"Balma Mebenan" - Forgive me, Until next time

Today, we went downtown for the first time. We took the bus to Independence Square and then we walked around a bit. Where we live is so quiet compared to downtown. The second you get out of the bus, there's people everywhere trying to sell you something... "madame! madame! madame!" We went to the Marché de Kermel, where I bargained for the first time! I actually didn't get anything, but I  helped another girl bargain. It actually was tons of fun because the market wasn't too intense and you could joke with the vendors. Oh yeah.. when we were walking around, we saw a Curves! Wouldn't have ever expected that here. We then split up and I got to go with Awa to Sandoga and get another pagne (wrap-around thingy that all the women wear here around the house). In the process, we had pizza and Fantas for lunch. It tasted sooo good. When we were buying the pagnes, Katie and I were given Senegalese names! Her name is Fatou, named after the vendor's mother and I'm Mariama, after his grandmother. We were pretty excited about that. We then met the others at the bus stop where we sat for at least an hour watching some guy try to change the tire on his car. We all wanted to teach him "righty tighty, lefty loosey" and that he needed to "jack up his car" before he took off the tire, but we didn't know how to say that in French, nor do I think he would enjoy taking advice from four young girls. So instead, we sat there laughing and trying to figure out how to say it in French. We got on the bus and there was basically no room to breathe. When we got off I felt as if I needed to take 3 showers because I was sweating up against so many people. Another fun fact: the Senegalese hardly sweat... it's so annoying because normally I'm sitting in a puddle of my own sweat all the time! Anyways, the Wolof phrase today is "Balma Mebenan" because there were a lot of beggars in the downtown area, which is very interesting because the New York Times article said recently that begging is illegal. We got back to the Baobab Center and had our first class taught by my TonTon (my uncle). He was about an hour late for class and he just prefaced the course so it was nothing big, BUT I understood everything he said. The course is called St. Louis - River Valley and I'm so excited. In a month I get to spend 15 days outside St. Louis in a rural village where they don't speak French or English, so I'll be forced to use Wolof. Until then, we are going to learn about the people and how the river valley is important to their daily lives.

All in all, every day I feel more and more like a local and I know that I'll have my lows and highs, but for right now I feel lucky to have this opportunity and want to live every moment to its fullest.