Twenty-ten

Happy belated Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's to everyone! The last two weeks have been very full and I am only now getting around to writing up a blog.

For Christmas (and more importantly, for my sanity), I went to Dakar and celebrated with my friends. One of the big draws of the regional house there (beyond a washing machine and the hot shower) is the kitchen: there's an oven! We did a lot of cooking and baking (brunch, cinnamon rolls, Mexican, lasagna). And when we were weary of that, we ate out to our hearts' content (Indian, Chinese, fried chicken). Even as SED volunteers with our relatively generous diets, we still crave food variety as soon as we get out of site.

There's no denying that we planned most of our days around food (or grocery shopping), but we also managed to squeeze in some tourist-y activities. Actually, even though Dakar is a big West African capital, there's not a whole lot for a tourist to do; we probably covered the two biggest draws. One afternoon, we took a ferry out to the island of Goree. Goree was the jumping off point for slave ships crossing the Atlantic. It had a very western, colonial feel with the architecture and some beautiful views of Dakar. But the museum at the House of Slaves was unimpressive and we didn't take much away from the visit.

Another day we walked up the hill to the big Dakar lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day and we had a 360' view of Dakar: the PC office, the airport, the hideous new African Renaissance sculpture (look that one up online), downtown, and the expanse of the Atlantic stretching all the way back to the U.S. and home.

Having seen let'sjustsay all Dakar has to offer (we also got ice cream), we took a sept-places ride to Saint Louis. There we met up with about 20 volunteers for the most delicious New Year's barbecue ever (again with the food!), steps away from a wind-swept beach. We sought out and grilled up beef and shrimp kebabs, fresh fish and hamburgers. Someone got bread and cheese and veggies. And then we drank an equally abundant amount before heading to the island of Saint Louis to ring in 2010 at the bars. At the strike of midnight, we were found in a local joint, singing along to a song whose sole lyrics were the oddly repetitive "Bonne annee Africa!" It was an amazing New Year's - not one that's likely to have an equal ever, if only for the fact that it was spent in Senegal.

The only sad thought is that today on the threshold of 2010, I can look ahead and know exactly where I'll be for the entire year. Twenty-ten will be spent fully here, in Africa, barring any hiccups or trips, up until the threshold of 2011. It takes a great deal of the adventure and spontaneity out of the spontaneous adventure that is Peace Corps in Africa. Le sigh.

Anyway, I am once again back in Thies, heading to a 3-day language crash course in a Seereer village with a few other volunteers. I don't have high expectations for what I can learn in three days, but I'm eager to pick up some more grammar to try out on my tutor back in ML~.

Happy 2010!!!

(I'm working on getting pics up from Alyssa's computer... Feel free to check out my friends' blogs, too; they have some good pics when I was too lazy to take out my camera.)