Sorry it has been so long since a post! We are currently having some issues with our Internet, so we have had to borrow a neighbor's signal. We hope to get that resolved this week. They hope so too!
We really like it here in Senegal. It is much more modern than Mali, especially around the school neighborhood. Our days are currently filled with getting our current house set up, and working with our supervisors showing us the lay of the land. We started our language classes yesterday. Wolof is much different than French. There are a lot of fun words to say and since it is a phonetic language – once you learn the letters it is much easier to read. Our language helper is great. Greetings here are very important too! We spent most of our class yesterday learning those.
We mentioned in a post last week the Talibe boys. Talibe means follower – they are learning the Koran from a teacher. We went to their courtyard last week and did a scabies clinic. We basically put cream on their open sores and loved on them. It was very sad. These boys are so torn up with the scabies – I know they must be miserable! The open sores were bad especially around their hands, knees, buttocks and groins. They were a little shy at first to drop their pants, but after we separated them a little bit, it wasn't so bad. Our supervisor works with this one center of boys a lot, so we know that we will get to work with them more! It was neat to see their love for him – we were turning on the street to go to their center (courtyard) and some of the boys saw his car and through the windows we saw them shout his name and then just run with the car. It was great to see!
The pictures above are from our time we went looking at some beaches around - the fuzzy island in the back is called "snake island", not sure why - they have great diving places and neat places to climb and investigate. We hope to go there when it gets a little warmer. The weather is much different here. It is windy every day and right now they are having a cold front - not freezing like the US, but for here very cold. We usually wear coats and sweaters/sweatshirts every day. When you stand in the sun it is bearable, but at night it gets quite chilly.
2 comments:
We were beginning to wonder about you guys! Glad to hear that things are going well - jealous of the beach while we are under three inches of snow! Miss ya and love ya!
Patience?! I waited a full 10 days before yelling at you. That IS patience. ;-)
Oh, and "exploring...Snake Island" when you don't know WHY it's called that --I'm afraid that will be one of those moments when the nationals are shaking their heads and laughing at the "stupid white people."
Love you. Miss you. Your patient friend. =)
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