The Scrub Down

If I was keeping score this week, the tally would be Senegal: 128472356 Alyssa:0, so I planned to keep today fairly low key in order to keep Senegal's lead from increasingly too substantially. The one thing I will not lose is the Post Office. It's filled with packages and love from home and I had been gone for too long since I was refused stamps last week. Today, it was much less packed and although I had to deal with the same man at the counter I was successful in mailing a couple of letters. Either his guy is really enjoying messing with me or the Thies post office really doesn't not very many stamps because today I was able to explain that I wanted any value of stamps on my post cards. I just wanted to mail them TODAY to the US of A. I ended up paying a slightly higher rate, but the post cards are in the mail and I'm hoping Thies' stamp supply will be replenished soon. I also got another letter from Shirley! Thank you so much!

I really didn't have the stamina to leave the compound this afternoon, I needed to hide behind the walls in a place where at least if I get mocked, which I always do, it's lovingly. Plus, today was cleaning day. Everything came out of the main house as all the girls, even Khady, bleached the entire house down. I attempted to help and they didn't let me so I decided to give my bungalow a scrub down. When I say they wouldn't let me help I really mean that. They don't want me to help. I think it's because it's their work and they're proud of it and it's their job, but I really don't know. It could also be because they think I can't do anything, which is sometimes true... I felt extra bad today though because the big communal lunch wasn't made, but Jeenaba made me eggs. I've told Jeenaba and Deenba not to do that and just tell me and I can make my own food. Neither of them ate lunch and worked literally sun up to sun down scrubbing the house.

Regardless, it felt really good to accomplish a goal that was totally within my control. Although I did get ridiculed for not knowing how to properly scrub chicken poop off my stoop, my mom gave me the nod of approval when I was done. She was especially impressed that I spent over an hour scraping all of the red dirt that had accumulated on my door and window off. While I would like to say everything is sparkling clean now, I can't, but it is a brighter shade of dingy.

I was supposed to have a Skype date with my Aunt Diane and her class, but the power was cut almost the whole day so we couldn't Skype. They did call me to tell me that their entire school is going to do an art supply drive and send it all to me! I'm SO excited. It was a great pick me up and the students are so cute. They have a whole marketing campaign planned out and I'm going to post their announcement as soon as I get it. Dioss is probably going to have a heart attack when I tell him. It will be really cool to go into the schools and have an art day. I'm pumped. I got really emotional on the phone because I can't even imagine what it's going to be like to take all this stuff to the school where Dioss teaches and to do art projects at the camp the Thies sub region is planning this summer. More details on all this later…

I'm helping Deenba make dinner. She's letting me wash lettuce, which is a huge step up from her letting me do nothing! Wish me luck on not messing it up!