I have successfully failed my goal of writing on my blog in the month of November as I did during the month of October, oh well. What have I learned from this failure? Nothing. Except that I enjoy being connected to the WWW, and with the forces of my own brain and Senelec, I am just not good at it.
So why would I quote Emiliana Torrini for my blog title? I just want to share my sunshine with everyone. I know that sounds silly, but in truth, I am not lying. I am soaking up the sun everyday and as awesome and beautiful of a city as Dakar is, I sure wish I could share it with people at home. Every evening during the week when I finish up tutoring my commute goes along the Corniche, which is right next to the ocean. I get to see the sunset on the Atlantic Ocean four days a week...the other three it is a toss up depending on my location. Every single day I just stare out at the ocean and I am just overwhelmed with how many mysteries lay at its bottom. What I would do to one day dive to its very depths and come across a coelacanth fish...my favorite ugly fish in the world (see pic). They intrigue me so much because they may be one of the linking clues in evolution, they have lobbed-fins, which potentially relates them to amphibians. I learned about them on a NOVA episode once in high school and I have since been intrigued by them. In short, I named this blog as I did because I have sun and ugly fish to share with everyone, don't you feel special?
It is EXACTLY what you think!
I also had a very "sunny" day, which may not jive with the actual lyrics of the song, but whatever. I had a decent day at school and tutoring, so nothing special there, but two good things have happened... 1) I will be getting my VISA Thursday! Hooray! I will be a legal worker in this country *snoopy dance* and now I can publicly let my parents know that I have not had a VISA since August, haha. There are somethings about working in Senegal that you have to just be here to understand, like, not having a VISA is not important... 2) I may have a job offer to be an English teacher at a small bookstore in Mamelles. Cheikh canceled his lesson, and I have been eying Chez Alpha Books for sometime (I always am happy to explore a bookstore!), so I swung by today. Turns out it was actually closed, but the shopkeeper was happy to let me in and let me look around. After a few minutes we started chatting as I browsed and she told me that they have been looking for a native English speaker to teach English to beginners or tutor as a Homework Helper. I am going to look into it in the next few days, and all I can say, is thank you for faking sick Cheikh! (Yea, he fakes sick almost every time that I come by, what a bum!)
Needless to say, I had a sunny day :)
Let's hope that luck continues in my direction for the next few days! And it may sound unreal, but I only have two full weekends left in Dakar until I am home for noël! Bientôt les E-U, et mon Dieu, j'ai envie de rentrer...
Sick days are bittersweet days for me. On the one hand I feel guilty missing work and would like to get on with my normal routine, but let us be serious for one minute, would you not rather drink tea and watch Disney movies all day? I always have to act like a grown up when I go to school, so sick days I relish in the fact that I can pop 101 Dalmatians into my DVD drive and hum along with "Cruella DeVille." Now, I always fear telling people that I do not feel well while I am in Senegal because people automatically think that any illness you contract anywhere in Africa must be life threatening...just give me minute to laugh at you for that assumption.
Because the didgeridoo makes me laugh too...
Okay, I am done laughing. I just have a normal flu, not that I really know what constitutes a "normal" flu from an "abnormal" flu. I am painfully ingesting drugs that remind me of my childhood, everything is fizzy and brightly colored! I suppose I just lied, my cough medicine is not fizzy, but it is about as horribly pink as Peptobismol and my god! It tastes so much worse, bleh...My other medications look like the candy Bottle Caps, which I really like (I know, I am in the minority for liking Bottle Caps), but it could not taste anymore different than tasty, sugary candies. The fever reducing medication tastes like baking soda, or what I think straight baking soda tastes like...The Vitamin C tablets are neon orange, and as much as I would like to say it tastes "just like the real thing!" it does not, womp womp. My medication makes me feel momentarily worse as opposed to feeling better because I do not like carbonation very much. If I drink anything with "fizziness," as I have always referred to carbonation, I have to drink it slowly. These medications make me feel like I just funneled a beer at a frat party, and we all know how much fun that is. I suppose the one benefit is that my medicine is at about the Coors Light level of quality on the beer scale as opposed to Keystone Light, things could be worse?
