Failed Attempt

Sunday June 26th, 2011

Last night was my loudest night in Senegal. A truck with giant speakers was parked outside my house blaring music. There was no party. No political rally. No death. No birth. No baptism. No nothing. Just a truck with gigantic speakers parked outside my house. I could barely hear myself think. Today I found out that all of the Catholic children in my neighborhood were receiving their first and second communion, but there was nothing going on last night. I don't understand why people don't stop ridiculous things like this. My family was complaining about the noise and my host dad is the head of our neighborhood yet, they still didn't attempt to stop the noise. There are only two plausible explanations:

1. Senegal
2. No one complains because they know at some point that they will want to have a truck parked outside of someone else's house blaring loud music.

Today I really wanted to and thought that I would do work. I went to the center and even took a lunch so that I wouldn't have to leave. I sat in the living room at the center and tried to hunker down and concentrate. No such luck. In anticipation of the trainees coming back to the center for the first time and due to all of the recent power outages there were a lot of PCVs at the center so I chatted, walked through the market, and did other unproductive things.

The trainees did come back from their first five days in their towns/ villages and were excited to be back at the center again. This group of trainees is already really tightly knit since there are only 17 of them so they were excited to see each other and excited to get a nice cold beverage at the Catholic compound. I didn't really hear any horror stories, but people definitely have a new appreciation for Thies and the training center.

Back at home my family was in a terrible mood. Having Mami home full time now, university is out for the summer, really creates tension and drama, which is fun for me to watch!