what praytell is de shoe doing?

After 3 hours of Wolof class Friday, I went to the beach with a few people. We found another beach in Mermose (sp?), this time one that looked like a legit beach, but with far fewer people... absolutely none of which were women. We left all our stuff with Robbie (there just so happens to almost always be a token guy in the group who gets to act like the overbearing husband of his multiple wives) and jumped into the water. Within seconds, this creepy guy and two little boys came up to us. The guy tried getting us to go swimming into the deeper parts with him. At one point he grabbed my arm and tried pulling me in; at another he grabbed Drayden's waiste. After persistently telling him to leave us alone, he finally stopped harassing us after maybe fifteen minutes. The two little boys hung around, but they were really chill so I could care less. The waves were huge and a bit overpowering. Regardless, Eva, myself, and one of the little boys stayed in the water and rode out the waves. Everyone else left the water because they kept getting their knocked over or their tops knocked off.

Afterwards, we walked to Mairead's house which is motherfucking ridiculous. It was nicer than many of the mansions Ive seen in the US and honestly probably twenty times bigger than the house I am currently living in. We didnt get to really meet any of her family, but she assures us that theyre really cool. Maybe next time.

Last night, my host family had guests over. From what I was told, they were the brothers of Papa Jean-Claude. If I haven't double counted faces, Papa apparently has a shitton of brothers and cousins... that or they just refer to every friend as family. We ate a meatball and mashpotato like mix. During the meal, we had some beers (royal dutch-- pretty watery stuff) and lots of fanta. People love fanta here (and yes, i am now drinking soda again). After everyone had left and I was helping everyone clear off the table, she remarked that there was unfinished beer and insisted that I finished it all.

Later that night, I went on a night stroll with everyone in my host family except my host mom. Julien kept asking me to sit on my shoulders-- and had he not been pinching me the entire time to get my attention and I not been sunburned on my neck and shoulder-- I wouldve gave him one. For the first time every, I didnt get hissing sounds or "toubab" screamed at me... most likely because I was with a legit Senegalese man.

The other day, I went home alone. As I walked up to the busstop, there was a man already sitting there also waiting for the bus. We said our normal salutations and he made maybe 30secs of small talk. During an awkward silence, some random chinese guy walked up to me and started to speak to me in Mandarin. He was friendly at first, asking me about why I was in Senegal, where I was from, etc etc... but in the end he was no different than any of the men who sit on street corners professing their love to every toubab who walks by. When the bus finally came, I said a terse goodbye and got on. To my surprise, the first guy I had talked to bought my bus ticket. I didnt want to accept it, but I also didnt want to make a huge deal... especially with my limited Wolof/French skills. So, I just said "thank you".