Copine versus Copain...

Hey all!

So, the last week has been somewhat uneventful as far as school and family life goes but I have been able to enjoy some other cool activities with my friends.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I joined my friends’ tea circle with their friends from the neighborhood. Their friends are a group of young, male African best friends who have been partaking in the tea circle since they were old enough to be permitted to do so. Two of my friends have brothers in the circle and a girl in my group is dating one of the group members so obviously the three of my friends were welcomed into the group with open arms. One of my friends invited me to join the circle to enjoy some of Mali’s infamous shots of tea and although I had no direct connection to any African in the group, God blessed me with uniquely voluptuous hair that Africans love… lucky for me! Even though I have been to tea circles before and enjoyed the ritual that takes place when drinking their three strong shots of tea, my family does not participate in tea making. Thus, I do not enjoy it on a regular basis at my house and saw the opportunity to hang out in their circle as a great opportunity. Because Momma Tante (my host mom) believes in locking our house door early on school nights, I was only able to stay and hang out in the circle until a little after 10pm. Yes, I found this very annoying but no, I did not want to call and wake her up to reopen the door for me so I only made it through one round of tea before I had to hurry home. I found it sad that I was unable to make it to the last, and by the far best tasting, shot of tea but having the opportunity to observe this group of best friends, or band of brothers, was an experience in and of itself. It reminded me of home… and was refreshing and touching to see that cross-culturally, boys will be boys and the bond that develops between them over time spans seas, cultures, and standards of living. To explain a little further the Malian process of tea making, let me start with the supplies they use… they have two small tea pots (always royal blue in color for some reason), a cone shaped bowl for the coals, and a platter of small shots glasses. (Please see facebook for photos) They heat an even ratio of water and sugar in the little tea pots and add the right amount of very strong (usually Chinese or Arabic) tea. After the tea has come to a boil, they aerate the tea by pouring it into the shot glasses from a very high distance in the air and then pouring the shots back into the tea pot. They repeat this process over and over again, then reheat the tea and repeat the entire process several more times. Although there is obviously some art form to the creation of a perfect shot of tea, it is completely lost on me. Eventually, the tea has aerated and heated for a long enough time that they begin pouring out small shots that you drink by slurping VERY loudly. In fact, the louder, the better. This entire process is repeated two more times but each time the tea gets effectively less strong and thus much better tasting. When I first got to Mali, taking the shots of tea was a chore. I did it grudgingly because it is an honor to be offered tea and irrationally rude to refuse it but now I find that I actually enjoy the tea very much and look forward to any tea circle in which I am able to participate.

I have been up to some other cool stuff including (but not limited to, of course!): going to a traditional African wedding, going out to see live music, doing a project on ‘restaurants’ in Bamako (leading me to eat at a sketchy Senegalese hole-in-the-wall and from street vendors), tie and dying fabric (two little sisters might be getting a pretty cool gift…), and going to my main professors house for an awesome lunch with my class. I also had the pleasure this week of eating day old sheep brains for breakfast served in a sauce that tasted like vomit… although this did not seem like a high point when one of the servants brought it to me, I was able to turn ‘terrible’ into ‘fantastic’. I ate alone, allowing me to only eat the bread with which they served the brains. Then, I tactfully carried my own dishes out back to the kitchen area handing the bowl off to one of the servants. I then explained to them that I was full and if they wanted them, the brains were ALL theirs. Sheep brains are a delicacy here so imagine my two servants’ shock when I presented them with this ‘treat’. Not only did I avoid eating sheep brains and give my two servants a nutritious treat, I fell into their good graces… they washed all of my clothes FIRST and then folded them and laid them into neat organized piles onto my bed. Now that is what I call a win, win, win situation!

Okay, funny story time. Disclaimer, neither of these stories are about me but two of my classmates instead… I prefer not to publically humiliate myself TOO often but they don’t have a choice because it is my blog, so enjoy!

