It looks like there was an earthquake!

Once again, I've waited too long to post so this will be completely all over the place.


Sherrill's daughter and friend came to visit her so Amanda and I went with them to Goree Island the first day they were here.  This was the first time that we have gotten to see reactions from brand new people within hours of them being here.  It was really fun to laugh and re-live through them our shock upon first entering. It is amazing how quickly you adjust and get used to your surroundings.  I've forgotten how crazy this place seems upon first arrival.  Case in point, Sherrill's daughter says (referring to a section of town that is crowded, insane, sewage in the streets, just all over filth):  "It looks like there was an earthquake."  We also had fun in town with them right before the left.  What do you do when you have 5 people who need to go somewhere?  Do it African style.  Squeeze into the taxi. 

Don't worry.  I made sure to lock the [not-so] trustworthy doors incase it decided it wanted to open mid-ride.

Next up.  Our classes have begun and are now into the third week.  We teach at two different places.  I have a very beginning class at the B center.  I completely underestimated what it takes to prepare for a class where you can't speak either of their languages fluently.  Please try to imagine explaining "Go ahead" (especially to a culture where there is no concept of letting someone else go in front of you...)  So my theatre skills are coming in handy.  I either act out or draw pictures to get the point across and if that fails, the French dictionary comes out.  So my #1 favorite thing- Internet; #2- A fan and #3- French Dictionary.  Just so you understand how high up on the list it is.  At the other center, I teach a Pre-Intermediate class so they have a good English base which is really nice.  I'm also REALLY excited because hopefully the next round of classes at the B Center, we will get to do a kid's club which is my absolute favorite!!!  It is really nice to be "finished" with formal language study and actually feel like we're being "useful" here now.  Here are some fun pictures:

Gary - working hard :)  Please notice the circa 1873 computer! haha

A few of our students and the guard for the center :)

Class picture at the B Center our company owns! :)  [Missing a couple people]

And here is the Pre-Intermediate class that I teach!  I'm missing a couple girls.  These guys are a blast to teach!

Teaching English is hard but it's worth it!  My students make me laugh every single day and I think I entertain them thoroughly with my terrible pronounciation of French and my toddler-ish Wolof.  Getting laughed at is just part of the package deal but it's all good.. I just laugh at myself with them.

We tried to visit with our "family" here but most of them were out of town in the village so we just talked to the dad outside for a bit and petted his sheep.  He takes the best care of the sheep and they are really sweet!  It is really refreshing to find someone who cares for their animals and doesn't drag them by the feet/horns/etc.  This one, Beatty, gives you "kisses."  We are heading back over Friday to spend the day with them and hopefully share some stories about a great Shepherd :)

Cooking with Chef Mariama Ndiaye

Here is what we have discovered in our months of cooking:

1.  Planning a single meal takes a ton of preparation.
2.  Planning dinner starts that morning.  There is literally no "whipping anything up."
3.  We go on a daily scavenger hunt to collect items for this said dinner.
4.  Remember to unthaw any frozen items necessary for meal, be that bread, meat, cheese or something else. No unthaw = no meal.  Learned this the hard way several times (ie peanut butter for Amanda and fruit rollups for me as dinner). 
5.  Now you must wash and cut everything and then you can cook!  It seems like it ends up becoming an all-day affair.

We cooked fajitas tonight.  I laughed as I thought about the fact that the only time in my life I have ever cooked fajitas is if the stuff already comes frozen in a bag and you just dump that mess onto a skillet and voila!  Literally, unless eating out, everything I ever cooked before was pre-packaged in a bag, box, or can. Now we have to go around this city to find items, prepare them and cook.  As much more prep time goes into a meal here, there are definite advantages.  I have found, that contrary to my previous belief, fresh is better.  This was first discovered in the area of green beans.  I do not think I had ever eaten green beans not out of a can.  I had certainly never snapped green beans in my life.  The best thing, by far, about cooking is when it's all said and done, you sit down to eat and it actually tastes good.  It's just an instant reward for all the time and effort put into it. 

There are several wonderful ladies here that have given us a lot of pointers on how to cook.  I am forever grateful that we've moved past the days of baguettes, cereal and other random assorted items for meals. 

