I'm about to go back to America and the Bills are 5-9

Seriously, what is this? 7 straight losses or something like that? Pathetic. Nonetheless, GO BILLS. Or is the season over? I haven't really been paying that close attention, but that is going to change because I will be in America this time tomorrow (just knocked on wood, don't worry). I thought I would hash out all of the food that I want to eat when I'm there. I always planned to make the first thing that I ate when returning to America a Big Mac, even though that isn't really my meal of choice at McDonalds. It just feels right. I remember coming back from India when I was 6 years old and forcing someone to take me to Burger King in Logan airport so that I could get a kids meal (not a Big Mac, I know, and I think that story doesn't do much to further the point I was making. My bad). Unfortunately, as a consequence of flights out of Dakar leaving at 2am, I will be arriving in the U.S. in the early morning. McDonalds has a very strict no lunch in the morning policy that I plan on debating thoroughly with the motivated early morning shift employee at the first one I see in the Dulles airport. I am not confident, but that might have something to do with being used to Senegalese customer service, which more or less does not exist.

So no Big Mac most likely, but luckily another food that I have really been missing, bagels, are considered an appropriate breakfast food. I would like one cinnamon raison with plain cream cheese and one everything with some sort of garlic-chive cream cheese. After that, I plan on going to Wegmans so that I can cry a little. Also, I would like to buy salami there, and cheese. I miss cheese.

I also want to go to the following restaurants: Dinosaur BBQ (crucial), Country Sweet Chicken (crucial in the literal sense of the word), Chen Garden (doesn't have to be that restaurant necessarily, but Chinese is essential), the Johnson House (I would like to get their veal parm), Sinbads (more or less optional, there is a large Lebanese population in Senegal), Jimmy Z's (cheeseburger with hot sauce, ketchup, mustard, and onions with a side of fries), Java Junction (southwest panini sounds really good right now), Chester Cab Pizza (again, not essential, but because of the lack of good cheese here pizza isn't as good as in America), Wendy's (the used Cadillac of fast food restaurants), any Indian restaurant (I'm curious as to whether I'll like Indian food a lot now), any Senegalese restaurant (hahahahahahahahahahaha...kidding), and I'm sure I'm forgetting somewhere. That being said, I will be home for like a week, so I'm going to have to eat something like 8 meals each day in order to get all of this done. I also plan on bringing some McDonald's back to Senegal (because of the preservatives you can leave a burger out for a week and eat it without getting too ill).

Also, as it is Christmas time, I assume we will be eating lots of meals at home. I think Jo said something on facebook about wanting Grandma's beef stew. That would be good. I would love some apple brown betty as well. The word in wolof for "also" is "itam" and I almost just typed that instead of "as well." I worry that I will be saying waaw (yes), leggi (now), and wante (but), during English conversations.

This has not been a particularly informative post, but I'm bored in Dakar so I figured what the hell. I am excited to navigate the Dakar airport, though. That should be an adventure. Ooo I called HSBC and Bank of America to make sure that my cards work while I'm travelling. The friendly Indian man from HSBC understood exactly what I wanted, but the American at BOA had a little bit of trouble understanding why I would want to return to Africa after having returned to America. Okay this isn't interesting or informative anymore, so I'll try to find some movie quotes and call it a post.

How about Airplane! ?

"Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"
"Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

"We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our Vector Victor?"

"I haven't felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film."

Okay, see you all soon. Except my Finnish readers. To them I say "Olen hukassa, Missa on vessa?" which means "I am lost, where is the bathroom/pharmacy.

The Fastest Blog Post Ever Written

I have only 9% of battery left, so I will try to cover things quickly. I am currently uploading pictures to flickr, but I don't know how far I will get. The set is pretty big. It automatically uploaded the video first. That is a video of us at Magic Land (yes, Magic Land), the amusement park in Dakar. It reminded me a lot of Coney Island, just with less character and far more dangerous. It was so fun. This is a video of us on the bump jump. We didn't understand the name until about halfway through that video. We also decided that pictures taken on the Pop Art setting on my camera just look better. Casey and Monica also feel that my camera takes off a few pounds, which they like. It tends to make some people look emaciated.



