10.12.07

well there is still a strike going on...only the students in political science have class. no one studying french/other languages, literature, geography, sociology etc has class. or at least goes to class. but we still have wolof and there is an exam on thursday! our winter break is starting this week but i wonder if it hasn't started already since everyone is on strike. my roommate is SO impatient to go home. she's funny too. this morning she claimed the room smelled like dust and sand (definately believable since it is pretty much the edge wisps of the sahara desert here) so she woke me up around 9 to apologize for waking me up from the sweeping noises she was going to make. ugh that is the second time she's done that! and she is crazy. the other day i put on a t-shirt after being rather constipated (still trying to work out rice with my intestines...) and she said "oh tu as un gros ventre maintenant" (oh you have a fat stomach now) ...thanks alot voiz. instead of saying colocataire like they do in french for roommate, we say voiz as in voisine (roommate). i think my french is getting worse. especially when you have to talk to senegalese in fr-olof and everything you say is SO simplified. oh well. i will find some french books though right now i am reading fear and loathing in las vegas. sometimes it makes me laugh out loud. hunter s. thompson is funny and a very clever writer. i should read something more senegalese. maybe some senghor. he was the first president of senegal and he was also a poet. my african theater teacher (monsieur mar) is very...anti-european. he was ranting about how senghor was a great writer and blah blah blah but then said that he failed as a senegalese because he wrote in french which isn't his language. but no one knows how to read wolof so... anyways, one time he said that the difference between senegal and the western world was that in senegal if you don't work, you eat because everyone you know is willing to share with you. but elsewhere, if you don't work you don't eat. that is why i love senegal. not sharing is about the most asshole thing you can do here. people don't just think you're a bad person but besides that, they just can't understand why you wouldn't share. i feel like most money i spend is offering to get someone a coka cola or something. but at the same time, it is nice to share. i feel like it was something that was missing in my life in the US and when i come back i hope i never stop sharing. i saw a really pretty goat this morning and i decided i need to take more pictures of these goats. i forget that the things i am getting so used to seeing are the things i need to take pictures of. tabaski is coming up soon, there are sheep everywhere for that too! well i feel like this blog is going downhill. ba beneen yoon! (until next time)