1. (**For purpose of telling this story I will refer to my friend as ‘guy friend’ and the other guy as ‘the kid’. Also, the entire language portion of this story obviously originally happened in French) After lunch at my professor Modibo’s house on Saturday afternoon, most of my class had left the party but one of my friends had stayed behind. He was sitting and talking to some kid who then asked him to go upstairs to the roof. Because my class had ventured up to the roof earlier that afternoon (the view was incredible), guy friend didn’t think anything strange of it and followed the kid upstairs to continue the conversation. When it was just the two of them alone on the roof, the kid proceeded to compliment guy friend’s full belly and large patch of ‘manly’ chest hair. The kid then asked guy friend if he had a girlfriend to which my friend answered “no, but I used to.” Then, the kid used a word that guy friend didn’t know but through context clues and some explanation, guy friend realized the kid was asking to make-out with him. Now, guy friend is kind of freaking out at this point but because homosexuality is SO rare, hidden, and forbidden in Mali, guy friend thought the kid HAD to be joking. After adamantly saying “NO!” and gesturing through any language barrier, the kid reached his hand around the back of guy friend’s neck and pulled him in for a make-out session. My very straight guy friend quickly realized the situation was no joke. He rattled off as many French phrases he could think of as fast as he could and high tailed himself out of the situation… super confused and very narrowly missing a kiss from a Malian male. Life lesson learned… learn the slight difference between the words BOYfriend and GIRLfriend in French, one small letter can change SO much.
2. (**For purpose of telling this story I will refer to my friend as ‘girl friend’) This weekend girl friend wasn’t feeling very well so she decided to go for a run to de-tox her body. While on the run, her stomach kept progressively hurting more and more but because a random African man had joined her on her run, she didn’t want to stop. Eventually, the pains got so bad she knew she had to stop and go home so she could use the restroom. Unfortunately, she was still at least 15 minutes from home and walking with the “stage-5” African “clinger” when the pains kicked into high gear and moved from stomach pains to massive diarrhea. If it hadn’t been for the new friend she was making, she could have secretly squatted in a secluded spot to do her nasty business but he literally wouldn’t leave her side… leaving her no choice, because she couldn’t hold it in… she literally shit herself while walking home. After a while the man left, (she assumes because of the smell) but because she had already pooped so much in her shorts she figured she better go ahead and hurry home. The best part? She had to walk holding the bottom of her shorts tight to her legs for fear that the massive amount of runny poop would start running down her legs. Two life lessons were learned here… first, don’t go running when your stomach hurts and two, if you do go… run at night so no one can see the diarrhea run down your legs.


Lastly, I had been told that there were many strange spelling mistakes in my previous posts. For example, I continually spell the word ‘terrible’ incorrectly. Finding this strange because I do in fact know how to spell the word ‘terrible’, I looked up the settings on my Microsoft Word only to find that I changed most of my grammatical settings to ‘French’ instead of ‘English’. Because I go between the two languages when typing papers, etc., I must have changed some of the settings to help me when I was typing in ‘French’ and obviously forgot to change them back when I started typing in ‘English’. For those of you fearing the legitimacy of my college education let me reassure you that I do in fact know how to spell (although, truthfully not very well) and it is the ‘auto-correct’ function in Microsoft Word that changes the spelling of some of my words. Don’t let this little fun fact restore too much of your faith in me… I am not smart enough to figure out how to change it back so it might stay this way for a while. Sorry!

That is all the updates I have from last week. I can’t write everything on the blog or else I will have nothing left to share with everyone when I get back to the US! I can’t wait to get home and have lists full of questions waiting for me… I have an entire journal FULL of stories that didn’t make the blog that I will be dying to share. Life is still great and at this point I am about halfway through with this first semester abroad. Love and miss you all! Hopefully I will be able to post again before I leave for a 10 day excursion with my class next Wednesday. If not, look forward to an incredibly long post upon my return.

Love, Sarah

Civil War Camp Expose

Hey everyone!!!

Here is my take on the week I spent in rural Africa… it was quite an experience and this is the best way I can think of to relay it without an over amount of boring details. I am sure you’ll get the gist of the situation…

