Back in DAKAR and Quite Chilly!

While writing I am paying tribute to a phenomenal singer, Etta James, who passed away today. I feel it only fitting to post one of her most famous and lovely songs on my blog in her honor...sing it girl!

What a phenomenal voice.  I am always aspiring to have a powerful/smoky/sexy voice like Ella and so many other artists...If nothing else, trying to realize this dream is fun for me.  My neighbors might hate me, but they probably do not even know what I am singing, unless it is Beyoncé, in which case they probably still do not know what I am saying, ha!

Today was cold! Right now, in fact, it is 66˚ outside and earlier today is was very windy, so I tried to stay bundled.  Of course, I am not complaining about this chilly weather, more just pointing out that it is no loner in the 90˚s, hooray! Winter has officially arrived! Tomorrow is supposed to be 81˚, however, so I probably should not whip out my fur coat yet.  Or ever.

Hydrobase, Saint Louis

I am officially settled in Dakar after an all too short winter break, and tutoring has started back up with classes at ISD.  Getting back in the normal grind of things has been pretty easy, and I hit the halfway point between my arrival in August and my departure in June (*snoopy dance*).  Five months from today I will be back in the US and concocting plans for my next adventure, whatever that may be.  I applied to be a TA in France for next year, but decisions regarding my application will not come out until April.  If I am not offered the job I plan to explore the wine industry and what it has to offer, as I expect that this is where I will be happy :)  

If I have learned one thing from my job at ISD, never take a job just because of the money or stability unless you really enjoy it.  I realize not everyone has this luxury, but many people do.  All too often we become obsessed with making money as opposed to being happy.  I do believe that the stability deriving from a paycheck is a factor in happiness, but it should not be of central importance.  If there is one thing I did right in college it was choosing majors/minors that fit my interests as opposed to my future career.  That being said, my BA is quite useful in what I am doing...I use French daily, so that is a no-brainer (French M), I am constantly turning critical eye to the gender constructs around me (Women's Studies M), I live in a Muslim country (Religious Studies m), and I just enjoy art, particularly patterns I see around me (Art History m)...see mom and dad, it was worth the 4 years! One sentence is certainly not enough time to argue why I could not be happier with my degree, but it will have to suffice :D

Perhaps the best "Welcome back to Dakar!" gift I got was the day off for MLK day.  With my extra day I traveled up to Saint Louis to spend the weekend in the city I love so dearly.  It was the first time I had made it up to Saint Louis since I arrived in August, so the trip was long overdue.  I spent most of my time with the HWS students that are studying abroad the semester.  We walked around Saint Louis a bit so they could get a grip on where everything is and I enjoyed walking on the streets I had not been to for a year.  I was even surprised when I ran into my friend Christian, he works at the door of one of the nice bars in town.  Per usual, he invited me to Church with him (I politely declined) and asked how I was doing.  It is always nice to see familiar faces, even when you have been gone so long :)

Of all the fun things I did last weekend, I was amused to no end by the tiny frogs that were occupying the shower...they were just so cute! I, of course, had to take a picture of one of the little guys.

My shower buddy!

The toughest part of the journey to and from Saint Louis, was exactly that...the to and the from.  Traveling cheaply in Senegal is never much fun, but on a tight budget it is often necessary, haha.  For 6+ hours I was squished in a van with 14 other people on my way to "Ndar," Wolof for Saint Louis.  Getting out of the van is the best part, and closing the door is the worst part.  We all officially became sardines when we risked sitting on top of each other if we wiggled in our seats.  Fortunately, I had room to lean forward on the seat in front of me, so I saved my back!  This will be good practice for Morocco in April.  I plan to take the bus to Morocco, the main question will not be how many hours is the trip, but how many days?  If you were curious, I do occasionally ask myself, "why am I doing this?" only to come up with the response, "well, why not?!"

How I got to Saint Louis...

Side note: I cooked with 8 cloves of garlic last night and my finger tips still smell, seriously?! Phooey, I am a stinky Italian chef, haha

Alright, I am out...happy weekend!

I'll Be Home for Christmas?

Here I am, sitting in my apartment. I should be boarding my connecting flight to Washington DC right about now, but a gas leak got in between that happy moment and me.  Brussels Airlines has officially deemed itself as a frustrating airline.  Once they lost my luggage, but found it again, once I was booked on a flight that departed the day before, but they bumped me up to first class, and now they have cancelled a flight because of technical problems...I wonder what compensation I will get...perhaps first class to the US? I can always dream.  They tend to screw up a lot, but unlike other airlines they are always very apologetic and try to make their mistake up to you.  Perhaps this is why I will probably use them again.

"Ew!" is a fitting caption.