In case you were wondering, we've mastered:  tacos, chicken pot pie, potato soup, fajitas, homemade pizza, as well as breakfast items and desserts.  Obviously, we've got a long way to go still but we've made a great start. 

Also, an apron is now part of my wardrobe. Who am I?

Enjoy :)

It's been a week since the candidates were announced for the upcoming election.  We've had to be cautious at times and so last weekend I had a lot of time on my hands.  I decided to spend some time making my first video :)  I hope this gives you a glimpse into what life looks like here!

Flashback to the 80's.. anyone?

Our heads were starting to itch + having to sunscreen the parts that never see sunlight = time to come out. 

500 hair tie removals.
1 hour to take out.
One pound of hair lost in the process.

Good thing Amanda looked up a make-it-yourself hair serum (an egg + olive oil) to give our hair some TLC after some major mistreatment.

Also, I learned the Wolof words during this process for dry skin and itchy which will probably never be useful again.

Island trip and cow legs!

This is our last week of language.  So naturally, the good students that we are, we would like to party instead of learn.  So today was leave the house day for an adventure.  [To be fair, yesterday we worked for an hour later than we were supposed to and the next two days are going to be real language days as well].  This is how the conversation went down:

Lindy:  We decided that we don't want to learn today.
Amanda:  Which is different from any other day?
Lindy:  What can we do that is fun here that we haven't already done?
Patricia:  I'm thinking.  We can go to [insert market name here].
Amanda:  Okay, that's fine.
Lindy:  No way!  If you've been to one market here, you've been to them all.  Let's do something we haven't done before. 
Patricia:  Okay, I'm thinking.
Lindy:  You're a native here!  Surely there has to be something fun in this city that we haven't done.
Patricia:  Okay, we can go to this island.  You have to take a little boat to get there.
Lindy:  Yes!  That is it!  Let's go!
Amanda: [Immediately goes and takes a dramamine]
Patricia:  You're taking medicine?  It's just a little boat.
Amanda:  That's why I'm taking medicine.
Lindy:  Nu dem (let's go!)

We procede to get in a taxi that almost hits a man walking across the road and then "runs out of gas" aka breaks down right before we get to our destination.  So we walk. 

The absolute best part of the day was watching our language teacher get in and out of this boat that took us literally what seemed like 20 feet away to this random island.  The water is incredibly clear which is surprising to say the least as there is very little beauty that isn't destroyed in this country somehow or another. 

The actual island was not too terribly exciting.  Just walked around.  Just nice to be on the beach for a day.  I did find a really cool African outfit that I thought was a onesie but it wasn't.  Close enough.   When we came back, everyone was jumping out of the boat on one side so it started to tilt.  I thought it was gonna flip so I jumped out real fast which apparently knocked it even more off kilter which made Patricia fall.  Oh man, how I love that lady!  She is absolutely hilarious and not steady on her feet.  Anyhow.  Enjoy these pictures!  Still rockin' those braids!  Amanda is cheating and covering hers :)

Oh yeah, these life jackets don't close in any way.  Good thing we're not going far.

Also, this is quite disturbing to me.  Yesterday, I was walking to go see some sheep that I really like (and by loving these sheep we get invited into a home of this really cool family!)  and I pass by this guy with this bucket on his head.  I knew what they were - I just didn't know from what animal.  So I call Amanda and Patricia (who are at a boutique) to come see this.  The guy informs us that these are cow legs.  I ask if we can take a picture and he says we have to pay.  This was well worth spending a dollar to show the world what in the world kind of stuff is sold here.  Patricia's input:  "Oh, they're soo delicious!"  Yeah, right.

In case you're curious, one leg will set you back about six US dollars.

Hello there forehead!

So I always think that I don't have alot to blog about.  But when I actually do sit down to write an update, I have a lot more than I think.  So I'll just update with a lot of pictures and some words on the important points.

First up:  Tea making lessons.

Thing #8756 I've never done before:  Light charcoal with none other than the trash paper on the street.

This is after I've spilled the tea several times.  Starting to get the hang of it here :)  It's a lot harder than it seems!



Second, we went up a "mountain" (aka a glorified hill but might as well be a mountain as I don't exercise) to a lighthouse.  It's really calm and nice up there.  You can see a good chunk of our city and it's quite a different perspective because looking down, it almost seems calm, serene, non-chaotic.  But we know better.

