Glimpses of America

The past couple of days Thies has been full of American visitors and it's been great. Erin's parents are here and Tamar has a friend in town and I have willingly participated in their Thies experiences.

Yesterday, after a morning spent hanging out around the house, holding babies, and continuing my virtual job search, I headed across town to the Catholic bar to meet Erin and her parents and Emily for a drink. Erin's parents spent two days and two nights night her village which makes them total champs and they were just incredibly nice people. Exactly who you would expect Erin's parent's to be.

Today Tamar who has a friend visiting from the States as well as Erin and her parents were in Thies. I started out the morning walking through the market with Katherine trying to find fabric. Katherine's tailor Matar has finally perfected what Katherine and I like to call "the Tory Burch" tunic and we're having several made before we head back home. I'm also hoping he can turn a tunic into a tunic dress... we'll see what kind of clothes I come back with after Jazz Fest! I found two different fabrics that I really like. One went back with Katherine to go to Matar and I kept one in Thies in the hopes that Khady and I can work on making a really cute dress together at her tailor's.

Katherine and I went to Bon Marche and picked up a delicious picnic lunch (read: massive amounts of cheese) to share with Jackie at the center. Tamar and her friend arrived in Thies from Dakar early so the five of us ate lunch together before heading back out to the market, a nice visit with Mme. Ly, and a beer at Pamanda's.

As I was walking home from the center after a long day I got a text from Erin inviting me to Chicken Dibi. Well, a dibi invite is fairly impossible to refuse. I didn't want to go home because that creates a whole fiasco when I want to leave again for dinner so I decided to sit at Les Delices and wait for them. Most of the way to Les Delices I get a call from Erin saying they're going back to the center so I turn around and walk all the way back. I circled Thies at least twice today. A big group of us ended up going to the speakeasy by the center for a drink before dibi. The speakeasy is really stepping up their game, which, I assume, is in no small part due to Peace Corps Volunteer patronage. Anyway, they have a fence now which separates their house from our shenanigans and two bathrooms. Why do I mention the two bathrooms? Because one door says "uriner" and the other says "cacas." Classic. It seriously made my day.

Chicken Dibi never disappoints. I hadn't been in several months and it was great to go back. It's always so delicious!

Seeing people from the US is always great. They look so clean and shiny and are so happy to be experiencing Senegal. It also gives you a little glimpse into life back at home and almost makes you feel like you aren't missing too too much. What brings America even that much closer is what Tamar brought us from Dakar. Currently sitting on my desk is my COS packet. It details much of what I will learn at my COS conference next month: how to wind down your service and readjust to the US of A. Lets just say I don't think I'm going to need too much help getting back into the swing of things Stateside. But, things are starting to get real. We're getting down to the wire and home is within site, which is currently making things that much harder. The next 7.5 weeks are going to be insanity.