Spring Break Plans

It's been hard writing another post lately, mostly because I've been chewing on so much lately. After a series of long, frustrating conversations about polygamy with one of my brothers, and a series of exhausting interactions with Senegalese men, it was hard for me to come to a place where I wasn't constantly thinking and critiquing something about Senegal. I missed being wide-eyed in love with everything around me, but I think I am at the point in the time abroad process when I'm finally beginning to better understand the complexities of the world I'm living in in a much more honest way. And I still love chilling with the bros, eating around the bowl and jang Wolof so life is still pretty damn great.

This Sunday I'm leaving for our spring break to the Cassamance, in Cap Skiring. It's supposed to have the most beautiful beaches in Senegal, and the best part is that we're taking a charter flight there and back for next-to-nothing and staying gratuit at the resort (at Les Alizes) through one of our friends. I'm grateful to have chill time on the beach, but I'm even more excited to spend a day in Djembering, which is less than half an hour north of Cap Skiring, and is the village where my host family is from. I got some contacts from my brothers so someone can show us around while we're there, and I'm being sent with a big bag of presents to bring to the family while I'm visiting. So excited to see a different side of Senegal - palm trees, palm wine, beaches, and an apparently more relaxed, nicer side.

Since we're coming back so early (Thursday morning), my friends and I met with Amadou and Muhsana from Portes et Passages (http://www.portesetpassages.org/), a really fantastic art facility in a small village called Ngazobil, near Joal, three hours south of Dakar, to see if we could come and help out for the long weekend. We met them at their home in Mermoz, and you could just tell that it was a home of artists. Portes et Passages is all about reinventing how we think of art, and providing a more holistic view of what art could and should be. They have workshops with women from the nearby village that teach them to creatively explore their own pottery, and they also have other fantastic projects that deal with building sustainably and conscienciously, agriculture and education. I'm so excited to see what's in store for us next Thursday and to see how we can help them with their mission.

I should probably go to bed soon, but the ataaya I drank with my brothers just now is keeping me wired. It's pretty late here (past 1am) and I have to wake up at 6:30am tomorrow to catch the 7am bus to my internship downtown. I'm working at a Poste de Santé called Centre de Saint Laurent, which is a charitable organization run by Catholic nuns, and I'm going to need to be wide awake if I'm to work in the injection room tomorrow. I think that's where I'm going to be allowed to administer vaccinations (?), and where I'm supposed to work tomorrow. After two great weeks in the lab, pricking people and making blood smear slides, testing people for malaria, pregnancy, diabetes, anemia, sickle-cell anemia, UTIs, and parasites/worms, it'll be nice doing something different. I get so much say in the kinds of things I get to do, which is something I'm truly grateful for and an experience that I know I would not be able to get anywhere in the States. And I DON'T want to mess up, so I guess I'll be going to bed now.

Ba ci kanam,
Kat