Recluse in My Bungalow

Today I allowed myself a day of reading, watching tv on my computer, and indulging myself in my negative feelings. I've been in a funk recently and I decided to let myself have a day of solitude. My family takes it really easy on Sundays as well and most people spend the majority of the day in bed so I didn't feel too guilty being a hermit in my bungalow. It was pretty great and hopefully I will wake up on the right side of bed tomorrow and start the week off on a good note. When I wasn't hiding in my room my day was completely taken over by Ahmed.

I gave myself a pat on the back today for figuring out the inner workings of a three year olds brain. Ahmed comes to me first when he's bored and wants to play. If I turn him away then he goes and asks everyone else in the family to play and once they deny him he comes back to me and annoys me until I give in. I had three rounds of Ahmed playtime today.

Round 1: Prokadima
Most of you know prokadima as a game you play on the beach where you hit balls through the air to another person with a wooden paddle. Considering that Ahmed can only hit the ball a maximum of two times he ingeniously discovered that he can hit the ball to me on the ground. Therefore, we pushed the ball back and forth to each other with the paddles. We did this for the better part of an hour.

The most intriguing part of my friendship and patience with Ahmed is that I really don't like kids. I enjoy holding a baby and talking about how cute it is and then when I get bored in ten minutes handing it back to it's mom. I never liked babysitting and actually avoided it even though I liked earning money and playing pretend just makes me mad since I could be doing something real. I just really don't have patience to play around when I could be reading a book or doing something productive. Yes, I know I have no heart, but it appears Senegal is breaking me of what used to be boring and annoying and now there is no limit to what I will do to entertain myself. Moving on...

Round 2: Blocks
Some incredibly effeminately colored blocks appeared a few days ago and Ahmed is obsessed. He's also obsessed with giving me orders on what to make with the blocks as he sits there and stares at me. I made a car, a truck, and a giraffe out of what I like to call ghetto Legos in a pastel color palette. We then played giraffe v. car for almost an hour. He loved it. I endured. The blocks did come with two little conductor type people that click on to the blocks. The conductors have little hats and I have a Michigan baseball cap hanging up in my room so Ahmed asked to wear it while we played with the blocks. Hence, the adorable pictures. Playing with blocks pretty much ended when Ahmed starting kicking the giraffes apart and blocks flew all over the compound.

Round 3: Shadow Puppets
I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate myself for introducing shadow puppets into the mix starting approximately tomorrow. We now lose power on a bi-daily basis once during the day and then at night for several hours. After sitting in the dark for several minutes in boredom, I turned my cell phone flashlight on and made a shadow bunny rabbit that Ahmed then tried to kill with a stick he'd been carrying around. After 2 minutes I was extremely bored of this game, but we continued to play for a half hour, which is when I pretended my cell phone ran out of batteries.

All in all a fine day. I had eggs and fries for dinner so I can't complain although I'm sure my arteries will later in life.