Survival guide for living in a rural African village:
-Pick an awesome classmate to share the week with… they need to come extremely prepared (boy scout style) and be willing to laugh as hard as you at every and any situation. Katarina now comes highly recommended with her Crystal Light packets, ability to speak French and Bamabara even when extremely tired, incredible dancing skills, and ability to memorize the names of ALL the kids in our compound (there were like 30… it was so hard).
-Theme the week ‘Civil War Camp’ and proceed to pretend you are at a ‘Civil War Camp’ the entire time you are in the village. This makes eating by kerosene lamp, sleeping on dirt floors, going to the bathroom and showering in the same spot outside, helping your coughing host dad, seeing tons of rats and huge spiders in your room, walking through landfill-style waste piles, sweating like deodorant was never invented, and walking everywhere (no matter how far away) tolerable and sometimes rather hilarious.
-Always check the outdoor bathroom/shower before entering it to shower or go to the bathroom because even if the door is open, it does NOT mean your host dad isn’t in there mid-diarrhea. This may seem like a simple lesson to learn but it will most likely take you multiple awkward run-ins before you are able to successfully avoid the situation.
-Take your outdoor bucket shower in a swimsuit and with a friend… this will allow you to laugh when you have to stand in pee, pee moss, and shards of glass, have your host brother secretly watch you, drop your soap and razor on the ground (aka. into someone else’s pee), freeze your bum off with ice cold water in the early, cold, windy morning, haul water from a pump not located at your compound, wash off the ‘pee rocks’ that jump onto your feet, and squat down to dunk your head into the bucket to get your hair wet (because you are getting so close to the ground/pee, and it smells SO much, it seems as though you are dunking your head directly into a used toilet).
-Don’t bring any academic materials… class for the week will only consist of tons of different tie dye lessons. You tie dye with wax, dye, mud, and screen prints. Also, learn to get patient because everything in Africa takes about 10 times longer… and when you add the rural component you are looking at simple tasks taking a few days.
-Appreciate the countryside for its differences from the city… a sky completely packed with stars, unbelievably clean air, the lack of noise, its calm and relaxed nature, and overall amped hospitality… if you thought the people of Bamako were nice, you haven’t been to the rural countryside.
-Learn and memorize the Bambara phrases for ‘no’ and ‘we aren’t taking pictures’. That way when all of the little kids mob you (remember, there is strength in numbers) you can successfully yell out these phrases and calm the frenzy.
-Carry your antibacterial hand sanitizer and wet wipes with you at all times—that way, when the little kids rummage through the landfill trash, wipe their bums, cough, and wipe away the runny snot from their nose with their always un-showered hand and then proceed to hold your hand and rub your arm… you can sleep a little easier knowing you at least tried to kill a little of the bacteria. There dirty hands may or may not be the reason your roommate’s hand swells up like a balloon... our theories cannot be proven, yet.
-End every night with a huge talent show with all of the kids in your compound. You’ll get to sing and dance to tons of traditional songs and learn fun games. Also, there is nothing a group of little African kids likes more than to see two silly American girls sing and dance to their own renditions of “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies, “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner, “Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations, the ‘Macarena’, and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. Throwing in a little 50 Cent, Akon, and Celion Dion can’t hurt either but, let’s be honest… no one likes a show off.
-Rural Africa= a dance Mecca. Don’t be shy or nervous… embrace the fact that you look like a fool and go dance your little bum off! Late night drum circles are a norm and you will be continually asked to dance in the middle of the circle, typically alone. Buck up soldier-- pop that booty and flail those arms like no one is watching. Luckily, they laugh with you… never at you.
-Invest in a headlamp… because when it gets dark in rural Africa, it gets pitch black and you don’t want to stumble and feel your way around your dark hut with your hands… feeling up a wall of spiders is NOT an ideal situation. Plus, it triples as a spotlight for the talent shows and light by which to brush your teeth, ‘antibacterial cloth’ clean your nasty feet, and inspect your bed for creatures.
-Huts are not leak proof. I don’t have any advice or survival tips for this little piece of information except to embrace the fact that you will sleep waist-deep in swamp like conditions during the rainy season. Between the heat and rain, it’s kind of like sleeping in a steam room… great at the spa, not so great in rural Africa.

While we were in the rural village, we visited a place called the SOS Village. It’s an orphanage in the city of Sanakoroba and is an international organization with multiple orphanages all over the world. This place is absolutely incredible in every sense of the word. If all kids could grow up in such incredible places the world would be a much better place. There are 15 compounds, or large housing units, that each has one mom and an aunt. Each compound has about 10 kids in it and they live like a real family. Their compounds are beautiful, clean, and well organized. We were able to tour it and then spend a little time in some of their classrooms, including their kindergarten and upper level English classes. All of the kids are so well taken care of and looked after—the entire system and how it functions is extremely inspirational and something to be admired and emulated. For this reason, I have decided to do my final research project here. As most of you know, the main academic portion of my semester is a huge research project I conduct independently on the topic of my choice. Everyone in my class spends the entire month of November and early parts of December researching and writing on our topic and because I have picked to do in depth research on the SOS Village, I will be able to live and volunteer there for a few weeks while I conduct my research. I am really looking forward to it and am excited to return to the SOS Village and the town of Sanakoroba (which is only 45 minutes outside of Bamako, so I won’t be too far from most of my other classmates!) later this semester.

