All I post anymore are anecdotes (or so it would appear)

Alice encountered a man with no pants wandering outside the post office talking to himself. We’ve christened him the pantless ranter. 

I’m considering making a comic strip featuring the cast of characters one sees around Dakar: public urinators, the roadside masturbator, the pantless ranter. A comic strip or a graphic novel. A graphic graphic novel. 

Who writes online French dictionaries? You look up a word whose primary meaning is ‘to enjoy’ only to be told that in slang it can also mean ‘to come’. Or you look up synonyms for the word ‘job’ and the dictionary, thinking it’s being helpful, tells you how to say ‘to give a blow job’. No, that’s not a phrase that would be especially helpful for my paper, thanks.

Alice mentioned that she wants to name her sons Conrad, after the main character of Ordinary People, and Holden, from The Catcher in the Rye. My one regret about not wanting children is that I will never have two boys to name Holden and Conrad. Maybe I can steal hers.  

There are 35 new students at WARC on a program that spends five weeks in New Delhi, five weeks in Dakar, and five weeks in Buenos Aires doing comparative urban studies. Had lunch with a few of them their first day at WARC. One guy mentioned he went to Harvard. I said I went to Princeton. He said he’s mad that Princeton’s men’s basketball beat Harvard to go on to the NCAA last week. I love that college rivalries still hold when we’re in Senegal.

It’s great being able to give people in the new program advice about what to do in Dakar. I love not being one of the new kids anymore.

Alice and I walked through a sandstorm along the highway on our way home from school. I no longer have any desire to visit a desert.

Me (post sandstorm): I need a miniature turkey baster to suck out the sand in my eye.

Alice: You mean an eyedropper?

After the sandstorm, I went to rinse the sand out of my eye, only to find that my eye had already collected all of the grains into a little grey clump, which it had deposited in a corner for easy access. Thanks, eye!

The US government has issued warnings of an imminent terrorist attack against the US embassy or US citizens in Mali, Senegal’s neighbor to the north. I had friends planning on going to Mali for Spring Break. Now they’re not.

Tried to use Alice’s nail clippers to open a grapefruit. Epic fail. 

The man who runs the computer lab at WARC has the job title ‘plant manager’. The WARC computer lab is not a manufacturing plant. Nor is it a potted plant. What plant is he managing?

Alice (turning off the light): Does this derange you? 

I love false friend words in French.

Saw a protest (or, as Alice enjoys saying, a manifestation) from the bus. Just a lot of people walking slowly down a street. And we were sent out warning emails telling us to avoid the street because it might get violent.

Fun Wolof phrase of the day: Gerte giangi. Here is the peanut. Apparently shouted by street vendors selling nuts.

Here are some Dakar anecdotes in picture form: