I didn't realize that yesterday marked the end of my third full month in Dakar because I was too focused on the fact that as of tomorrow, it's only one month until I go home (and other anecdotes)

Attaya should always be drunk on the beach. You might not think you’d want to drink hot tea from shot glasses by the beach, but you do. Especially after you’ve been bodysurfing and need to get the tast of salt water out of your mouth. 

Great as beach attaya is, piña coladas would be better. I wonder where I could find a blender.

Made a Senegalese friend who works near WARC. Bumped into him Monday morning outside the egg man shack. Bumped into him there Tuesday morning, too; he mentioned he’d seen me walking by the previous afternoon as well. Dakar can be so small sometimes. 

Went to a concert at the Institut Francais with a 30-year-old grad student who’s in Dakar doing disertation research. I’ve missed being overwhelmed by brilliance in everyday conversation. 

For example: after knowing me for all of four days, Casey (the grad student) linked my compuslion to compare myself to others to my training in a comparative discipline. (I’m a Comparative Literature major.) I’ve known myself for nearly twenty-one years and have been a comp lit major for months now. Why did I never make the connection?

The lead singer of the Ugandan band playing at the Institute Francais wore a dark vest, a white Oxford, and khakis. Why do I feel a deep connection to everyone whose preppy dressing reminds me of home? I passed a guy at the university wearing white jeans, a white button-down, and a purple sweater. I wanted to run up and become his friend. 

Every time I saw a tubab my first few weeks here, I wanted to dash across the street and say ‘hi.’ Fortunately the urge had passed by the end of the first month, but still, I hate the idea that I would feel I had something in common with strangers simply because they and I were both white and in Dakar.

Chatted in Casey’s dorm before the concert. All his hallmates are Senegalese. His room held two beds, one mattress, and a closet. There was barely space to move. He guessed six guys normally piled in there to sleep. Never have I more appreciated living with a host family.

Someone is reading my blog from Iran. Senegal suspended diplomatic relations with Iran several weeks ago. I feel so subversive. And yes, Zach, so cool.

Booked an apartment for this summer in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Goodbye Sacre-Coeur 3.

My (real) dad sent me a picture of a fox in my backyard at home. Alice sent me a picture of a monkey on top of a store in Sacre-Coeur 3. Which location has more impressive animals: New Jersey or Dakar? 

This one’s for Liz: learned in my African lit class that the scientific term for cannibalism is anthropophagie. 

If I read Wikipedia instead of going to History of Islam in Senegal, I would learn just as much. 

My African Cinema professor spent much of one class explaining the works of Frantz Fanon. I’ve read both Peau Noir, Masques Blancs and Les Damnés de la Terre. I got the impression my professor had read neither. 

In African Cinema this past Monday we watched a Wolof-language adaptation of Der Besuch der Alten Dame, a play I read last year in German 102-5. Officially the weirdest cross-culteral experience of my life.

My Wolof professor has realized that by next week we’ll have had fifty hours of class, so he’s cancelling our last two weeks of classes because he thinks fifty hours is enough.

In Wolof, ‘rasta’ can be a verb meaning to have one’s hair done in dreadlocks. A hairdresser who rastas one’s hair is a ‘rastakat.’ Some days I think my Wolof professor just makes words up as he goes along.

Fun Wolof phrase of the day: Jëng uma. I am not circumcised. A guy in my class tried to say he hadn't learned anything yesterday and this came out by mistake. Whoops.

Second fun Wolof phrase of the day: Soo ko naanee, dangay màndi. If you drink that, you’ll be drunk.