If you can’t tell, I had a great time in the rural village and I think I can speak for my entire class when I say we all somewhat fell in love with Sanakoroba. Although it had its own set of unique challenges and some parts of the week definitely kicked our ass, we experienced an incredible amount of love and joy... probably more than most of us have experienced in any other single experience of our lives. Their generosity, kind hearts, helpful hands, patience, and overall love of life could be felt at every moment and it was plain to see some people can truly possess the secret to life.

IT’S OFFICIAL-- I AM 21 YEARS OLD!!! You should all be happy to know that I did the time conversion and figured out that since I was born at 9:01 PM in the US, I was technically not 21 until 2:01AM on the 11th of October, SO… yes, I celebrated for two days. It’s only natural. As if anyone was worried, I had an incredible birthday… I woke up that morning in the rural village to Kat, my roommate, singing a personalized version of “Happy Birthday” which she calls “You’re Old and Fat” (two HUGE compliments here). We opted out of the bucket shower but enjoyed breakfast with the rural host family… tea (aka hot water that tastes like dirt) and potato bread. Then, my class filed into our vans and headed back to the B-K-O (…Bamako). We had brunch at an Americanized restaurant, where I ate a hamburger and French fries (my love of ketchup is increasing, as if that’s even possible) for the first time in 1.5 months. After picking up two new skirts I had made from the tailor, I went back to my normal host family who greeted me with my birthday present… fresh and incredibly tasty watermelon. Kat and I then went to a hotel for the day where we had free, fast WIFI access to the internet (seems silly, but this alone made my day!). We swam that afternoon and then took our sweet time showering (not out of a bucket...) and getting ready for the night. We met up with more of our classmates and went out for drinks and dinner, then met up with even more classmates and boite-hopped the night away. We poured ourselves into bed around 4:30 AM… then woke up at 10AM to go layout by the pool. We swam and tanned until late afternoon, enjoyed an INCREDIBLE lunch at the hotel… by far the best food we have eaten in Mali and would rank as incredible even in the US. And then returned home to our families sunburned and satisfied. I’ve never gone to the pool to celebrate my birthday, let alone gotten sunburned… sweating through 100+ degree weather for my October birthday was unique in and of itself, but the entire day was an experience to remember and I feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to celebrate such a monumental birthday in such an incredible way. I say this every year but I think this time it’s going to ring true… this birthday will be impossible to top.

I am in my second to last week of classes before my entire class leaves for our Grand Excursion, or almost two weeks of traveling around the country together. Then, it’s off to doing research! I can’t believe my semester is almost halfway over… it doesn’t seem like I’ve been gone that long yet. Some of us have been thinking about our integration back into western society and all I have to say is this… the shower in the hotel we stayed at for my birthday proved to me that I will have NO problems reentering American society— all potential fear has subsided.

Pictures are on facebook…
It’s far easier that way. I can put up as many as I want and label them with descriptions. So, enjoy!
Miss and love you all!!! Thanks so much for the great birthday wishes and I can’t wait to be home and celebrate with all of you!


Love. Sarah

Pre-rural village stay...

THIS BLOG IS OFFICIALLY ONE WEEK BEHIND! SORRY!
IT TAKES PLACE FROM September 28- October 4
I wrote it the night of October 4th and am just putting it up now… Sorry about the confusion.

I promised that I would post before I left for the rural visit… it might be a while before my next post so stay patient with me!

