27.06.08

i can't think about the 4th of july.

it seems so foreign to me that we're all going to be sitting around eating hotdogs and chips and watching fireworks...and drinking beer...i'm 21??? and i think i forgot how to ride a bike. tomorrow i am going to the market early in the morning to buy everything you need to make the plat national that is called ceebu jën. maybe i have already talked about it. i am making ceebu jaga which has fish balls and fish. then i am cooking chicken for all my friends (we bought 6). and then we are going out dancing. it is my going away party. hopefully i will be busy enough that i won't actually feel emotional. i am going to learn how to make yassa (onion sauce) and cook over charcoal. we'll see how it goes, i am sure i will mess up something. sunday night some of the other americans and i are going to do henna. and monday i have an important interview at 11am. i went to the prison yesterday to get an interview there but the guy was un friendly and told me i needed an authorization or something...power trip. i was just asking about the law, i thought that was public information. maybe with this authorization can talk to some ladies actually IN the prison...in anycase i am really hungry. and nervous about coming home. i need a job and maybe instead of hotdogs for the 4th, i'll make some ceeb.

20.06.08

well since i haven't updated since the last time...i got my ticket changed to july 2nd. we just took jill and claire to the airport on tuesday night and it was teary. really teary. maybe because i got up at 2h30 am to take the cab with them to dakar so i was tired but it was so strange being at the airport with (some of) the girls again. maren and i got there before the voyageuses did and thought about ourselves walking out of the airport last october. maren is sitting there chewing on a stick (that they use to brush their teeth here: cure dents) and i'm going through the random assortment of binbins that i bought (and bargained for in wolof) at the marché sandaga earlier that day and i realize how far we've come since that first night when i thought my eyes would pop out of my head. the airport didn't even look the same. in anycase, it feels like i'm going to have to wake up from this little dream world i've been living in soon and while there are things that i miss in the US (mostly people), i know i can't ever come back to this year. and time always goes on. sometimes that is relieving and sometimes that is scary. i think the biggest thing i've learned this year is patience and to stay close to the women in my life. even though there has been drama and frustrations this whole year among the ten of us...i never felt so strange as i did leaving the airport and having to say bye to jill and claire. it was like something was missing...and i was a complete mess. i think life is nuts. i don't know if i am ready to go back to the same old things and i have a feeling i am not going to be able to. i'm not ready for my adventure to be over though i am ready to see the people i've missed. the people i've become closest to here might not be here if i come back. i've made promises i hope i can keep. inch'allah the beautiful things in life will be strong enough to keep the people i care about close to me.