This is the western-most point of our continent :)



I like doing handstands with cool backgrounds!

When we left, we were standing on a roundpoint trying to catch a taxi.  We notice a herd of cows walking on the opposite side of the road from where we are.  If you know me, you know I love any kind of animal and one of my favorite things about this place is the incorporation of livestock into everyday life.  So naturally, I'm stoked at the sighting of a herd of cows.  I ask Amanda to start taking pictures. 



Still far away at this point.

Wait.. are they coming this way???

Lindy:  "Omgoodness!! This is awesome!  Keep taking pictures!!!"   Amanda:  "We HAVE to get out of here!"  Lindy:  "No! No!  It's okay.. keep taking pictures!!"

Cows stopping traffic.

This picture was taken after we waited til the very last second to run away from them :)

Hair braiding extravaganza!  Yes, it did and still does hurt.  Yes, I look sometimes like the Chucky doll or that I am a proud owner of a mullet.  Yes, my forehead is huge and shiny.  But you know what?  It's not about us! :)



Working on Amanda's!!

Look how happy the girls look!!

Lookin good!!  haha!

I really like these sheep closeby so we took a some pictures.  I'm just putting this one up so you can get the full scope of how silly I look with braids.  Only in West Africa.







New Years/The hairiest chicken I've ever seen

For New Years Day of 2012, we went to the home of a new friend that works really close to our apartment..  She invited us over for lunch.  This is really exciting to us because it's the first time that we've been invited into someone's house.  Our language teacher went with us.  We get there and they are finishing up cooking lunch  so we had live entertainment by her two kids (among others... family members?) 


The Friday before, we stopped by her work to finalize plans for coming and of course at that time they were eating lunch.  So, the words that I've come to LOVE hearing: "Kaay lekk" (come eat) happened...  You never know what in the world is going to be in the bowl.  I told them that we had already eaten but that we would taste which is the polite thing to do.  So we walk over and I think it's the typical chebu-jenn (fish and rice) until I put a bite of it in my mouth.  It's really, really fishy, cool and runny (like watery rice).  The fish for the dish was small & very boney and as I was chewing, I realize that I have a bone in my mouth..  not knowing if it's rude to spit out bones, I swallowed it...  I just thought that someone was a worse cook than I am.  But the next day we learned that it was a new dish altogether- it's supposed to be runny.  I am pretty sure I could go my whole life without eating that one. 


So... back to New Years Day: when we get to our friends house, because of the previous experience, we're a little nervous about the meal.  I taught our language teacher the m's pryer:  I'll put it down if You keep it down.  She thought this was the funniest thing ever.  When the bowl comes with spoons, it's regular chebu-jenn but it's the white kind.  That means that there is no tomato paste in it to help take away fishy taste.  So we dig in and, by the grace of the Lord above, it wasn't really that fishy!  I actually was sort of enjoying it until one bite when it tasted like I had eaten my once pet goldfish.  Chew & swallow.  Don't think.  After it was all said and done,    our langugage teacher says "I'm proud of you two!"... haha!  She's the one African that knows us well enough to know what we are really thinking.


So the rest of the day was spent hanging out and drinking attaya which is my favorite.  The kids played around.  Her son, Cheikh, kept calling Patricia a boy which was the funniest thing ever.  He was such a ham! 


I see this chicken running around in their yard.  It has feathers on it's feet.  I've never seen such a thing in my life...  They tell me it's just a baby and that they bought it for $16 because when it's grown it can be sold for $50.  Because I'm so amazed, we walked to the end of the street where they sell this same breed of chickens so I could see them as adults. Coolest. chickens. ever.  Upon arriving in Africa to find that lions, cheetahs, and monkeys don't exist here (everything I've been taught is a lie!! haha) I have to be impressed with the livestock :)

Wrestling

Dancing

I still don't know what some of the things are in the middle of this dish.  I'm convinced part of it looks like brain.

Making attaya!

 

Seriously.. this is the coolest chicken ever.

 

 

 

Here's a big one!  This thing had to be like 20 or so pounds!

 

 

 

 

Can't wait to go back and visit again!