Honeymoon, Hostility, Humor, Home

The CIEE program cites these three stages as normal for students studying abroad in Dakar. The honeymoon phase should really be re-labeled orientation because it's really just hanging out with all of the other American students. I am currently in the hostility phase...while maintaining my sense of humor. Before continuing I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm ridiculously glad that I came here and would not even consider choosing another experience for a second. BUT, I have become a bit hostile towards some of the locals. We went downtown on Sunday and even though it wasn't very crowded and we were traveling with only 4 Americans and a Senegalese student we were still harassed by vendors constantly and if we stood still for more than 5 seconds we were enclosed by people trying to sell us something. It feels as though every person you walk by wants something from you and they aren't afraid to ask. They are either begging for money, even if they are well off because they know you have money to spare or want you to buy something from them. Some of the children are exploited by the imams and sent out to beg and return and give all of the money to the imam. We went to the beach yesterday and made the mistake of having the ratio of one male for 10 females. We get constant stares and jeers. To make it all better, the noise they use to get your attention is something like a 'pssst' sound. In this culture you are supposed to greet everyone you pass on the street, but that just leads to some offering marriage proposals within a few seconds. They entirely skip the flirting phase and move right onto 'I love you.' The 5 males in our program pretend to practice polygamy on a daily basis in order to keep the proposals to a minimum. Add to that that every taxi beeps when they go by because they assume white people don't want to walk any where. On a better note, dinner last night was great; we had fish, spicy home-made mayonnaise, french fries, and lettuce and tomatoes (washed with bleach of course). This was all topped off with some bissap juice..yumm. I'm really going to miss that when I return to the states. I was also able to get a SIM card today for my cell phone so it's functioning now...in true Senegalese fashion it took all afternoon. Sorry that I haven't been posting pictures, the internet here just can't handle it.