Random side notes:
--When my entire class travels together, it is NOT in style. We have one super old school silver van with a driver, Kara. It is used for transporting roughly half of our group. On long road trips, we take the silver van and this other very large, rusty, and uncomfortable red van that plays only Bob Marley over a loud speaker. When we go on our after school fieldtrips, we take the silver van and a Sitrama. Now, if you are a regular reader of my blog you will have seen a photo of a Sitrama… it’s a large green van that has been completely gutted on the inside with a wooden plank bench bolted onto metal stands all around the circumference of the interior of the van, for comfort of course. Normally Sitramas are used as their main bus system but you can also just stop them on the street, pay a fee, kick everyone out who was riding in it and use it as an oversized taxi. This is how we travel… and in 100 degree weather, you do not want to get stuck in the Sitrama van, especially if our professors pulled one of the super-jankie Sitramas for us and the windows have been sealed shut. Most of the time both of the vans are over-crowded with people, especially when we take a good-ole’ Sitrama. Putting too many people in one vehicle is illegal here and because we are a traveling blob of white we are easy to see by the police, meaning we get pulled over somewhat frequently. But here is the kicker, in a third world country… nothing is actually illegal and with the right amount of money, all sins are forgiven.
--Family update: I am really fortunate to have a host family that understands my independent nature and allows me to come and go as I please while still letting me enjoy their company while I am home. Although I am not nearly as close to my host family as some of the other kids on my program, there is something addicting in the hugs of a 6 year old that makes your heart melt. As for a few updates, all of the kids in my family started school on the 1st of October… their summer is officially over. It was awesome to come home on the last day of September and find all of them lying around in the middle of the courtyard with my host mom labeling all of their school supplies the EXACT same way I did when I was young! I then had the pleasure of sitting for TWO hours with them while they went through each of their new items for school and organized (and then reorganized) the supplies for the next day. We also had to have a school supply photo shoot, obvi-- and those pictures are soon to come. Also, my 12 year old sister was on TV! There is a really popular television show here, it’s called Ministar, and is pretty much Mali’s version of American Idol but with young kids. The competition has been going on for a while now… I think all summer. Anyway, the taping of the show is in downtown Bamako so it’s a popular past time for wealthier kids to go and watch the filming of the show… but, because this is Africa and dancing is just what they do, you can also compete to be one of the dancers for the show and who got to go on stage and dance for the semi-final and final shows?? MY 12 YEAR OLD HOST SISTER! She danced her little heart out and made the show with her friend! It was so cool to not only see her on stage but then to sit at home and watch her on TV with her cuddled up next to me. Lastly, because my family watches me write my blog and they know they are being talked about, they think it’s only appropriate to send a message of salutation and a prayer your direction… “I ni ce e here doron” from our family to yours!


