Day 1 for Baby

Day 1 of baby boy's life seems to be going OK. Jeenaba is already up and around doing her laundry and helping with a little bit of cooking. This was during the morning and she rested most of the afternoon. I'm fascinated by the new mommy and baby in the house. I haven't been around a pregnant woman and a newborn in my adult life so it's very interesting to watch everything that's going on. I've learned things that I never knew about and never wanted to know. The baby seems to be pretty good although I've only seen him a couple of times. He is just left in one of the bedrooms if Jeenaba is out in the courtyard and it seems like my mom and Khady are the only people, besides Jeenaba, who are really interacting with him, which I guess makes sense. Jeenaba's boyfriend, aka baby daddy, and his mom and sister were at our house last night as well. I obviously positioned myself in the hallway with a book so I could see all of the comings and goings! I haven't heard anything about the baby's baptism yet, but since my family usually informs me about events 5 seconds before it happens I'm planning on it being a week from today since that's the traditional 8 days. I'm sure it will be ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be on baby watch all day today because I actually had things to do! This morning I walked all the way across town, after dropping off some revolting moldy clothing and a sheet that I found in my room after my trip to Dakar at a professional cleaners I found, to do a bunch of shopping for the girls' camp which is in two weeks! It is also approximately two-ish weeks until school starts here. School is supposed to start the first Monday in October, but the students usually strike for a while to get a longer vacation so who knows when school will start. What I didn't realize was that the first Monday after Ramadan apparently ushers in the back to school shopping frenzy so I was three people back from the counter at the office supply store and had to fight tooth and nail to get my paper and pens!

This afternoon I continued my collection for all this camp, by going to Dioss' to pick up a bunch of the art supplies that he's still storing at his house until school starts and we can finish the ateliers. Every once in a while I catch Dioss when he's in a very intellectual frame of mind and he really wants to talk. Today he was going on about how he would love to go to the States or France to paint for a while which segued into a discussion about the differences between the US and Senegal, the problems with development, and the problems with Africa. Dioss and his crew are the only Senegalese people that I'm intimate with who I see reading as much as I read. They are all constantly reading myriad books, magazines, and newspapers and are therefore really interesting to talk to. We talked about the crazy Koran burning guy, why I couldn't live the rest of my life in Senegal, and how Dioss is now approaching an NGO to help him publish the catalog he worked on with Pauline. It was a fairly fascinating two plus hours. Unfortunately the only thing he doesn't want to talk to me about is accounting. Go figure. I've started my threats again now that Ramadan is over, but I think he's decided they are mostly empty so I now need to think of incentives. I think I'm going to have his mom call to yell at him!

Tomorrow is another big day as a bunch of volunteers will be in Thies for lunch to welcome the new trainees who have been assigned to the Thies region and I'm going to Bombey to check out the University of Bombey for the camp!