Thanksgiving in Dakar was very nice. There is a picture of my plate. It was the first plate that I had eaten food off of with a fork in some time. I am looking forward to more of that. The ambassador and his family were very nice, and a crowd of about 55 Peace Corps volunteers and 11 expats and embassy workers cleaned up a table with about 2 metric tons of imported turkey, mashed potatoes, canned cranberry sauce, gravy, pasta salad, garlic bread (which Casey and I made and brought at a cost of 20,000 cfa, or roughly $40 American), and maybe 90 pies. It was delicious. They also had real wine, which was nice.

7%. I'm going fast. I just realized I never took a picture of the Magic Land sign, which was dumb. So we also went to the mall (twice), and got gelato. It was nice, but being somewhere like that for too long can kind of make you crazy.

Whoa 2%. You should all check out Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like. It is a funny blog that also describes Peace Corps volunteers pretty well.

It looks like flickr has successfully uploaded the picture of my Thanksgiving dinner, which is what I care about most, so I'll leave this at that.

Movie Quotes:

Actually TV Quotes (I've been watching Arrested Development and Battlestar Galactica):

"I have the ball."
"I've made a huge mistake."

Welcome to the DANGER ZONE. (I also watched Top Gun).

Great News!

The package with a camera charger, card reader, battery charger, extra battery, blowpops, a ton of miscellaneous candy, beef jerkey, a photo album, and a collection of assorted, terrible comic strips arrived! Hence the picture on the left, which I just took of the view from the campement Keur Saloum in Toubakouta, about 20k from my site.  I haven't had an opportunity to take any pictures of my town, but when I do I will put them up. My friend Casey insisted that she be mentioned in this post, as Mom shipped the package to her post office box (we had some issues with the post office in my town). There isn't really a whole lot to report on at the moment, to the point where I just spent a good amount of time trying to think of something worthwhile to write (clearly not successful).

OH! So I experienced Tabaski for the first time. That was exciting. It's a holiday that I still am not totally clear on, but involved a lot of eating. We woke up in the morning, ate millet, dressed in our fanciest Senegalese clothing, and then went to the Mosque. At the Mosque, I sat in the sun for about 15 minutes and then left right before they were about to start praying. Then we went home, put on less nice clothes, and killed and butchered two rams. I helped. It was nice. I never want to eat mutton again, though, and the holiday definitely served to reinforce my belief that baby animals taste far better than adult ones. My Senegalese friend who is a photographer took some pictures of me in my outfit, and I will try to photograph them and upload them. They are tacky to a degree that I did not think was possible. He gave them to me for free, which is very nice of him.

I think they might be suggesting that the one coke I bought wasn't really sufficient to justify the amount of internet that I am using at this campement right now, so I should probably go. Here's a quote from 10 Things I Hate About You.

Bianca: "Theres a difference between like and love. Because, I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack."

Chastity: "But I love my Sketchers"

Bianca: "That's because you don't have a Prada backpack."

Chastity: "Ohhhhhhhh."

Jean-Ralphio, Dance Up on Me

You should all watch Parks and Recreation. Anyways, I spent a few nights in Dakar recently, which was nice but stressful. Dakar is a great city if you live there or are on vacation, but for me a lot of things reminded me of America, and I didn't like that. I was able to attend a SeneGAD meeting, the peace corps organization that does work involving gender and development. I didn't have as much success with the solid waste management; I had issues with transportation and rescheduled meetings.

I stayed one night at Daouda's house. It was very nice, and his family was pleasant and welcoming. He lives in Keur Massar, which is basically a banlieue suburb of Dakar. It rained the night we stayed there, which I was very happy about. The rainy season is coming to a close and it is unbelievably hot. I have discovered the drink vimto, which is a soda. The first time I had it, I had the purple one. It tastes like a blue snow cone. Lately, though, I've been drinking the red one, which tastes like a red snow cone. They are delicious. I'm also a big fan of hotdogs here. You can actually get pork hot dogs for a reasonable price in some of the stores that cater to foreigners, and they taste great if you pour enough ketchup on them. Its hard to find ketchup, but all of the boutiques around sell pretty good dijon-style mustard for very low prices. I think they could make a commercial where two donkey carts pull up next to each other and one asked the other if he could bother the other for some of their grey poupon.

I don't have much to write about in terms of insights on life here or anything. I'll try to think about that more as I go around my day, so I have something to say. I have recently been keeping in touch with Mr. Beyrle, one of the teachers in Brockport High School. He has been asking me pointed questions that I've had to reflect on a little, so maybe I will post my answers to those when I get a chance.

