Back in the Game

Dinner pretty much saved my day. It wasn't a bad day per se, but it wasn't the best. I think I'm suffering from vacation-itis and the transition back is a little tougher than I expected. It was just so nice to be anonymous for a while and not have people screaming toubab at me or have a gang of boys hurl racial slurs at me as I walk down the street and they repeatedly ask me for money. Today it was back to the real world, or at least my current world and as I said a bad day can always be salvaged by dinner. I had chicken, salad WITH TOMATOES (this is a really big deal), and fries. It was great and the salad was even placed on my side of the platter. After that meal, I really can't complain about anything.

I think one of the things that's hurting my transition back into my Senegalese life is the amazing sleep I got during vacation. Sleeping in a climate controlled room, on a real bed, after taking a hot shower was bliss that cannot be explained in words and now it's hot and I'm constantly gross and I've had trouble sleeping. Regardless, I woke up this morning ready to go see everyone and start working. My first stop was Dioss' mom's house who had called me and asked me to come over to help her read a bank statement (Dioss made her open a bank account after he became obsessed with his). She wasn't home when I went, but I'll drop in again some other time this week. I hope there aren't any problems because I want everyone to love their bank accounts!

My next stop was Dioss who was super excited to see me. He always has new art up and new ideas and is always enthusiastic so I enjoy going to see him and today was no exception. While I was gone he went to Richard Toll (a city up North) to do a week long art class at an elementary school. The teachers asked him to come and help the kids illustrate Le Petit Prince. It was awesome. The pictures are really cool and I could tell that Dioss had a great time. We also talked about accounting and are going to start Excel tomorrow, supposedly... unless he sweet talks me into postponing it again. The one thing that Dioss definitely will not postpone is starting the artist's association's website. The month of May is a big arts festival around the country and he is going to be holding a big exposition at his house and wants to attempt to have the website up and running to publicize his gallery and the other artists around Thies. Obviously, there's no way that the website is going to be ready in a month, but we are going to start taking pictures of the various artists and their work as well as start typing up a little personal information on each of them. I'm very interested to see how much work Dioss thinks he's going to put into the site and how much work he thinks I'm going to do. We'll see...

This afternoon I ran some errands including going to the post office. Shout out to Shirley for another great letter! Thank you so much; it really made my day. I also got a package slip, but I went to late to actually pick the package up so I'll get it tomorrow. There was also a bunch of mail that was not for me, but for people in the new stage. For all the loved ones at home of people in the new stage my BP 957 is not the PO BOX for Peace Corps and the new trainees that box is BP 299. Their mail will get to them faster if it is sent to BP 299, but I will take the mail to the center so they get it!

That's it for me tonight. It's cooled down so I'm going to try and get some good sleep!