Before I go plant trees in the desert...

I wanted to leave you with some other thoughts of mine:

Religion here is a whole different world. While it is greatly prevalent- I haven't noticed a huge affect on politics. Yoff has it's own brotherhood of Muslims (the Layenne) and because the mosque isn't too far away I can constantly hear the call to prayer. When I say constantly, I mean it. It doesn't happen at a certain time, five times a day. It happens at least 3-4 times every hour. However everyone prays differently. It's like they're only called to prayer when their spirit actually moves them too. I've been living here 3 weeks and last night was the first time I legitimately saw one of my host sisters pray. For women prayer involves covering your head and wrapping yourself in a shawl, and also wrapping a skirt around your legs if you were wearing pants. It's refreshing to see what prayer means here and how they treat it with such reverence.

It also occurred to me that you may take my thoughts and sometimes generalizations and place them on Senegal as a whole. Dakar-Yoff is only one place in a rather large country. It's a city so it very much resembles a lot of the cities I know and love back home in the states. For instance Ny- if you know me well you know that I spend ridiculous amounts of time in that city and as much as I love it, there are times when I absolutely can't stand NYC especially around tourists. Here in Dakar, I am technically a tourist, but there are times when I don't want to be around other tourists. It's twisted I know. So being in the desert will be really good for me...I promise.

Part of my reason for wanting to come here was to get away and I feel like I've been cheating myself. This laptop and my wireless connection allows me to contact some people back home instantly. And from last Thursday night's "adventure" I've also realized how easy it is for me to pick up the phone and call people back home as well. When I'm Lahel-that won't happen. It'll be my getaway while I'm away I guess and I think I'm ready for it. I'm at that point on Rhinesmith's cultural adjustment scale where I'm right between depression-frustration and moving towards acceptance of my host culture.

Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment
1. initial anxiety 6. acceptance of host culture
2. initial elation 7. return anxiety
3. initial culture shock 8. return elation
4. superficial adjustment 9. re-entry shock
5. depression-frustration 10. reintegration

Lahel will be a completely different side of Senegal and I'm also excited for what I'll see while we make the 12-hour trek up there. Sorry to my sister and everyone back home who won't get to hear from me every day but no worries. So until July 24th or 25th apparently-

HAPPY SUMMER!!!