We watched xXx starring Vin Diesel the other day, possibly my favorite movie, so I will leave you with more quotes than usual and all from that movie:

"You have a bazooka! Dude, stop thinking Prague Police and start thinking Playstation."
"You're in the Xander Zone."
"I like anything fast enough to do something stupid in."
"I might throw in a few extra dollars and send you to charm school."
"The name's Gibbons. Augustus Gibbons." (Said my Samuel L. Jackson's character...seriously)
"Most people talk a lot, few are up for the moment. Welcome to Anarchy Ninety-nine."
"See that guy there? In the suit made out of motel drapes? That's a cop." 
"Welcome to the Xander Zone." (That one deserves two citations) 

As Soon as I Leave the Country the Bills are 4-1

Seriously, it's been so long since I had a reasonable expectation of watching the Bills win anything. Oh well. Not important, but I thought you all might enjoy this. Not from Senegal, most likely from somewhere in East Africa.

So I've gotten my internet key working. It's pretty slow (dialup speeds at best), so I won't be downloading any movies on it. I can pretty much just send emails, and look to see whats happened on my facebook page. I should be able to do blog posts. I am near fast internet right now, and thats why I was able to upload this picture.

I am hoping to be able to go to Dakar soon. I want to go with my friend from my training group, we call him Daouda (I forget his actual name), to the offices of Aprosen, the agency in charge of dealing with waste management in Senegal. One of the projects that I want to work on is working with trash collection businesses in my area to try and clean up my town. For a very reasonable cost, it should be possible to have someone with a donkey cart (my friend says he was speaking to someone who spoke some English and they said they learned that the word in English for donkey was "slave horse") come by once a week and collect your refuse. I am going to call my boss and see if it is okay for me to go.

I have to run, but I will leave you with this.

"Are these Amigos falling from the sky?" "Yes, El Guapo."

Thought you all might enjoy this

A man falls down a well and calls for help. A passing missionary hears his pleas and drops a Bible down the well. Next an aid worker stops and drops down some money. A Peace Corps Volunteer hears the man screaming, drops down a bag, then leaps into the well. “What are you doing?” asks the startled man at the bottom of the well. “I’ve come to live with you,” the PCV replies.


This is stolen from any number of people

New Blog Templates are Dangerous Time Wasters

Not kidding. All they had to do was add new design for my blog and I get sucked into an hours long formatting session that ended with very few real changes. That being said, I think this looks nice. As you may have noticed I added some more pictures to my flickr. These were actually taken by Courtney, my CBT sitemate. As I still have yet to find a cable that works with my camera, I cannot charge it. If I get a chance to go to Dakar, I will try and buy a cable. Or, if I can work out the minor difficulties I've had with the post office in my town, I will get one soon from home (thanks all for that).

I'm currently in Sokone, my friend Casey's site that I posted from before. I am here with her, Joe (my roomate in the Thies training center during PST), Rob (who lives in Toubakouta and is my closest neighbor from my stage), and a Peace Corps language trainer Regina. We are having out in service language seminar for Wolof. I was looking forward to this both because it meant I would get to spend time on the internet, and because it is be nice to ask a fluent English speaker (as in Regina speaks English better than me) about what my family has been saying. So far I've learned a good deal of useful vocab, and some slang greetings that I can use with my host brothers' friends. I have these issues because of differences in the various Wolof dialects throughout the country. The difference between the Thies dialect that I learned during my PST is much different from the Saloum-Saloum Wolof spoken in Karang. Now I speak a more kaw kaw (hillbilly) Wolof than I did during CBT.

As you can see above, I got a haircut. This was my first. When I have an opportunity, I will post a picture of the finished product, but it looks much like what my hair did when I left. Emily (actually my predecessor in my first host family) does a good job. Dad, if you could show this to Pat, he asked to see a picture of me getting my haircut for the first time. My guess is that he didn't picture another volunteer doing it, though.

I am so close to getting my USB internet key working, and when I do I'll be able to post much more regularly.

"In America it's bling-bling, but here it's bling-bang." -I'm starting to appreciate Blood Diamond as a movie full of silly Leonardo Dicaprio lines in addition to being entertaining and thought-provoking.