Here are some more, so that you don’t think I’m neglecting you

Found a squashed but alive and still squirming ant stuck to the bottom of my foot.

Saw a public urinator in the act of urinating. (No body parts were witnessed.) Dakar, please invest in public toilets.

Saw the six-year-old naked for the third time. Kid, don’t walk through the courtyard to the shower Sunday mornings completely naked when you know I’m sitting outside doing my homework.

My host family believes the three-year-old needs to lose three or four kilos. They discuss this in front of her.

The Wolof word for food is ñam. I am never saying nom again. Ñam ñam ñam.

There were riots in Sacre-Coeur 3 after the horrible power outages I told you about last week. The riots were Tuesday night. On Wednesday, power was still awful. But on Thursday and Friday we only had two hours of outages and on Saturday and Sunday we had fulls day of electricity. Thanks, rioters!

Someone self immolated in front of the presidential palace in downtown Dakar last week. How unreal.

My host father wore a grey plaid boubou last week. Please continue to make boubous out of suit material. And suits out of boubou material.

My host family’s chauffer is one of my favorite Senegalese men, because I know that were he to ask for my number, he would be fired. That makes me completely comfortable around him. Alice’s host cousin is another one of my favorite Senegalese men, because were he to ask for my number, Alice would yell at him.

Was asked to get the iron from the maid. The iron is actually made of iron. I suppose that would explain the etymology.

I walked down from the roof after dinner with the maids to find the grandfather and all the kids reciting the Qur’an together. So cute.

Apparently Iran has been selling weapons to the Casamance, the separatist region in the south of Senegal. This came out last week. Last Friday, Senegal suspended diplomatic ties with Iran. The Cultural Center of the Iranian Embassy is right by my house. Wonder if it’ll close.

The Gambia, the country in the middle of Senegal (find a map), has been the intermediary in the Iran-Casamance arms deals. It would be rather demotivating to know that the country inside you hopes you’ll descend into civil war. And is working to make that dream a reality.

My Shop, the internet fast food restaurant, played “Quelqu’un m’a dit” while I was finishing the abstract for my JP (junior paper, for those non-Princetonians among you). My Shop has officially played one good song.

Fanta at WARC costs 250 CFA (50 cents). Fanta at the food court at Sea Plaza, a ritzy mall minutes from WARC, costs 1500 CFA ($3). How can a drink cost six times more ten minutes away?

While my host family was eating our (deliciously non-Senegalese) pizza at the Sea Plaza food court, the table next to us smoked hookah. At the table was a seven-year-old. He smoked, too. In the middle of the food court at a mall. And no one stopped him.

Fun Wolof phrase of the day: Sama baay angiy sol costume bu snazzy. My father is wearing a snazzy suit. Can you spot the borrowed French and English words in that sentence? Languages are mixed here a lot.