Hello all,

So, I've passed the first week at my site. I never thought I would be as busy as I've been, although I've finally gotten the well-deserved rest that I've been waiting for these past two weeks. My host family is nice and inviting and stangely more American in mentality than I expected of them. The mother is a businesswoman and landlady, renting to a handful of tenants and selling ice and frozen bisap out of the compound. The children are into rap music, do well in school, and watch a lot of televesion. They also play a mean game of Scrabble.

The town itself is a bit larger than I expected and has more commerce and activity than its size would indicate. The economic base is mangoes and watermellon, but there is everything else under the sun there as well. The layout of town is essentially an upside-down T, with the bustling route from Dakar to Thies at its base. The main road branches up from there, until it scatters at the outskirts and eventually dissapears into the forest. Unfortunately, there are no restaurants or bars proper, just a handful of dibiteries and the ubiquitious odd-Catholic family selling beer out of the back of their compound.

For some reason reason I get the sensation of walking through an old, dusty town in the wild west whenever I stroll around. There aren't very many cars but there are dozens of horse-drawn carraiges at any given moment passing up and down the streets. The town is dustier and sandier than Thies, and the railroad passes right through the center, below the snake in the main road that could be described as a sort of town square. Other items of note about Pout are the fact that it has the only horse feed store in Senegal, and correspondingly, the healthiest and biggest horses I've seen anywhere in the country.

My housing is big- I have three rooms and a bathroom all to myself in a detached building in my compound. I really only have a need and furniture for one room. The place is painted, with a shower in the bathroom, and high cielings. All are welcome to visit whenever they like.

The Baobab forest outside of town is beautiful, replete with trails and shade, and I've taken to exploring. Last time out I walked for miles without running into anyone, but on the way back there was a lone ten-year old boy on a horse just standing in the middle of the road. We stared at each other for a good while, each puzzled over the discovery of the other. I didn't know what to say, so I told him that the horse, it was beautiful, which I think is also the same phrase as 'you are beautiful', so he gave me a very, very puzzled look.

Further along I ran into a guy weilding a machete who shouted 'Kay, fi' to me. Of course, there was the split second hesitation, but I decided to make go along with the traditional round of greetings. Apparantly, he was my neighbor, one of a hundred or so people who I've met over the course of the week but whose name and face I forgot. He is a worker at the local battery factory but he tends his tomato nursery on the weekends and was headed out there when I passed him along the path. After the normal range of small talk and pleasantries he warned me about the dangers of walking in the forest by myself. Of course, I reluctantly agreed to accept a guide next time I wanted to venture out. Being cautious about matters such as these is not part of my usual disposition, but there's something about a man swinging a machete at his side on a secluded dirt path that drove that message home.

There is not much else of note. The town is incredibly resourceful and the people very motivated, educated, and business-saavy by Senealese standards. My day has been filled with meeting folks, getting asked by money from children, getting asked for money from adults, getting marriage proposals, people hocking their children on me and asking if I have a girlfriend. I suppose this is standard fare for other volunteers around the country.

Now that I'm out of Thies upon visits the city seems larger, cleaner, and more organized than it ever did while I lived here. No doubt part of that the feeling is due to nostalgia, another part to seeing things in a different light