Daily Grind:
--Monday
My class traveled, silver van and Sitrama style, to ‘centre ville’, also known as downtown Bamako for a trip to one of the large fabric shops. Fabric is a BFD, or politely put… really important, in Mali. The method of creating the fabric is an intricate process that produces nothing less than art. Putting on clothes here is not for the purpose of covering up ones skin because the truth is Malians are the least body-modest society of people I have heard of or personally witnessed. They put on clothes because the craft in which their clothes were made is so exquisite. Some of my friends’ host families actually create fabric for fun as a side business but how it is fun, I have no idea. It is an extremely grueling process of ‘tie and dye’ where you move and fold the fabric in complicated ways. They don’t use very much cotton here either, their cloth is mostly a slick, somewhat plastic like, fabric which is very difficult with which to work. Most of us were really excited to purchase our first pieces of Malian fabric, especially me because the only Malian fabric I have acquired is the super-electric, bright lime green fabric my family used to make my Ramadan party clothes. I ended up getting two pieces of fabric and then later that day, went with my host sister Moye to the tailor to get measured for clothes. Because I am resourceful, I decided not to just have cloth made into a large paigne, or wrap-around floor length skirt, but instead into something I might actually wear once I am home. I had a knee-length paigne made from a green pattern and a short mini-skirt made out an orange fabric. Although I am excited for both, I am a little nervous for the mini-skirt. My host sister is very… hmm… comfortable in her own skin, to put it delicately, and it was her voice the tailor heard when being instructed on the length of my skirt. Unfortunately, I am not loud enough, or to be more accurate… I am not fluent in Bambara, and so the tailor could not have cared less as to what I wanted. After a relaxing weekend away from the family, I felt this was an appropriate Monday.
---Tuesday
For the health aspect of my semester, we have a doctor that comes into our class every so often and lectures us about the major health issues of Mali and how their health care system works. Basically, there is a three-tiered approach to medical treatment here. Level one is the most basic and located at the community or local level. It is referred to as the SESCom and is established to help the needs of the majority of the population. Level two is the private clinic level that reaches only the most privileged patients. It is the most expensive, obviously because it is private care. Level three is the hospital, which is where we went Tuesday. Much to our horrified knowledge, the specific hospital we visited, Point G, is one of the most advanced in the country. The overall conceptual layout of the hospital is similar to a college campus with different buildings spread all over inside a walled-off area. Each specialty has its own building and after walking around for a while and seeing where each specialty was located, we walked through two specialties. The first was actually not a building but more of a small enclosed compound area for women who have problems or special complications with their pregnancies. My class was able to sit with the women and discuss the different reasons they were in this special ward. We learned of the alienation they face from their village due to their conditions and because many of the problems continue post-pregnancy (for example, they constantly leak waste fluid) many of the women stay in the compound for the rest of their lives. The other building we walked through was for extreme joint problems. We walked around in the rooms and unlike western hospitals, were everything is enclosed within the walls of the building, these buildings are open to the outdoors-- the hallways are more like breezeways. The rooms where the patients sleep are packed full with about 10 beds per room with little to no privacy and there is very dim lighting and everything is covered in dirt. The first room we walked through had a helpless little boy in it who could barely feed himself. He was not mentally handicapped; his movements were just very slow. Also, his hair looked similar to someone who was going through radiation (but obviously, that would have been impossible) and his skin was splotchy with tons of small white patches everyone. No one could understand exactly what he had been diagnosed with and that’s when we discovered… hospitals here don’t diagnose and cure, they simply treat symptoms. If you went to the hospital with a brain tumor, they would probably just treat the severe headache you were experiencing with tons of drugs and then unknowingly let you slowly die of cancer. Seeing this little boy so desperate to feel better and walking away from him knowing that these doctors, the best in the country, literally have no idea what’s wrong with him or they can help , is painful to say the least. The absolute worst part, is that when he sees all of us walk through his room he thinks we are western doctors that are visiting the hospital, probably to help him, but little does a he know the highest level of science I have under my belt is a Geology course I took at Miami because it’s nicknamed ‘Rocks for Jocks.’ We also learned that there aren’t nearly enough beds to cover 1/10th of the amount of patients that should be admitted for critical reasons.
--Wednesday
We visited a SESCom, or the bottom tier of the health latter, on Wednesday. This is where the average person in the community goes to get treatment for almost everything that ails them that they can’t fix with local remedies—which includes everything from vaccinations to giving birth. Each cartier or so has at least one SESCom. It is places like this that I am not literarily talented enough to accurately describe with words. Everything was extremely dirty, poorly lit, beyond underequipped and just all around unsanitary. Their equipment was more rudimentary than a college biology class… and it just felt like it would be a breeding place for sickness, not health. The building it was in was not even close to big enough to house all of the people that needed to use it and is it unbelievably understaffed. We walked through the room where the midwives work and deliveries take place—it instantly reminded me of a ‘hospital’ themed room in a haunted house. As I walked through the SESCom, my eyes could barely absorb everything I was seeing and all I could think was how I wished I was more scientifically savvy so I could benefit more from the experience.
To end my two medicals visits with my feelings of disgust wrapped into one simple thought let me end with this… not a single bathroom, including the bathroom for staff, at either of the medical facilities had soap—no one, not even their doctors, wash their hands with soap.
--Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
It’s been great bonding with my class and having extra time outside of the classroom to hang out with each other. One of our favorite things to do is go to the crazy outdoor market and practice our Bambara by buying tons of fruits and vegetables. We then cut them up (which sounds like a ‘duh’ statement but actually noteworthy because using a swiss army knife to cut a mushy tomato without a cutting board in the dark is a somewhat difficult task) and eat them together for dinner while relaxing on someone’s roof. We have also started discovering good restaurants around the city including one TexMex and one Italian restaurant that were both tolerable if not actually good. In our class we categorize good food in two ways: ‘actually’ good (yes, we would eat that if we were at home) and ‘comparatively’ good (if it weren’t for the fact that our bodies hate us for taking them to a third world country and our taste buds are far less snooty, we would never eat this at home). Saturday we got adventurous and a group of us went down town to an art exhibit at the Musee National. It included photographs taken in different parts of the country by two Chinese men. Afterwards, we went to the Grande Marche (aka pure chaos on e) and shopped around for a while. I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out and going out with my classmates and only until Sunday afternoon and night did I regroup with my family which was, of course, full of love.


I am at a rural village stay this week and then enjoying the rest of my weekend in a fit of celebration for my 21st birthday, appropriately themed “Rumble in the Jungle”. Although a lot about me may grow and change through this experience, I am discovering that some things are uniquely me and thus cannot be touched or changed… like theme-ing my own birthday party and passing out invitations to enjoying the phrase ‘birthday week’ to an entirely new level.

At a discussion we went to a couple weeks ago with the ‘Save the Children’ Organization for Western Africa, the head coordinator ended his speech with a piece of advice I personally think rings very true. He said, “Go through life acquiring two talents: a sense of humor and the ability to write well”. I’ve decided I must be the luckiest kid on earth because this adventure allows me to have a good belly laugh at least once a day… and you can’t ask for much more than that.

Love, Sarah