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Hello again everybody!

Things had been going pretty well here since my last post. The weather here is really nice. A little chilly in the shade but definitely MUCH warmer than Philadelphia would be right now. Unfortunately, Laura (the other Penn student who is with me that I was friends with beforehand from environmental group) has been feeling a bit sick the last few days. Hopefully she will feel better soon. We are going out to eat tonight to find some good, bland, Americanish food because Senegalese food is pretty spicy and that is not helping her right now. Luckily, I haven't had any problems with my stomach...so far. My host mom is a very good cook, but I do miss pasta and salad. We don't really eat anything that is green here. And real milk. All the milk here is powdered, which is going to take some getting used to.

Back to the subject of sheep...I forgot to mention last time that there are two who live on my roof. That is pretty awesome, I think. However I have discovered a cute little mouse in my room that I sometimes chase around in an attempt to catch.

We have made a couple trips downtown since I last wrote. It is more like I imagined Dakar would be there. The markets are pretty hectic though and kind of stress me out because everyone comes up to me and my blond hair and wants me to buy things and I feel bad having to say no to everyone because I know they need the money. And I'm not very good at bargaining either. It just makes me feel bad.

We also went to Adama's women's artisan group's place with two girls who are here on a rotary scholarship and learned how to make batik. We all got to make our own and afterwards she sewed the edges and put a tie on it so we could wear it as a skirt. That was pretty exciting.

Other than that things are pretty relaxed. I still haven't really figured out what to do with my free time. Though, my host sister did give me cornrows yesterday so that is pretty interesting. Those won't last too long though. My little sister, Coumbis, also is very entertaining. She keeps asking me for my "tanga" (candy in Wolof), but I keep having to say no because they are actually cough drops, but she won't believe me when I tell her they are medicine.

I hope you all are doing well and I miss you all!
Love,
Christiana