So here I am, in Sénégal.

For a little over a week now (15.5 days). Wow. That seems like a super long ass (excuse me) time. And it has been! I feel like I've been here a month now. I've gotten a slow start keeping in touch with everyone, but I've found communication to be utterly frustrating. Allow me to expand:

My cell phone. It receives no calls from the US. I can receive plenty of incoming calls from those here in Sénégal, and outgoing calls are no problem. I can call the states and "SMS" the states to my heart's content (or until my minutes run out).

The computers. So the program recommended that I do NOT bring my laptop. They say that frequenting the cyber cafés will increase our interactions with the Sénégalese, and enrich our cultural experience. Oh boy do I wish that for once I hadn't done what I was told. Dakar has frequent power cuts. For example, during the time that it has taken me to write what I have written so far, the power has cut out twice, the computer has shut down, and I have had to start up the computer all over again. Fortunately, Blogger now autosaves drafts! Yay! But! The French keyboard... I hate it! It's so frustrating to type on. Everything in the wrong place.

Anyways, not to put a damper on anyone, because I really am having an amazing (?) time here, my two trivial (again the ?) problems are on their way to being solved. Yay! First, I went to the Orange SN guy and talked to him in broken Franglish about my malfunctioning SIM card, and he said he'll talk to the technician and call me back. This call back is supposedly to occur sometime this week. If I don't hear from the fellow, I'll assume my SIM card is just a jerk and will purchase a new one. And second, Mom and Steve are investigating ways to ship my laptop here, so I can communicate with ease, and write papers without wanting to break the keyboard in half and sending the computer out the window. Wow, how much I take those things for granted in the states.

SO!

Sénégal.
I arrived here September 2, after meeting the group at the Air France terminal in JFK, and after bonding with the rest of the group during the layover at Paris Charles de Gaulle. We were all a little delerious--some of us had been travelling for more than 24 hours--and arriving in this alternate universe of Dakar-Yoff-Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport made us all a little downright demented. Some of the feeling was excitement--we're (finally) in Africa!--and the rest of it I think, was fatigue. So we followed blindly three men who we later found out were Souleye (the program director), Bouna (the program assistant), and Papis (the office manager). So at a little after 11PM, we threw our bags on top of a van, packed ourselves in, and were shuttled to l'Auberge Epicea, in Mermoz. After about 4 hours of sleep, we began our week of orientation.

Orientation lasted a week, and we had activities planned for us pretty much 24-7. We all returned to Epicea every night exhausted. Good exhausted though! It's understandable, being thrown into such a different culture. I see new and different things everyday; a million questions are always running through my mind. I have no idea how I'm going to write about all the things I see at every moment of the day. And so, I've started making lists of things I don't want to forget so that I can write about them later.

And so I present you with my bloggerly intentions! Just a little piece of my Sara mind here in Senegal. I'll keep you updated.