. For anyone who hasn't been to Dakar, the feel of the city is bewildering to say the least, in terms of the traffic jam packed in narrow streets, the hustling, and the pushiness of street vendors. One great site was a vendor hocking shirts that read "No stress, no fatigue = Senegal" which is about as funny as "No stress, no fatigue = New York City" or "No stress, no fatigue = Baghdad".

Also, we were on the TV news, which was an experience in itself. All our host families were invited, so there was a pretty image of two tents, one full of mostly older Senegalese women in their finest garb and the other full of us trying to look the part as well. Unfortunately, I left my camera on the bus, so the debut of the pics of myself decked out in traditional wear (a bubu) will have to wait until another volunteer is kind enough to send me theirs.


Unfortunately, Maren, the Thies volunteer, my closest neighbor, decided to return to the US. I can't describe quite how it felt to hear the news, and seeing her off felt sort of like breaking up with someone. Now I don't quite know who I'll hang out with on the weekend.

The next post will be about site. I'm short on details now, except to say that my place is pretty palatial and a lot nicer than I've been living in in America for quite some time.