This is me going to work. Every. Single. Day.
Before I was sick I had a very fun weekend filled with great food, good friends, salsa dancing and a less than risqué bridal shower for a co-worker. About an hour after returning home from the bridal shower I felt temperature rise from 97.5˚ to about 100.0˚ while lying in bed. Of course, I do not own a thermometer, so these are just estimates...my temperature always seems to hover around 97.5˚ when I am healthy. Odd? Perhaps, but I have two theories 1) Someone in my family was blacklisted after a love affair with a big lizard, which has left me a bit cold blooded or 2) I am just nostalgic for one of my favorite pop stations when I was a teen, now it plays bad 90s soft rock...
Rafiki and I on a healthier day, how cute is he?!
Rafiki has been quite the cuddle buddy the past few days, and even though he has a tendency to viciously attack my arm, I must admit, he knows when I am not feeling 100%. Well, it is time for my mid-afternoon viewing of The Little Mermaid and a cuddle sesh with my fluffy roommate :D
This is just a mindless blog post about my favorite lizard on YouTube. While writing an email earlier today I remembered the brilliance of this dude, and he is just awesome. Never was there a funkier lizard that walked this earth. If I were a chameleon, I would want to be like this guy (or lady! Who knows, it is a chameleon...)
When you are just in a groovy mood, you gotta walk it out like this cold-blooded fiend. I have to go whip up a salad for a bridal shower I will soon be attending and I am feeling groovy (la la la la la, etc...hum in the style of "59th Street Bridge Song", S&G)...thanks funk lizard!
If there is one thing I have been missing recently it is fluffy slippers. It is a remarkable feeling when you can barely feel your toes, even while sticking them under the oven that is baking cookies, and you sprint upstairs just to bury them into fluffy goodness (aka the LL Bean slippers that approximately 97% of female students attending private colleges on the East Coast own). I will be doing quite a bit just five weeks from now, but for them moment I am stuck lamenting my lack of oven, cold weather and cold toes. The slippers came with me. It may seem silly that I brought my slippers to a warm country like Senegal, but I am jut waiting for one particularly cool day when I can whip them out and warm up my doigts au pied :)
In the past few weeks I have explored Dakar a bit more. I went to the beach several times, I finally went to Lac Rose (I have been planning to do this for two years!), I started jogging along the Corniche as the sun is setting over the ocean and I have eaten at more hole-in-the-wall Senegalese restaurants than I can count on both of my hands. The first trimester ends Friday, which is somewhat amazing that time flies so fast, and the war against panty-eating ants is nowhere near over. Rafiki is big and healthy, tutoring is going well, and I celebrated Tabaski over a week ago with a plate of food my neighbor brought to the apartment...Overall, life is good.
I am not going to be lazy and give up on my blog, so here is the second hurrah, let's see if I can post as many times in November as I did in October! I do have one day less to make it happen, so I could be at a disadvantage :P
Two random thoughts before I call it a night:
1. This just cracks me up! If I were a bird, I would be this little guy...do not even think about stealing my food :D
2. I miss my best friend. Although just a few moments ago I posted this on her facebook wall, I think it right to post it again. It was, in fact, the Top 40 of 2001 that brought us together one decade ago. How many friendships began with one person serenading another with 112? More than you even know.
*Sigh*, I feel old. I mean, who knew that Sisqo's "Thong Song" is now 11 years old! I am sure that my parents loved me growing up to Q102...I could sing you a song about the sexiness of a thong before I even saw one, let alone owned one! I still remember when "The Bad Touch," by Bloodhound Gang was banned from the playground in 5th grade, HA! Well, I did not turn out so bad...This was all happening at a time when I would watch Making the Band at sleepovers while adding extra butter to my already buttered popcorn, ew! I guess we all used to do things (and many of us still do...whoever said I do not still add extra butter to my popcorn??) that in retrospect are nothing short of hilarious and terrifying at the same time. I cannot wait to see what I say about myself in another decade! And now to end my night dancing around my apartment to Top 40 hits of 1998-2003. You cannot judge me for it because, let's be serious, after reading this, you are about to do the same thing!