I will indeed be home for Christmas, but what an unfortunate end to my first 4.5 months in Dakar.  At least I was not on holiday here so I could go home and sleep in my own bed.  Those that were on holiday got put up in a hotel...I was not going to miss the chance to cuddle with Rafiki for one more night :)  Too bad I had to lock him out of my room by 3 AM because he thinks that I am a piece of bacon. Stupid cat.  I may look tasty, BUT I AM NOT YOUR DINNER! I have a new year's resolution for my cat, only eat/bite things that do not like a human.  He will inevitably avoid chomping on naked mole rats and hairless cats using this rule, but it is probably for his benefit.

*Sigh* I am now going to pace my apartment for an hour and shoot over to the airport to see what is up...fingers crossed I leave this afternoon!

I want someone to haul me around the world at warp speed :(

Today is a Day for Ranting...

Calvin & Hobbes, always fitting for my mood!
 I hope I can make a snow army when I am home...

It is officially December so I feel obligated to release my inner child and skip for the next 25 days while whistling any number of Christmas songs to myself...Shortly after I accepted this unavoidable truth, I stumbled across a link about why the 90s were just so special as a child. It has everything that was near and dear to my heart listed, including something I am still bitter about, I never had a Tamagotchi.  I remember my years in first and second grade, all of my friends would whip out their keychain Tamagotchis in the hallway, at recess, in art and music, at lunch, ALL THE DAMN TIME! And I never had one...I never let my cyberpet poops itself to death. I was so deprived. And in case you read the article and are wondering who I liked better, I was a BB girl. In fact, I used to insult Justin Timberlake on the playground, ha!


While perusing Facebook for other mindless articles I stumbled across something worth while!  Mind you, I did not learn anything new or have an epiphany, but I watched a very concise and powerful speech for marriage equality.  I have nothing to say on the marriage equality "debate" because it is not even a debate in my mind. You wanna get married? Go ahead...the real debate is whether the entire institution of marriage is even worthwhile...yup, I opened up that can of worms.  What can you expect? When you have interacted with as much feminist theory as I have, you cannot turn a blind eye to an entire institution that is inegalitarian and has more benefits for men than women, I do not care what country you are in. (You can probably find a few textbook examples as counterarguments...if you do that much research to disprove me, open up some JB to really make your brain spin). Gah! Either way, here is the video...

I just have so much to say today! Today is World AIDS Day, something that I hope everyone is thinking about.  YouTube certainly was prepared for the day when I signed in to look up the video I just referenced in my last paragraph, and then ONE Campaign had to go and make me really mad.  The following video popped up on my sidebar:

Before you write me off as being crazy, watch the video.  Notice anything? Everyone is the video is AFRICAN! So if I were ignorant, as so many people are, I would assume that this is an African problem.  Thanks ONE Campaign, you really enlightened me today.  Let's not discuss that this is a growing problem in the US.  Let's just focus on a population that always takes the burden as war-stricken, the center of the AIDS epidemic, the ONE Campaign even snuck in a starving African baby. I am seriously pissed off! I am not saying to ignore problems that exist, but I am saying, show the whole picture.  If you type "AIDS a growing problem in" on your google browser, the first ten articles on google will mention five of the seven continents...the five continents that are heavily populated. I just get so frustrated with these campaigns, which in theory are great, but in practice categorize and stigmatize certain groups of people.

I also got so upset by this video because of the language it chose to use..."AIDS is preventable and treatable" (with music similar to that of a Viagra commercial in the background).  So let's say that I am one of the approximately 70% of pre-college teens that has sex.  Let's say that I have an abstinence-only sex ed program in my school that does not teach me about how serious STDs actually are, but the immorality of sex before marriage.  I am on the pill because I told my mom I have "really really bad cramps," when in reality I just do not want to get pregnant. I have a healthy relationship with a guy I like, he does not realize he may have HIV or AIDS, and I sleep with him.  Why would we use a condom? I am on the pill I cannot get pregnant.  AIDS? Well, that is not a huge deal anymore, this is not the 1980s and I am not gay. And one more thing, my new love interest is white, so he obviously would not have AIDS, I mean, that is what they always show on the TV... and if something awful were to happen, AIDS is treatable. See where I am going? Keeping the population ignorant is not going to help anything, it only makes matters worse.  Give us facts/opinions/solutions/information, or quite literally, give us death.

This is also a good time to squeeze in the link for the NYT article that came out about two weeks ago, Quaker schools represent! "Teaching Good Sex"

Inspired by David and his talk of piglets :)

After all of that ranting, this blog needs a bit of cuddliness to redeem itself :P  


To go along with the piglets I will share a link to "The 56 best/worst analogies written by high school students"...an example you say? Okay! 
"Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." <- Fun fact: I have an exquisitely refined artistic sense!


Also, I have a VISA, HOORAY!

Meet Me On The Sunny Road...

 
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...