a day in the my life at Sebi

What have been I up to?

Well, every other day my host brother and I make lime-ade by picking twelve or so limes from the lime trees in the backyard and hand squeezing them. We occasionally collect so much that we freeze our reserves and enjoy frozen lime flavored ice the next day.

In the course of ONE month, Ive been sick more times than I usually am in one year (which is a lot because my immune system is known to be a piece of shit). First, before Touba Couta I had that freak of nature 24 hr super high fever . Then, before leaving for Sébi, I had that Palu scare which ended me up in the "hospital". A week after being in Sébi, I came down with the flu, and am currently still battling it. As of the beginning of last week, my wisdom teeth decided that it was about the time to let me know that they were growing in.

Each day after work, I walk 20- 40 minutes home (depending on how many people I have to say salutations to) and eat lunch with the family. After lunch, we all lounge around the living room and eat frozen Bissap (a type of juice here), which is by far one of the highlights of my day. It usually is just enough to cheer me up from all the verbal harassment I take from the guy I work with at the pharmacy.

Today I did laundry and ironed clothes for the family. Can you imagine how much clothes a family near double digits has to be ironed? A shit ton, I tell you. The family I live with here uses a typical iron that can be found in the US, but my family in Dakar used a contraption in which you put heated coals into. No ironing board was used in either location. Furthermore, all clothes as Im sure many of you already knew, are handwashed. With this family in Sébi, everything is handwashed twice. And then bleached. Holy fucking god I am so tired but happy that I am done.

I have managed to introduce my snake addiction to my entire family. I am a terrible person. Why? Because now instead of lounging around and talking, we lounge and play snake. I have to charge my phone anytime its not in the hands of someone else because its almost always on its last bar of battery.

I have eaten cheb_u_jen-- fish and rice-- once every single day. I have started to day dream about McDonalds, thats how much I am missing American cuisine. But all in all, seeing that there are many families in Senegal who are living off of one meal a day, I really have nothing to complain about. I finish each meal feeling full AND don't ever feel like I ate someone else's share of food. Really, the food situation isnt all too bad. On top of it all, I eat two packets of peanuts and roughly three bananas a day. This is all food my family gives me-- all things I look forward to greatly. Also, all things I dont have to pay for (slash already did with room and board); woot!

My host brother is sitting next to me and because he asked to come to the cyber cafe with me. He has seen a computer before, and perhaps even fiddled around wiht it... but never ever in his life used the internet. I get to introduce him to it! I dont even know where to start...