It's been a while!

Hey hey! It has been quite a while since I wrote a blog and so much has happened since my last post!

First off, I'm living in a new house. I no longer live with the Catholic family, I moved into a Muslim family for certain reasons. I moved out because my original host brother was stealing money from me and lying to me, he ended up stealing near $100 American and I got reimbursed $40 by his mom. We shared a room so he had easy access to everything I own. He did various other horrible things that I don't really want to share with the whole world. Anyways, My family now is very very nice. I'm the first student they've ever hosted and they are very nice to me. My new family is a lot more wealthy, and lives in a neighborhood which is quite a ways from school...but we are on the beach! Not that I am all taken away by the materialism in my new place, the people in my new family are very good for me. I have a host dad now which I didn't have in my other house, which is awesome. My host sister is only 2 1/2 years old so she won't be stealing my money and it's fun to have a little kid around! It's been going great so far with the new fam! I'm going to separate posts for several different things that have happened lately. Here's some pictures of my new neighborhood:
Here's my new room, this time I don't share a room ...I have my own bathroom too!

Here is some of the interior of my house:

Here is my house from the road:

And here is the mystery piano that I was so sad to find out is not a piano, it's a bar for all the alcohol! It only looks like a piano!

Photobucket

I posted a good number of the photos I've taken at photobucket.com You can see them at http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/frazzo_photos/ You might have to sign up for a photobucket account but that's alright.
Also, my friend, Garrett, has taken a bunch of good pictures. Not all of them are of Senegal but the first 5 pages or so are all Senegal. He updates often too. Check it out at http://flickr.com/photos/10510390@N07/

More pictures

This is behind my house

This is the mosque next to my house. The mosque announces prayers 5 times a day so it's incredibly noisy. My family is catholic so we don't participate but there is no way to avoid the loud prayers going on. ...It's kinda cool to hear actually. It hasn't gotten old.

Here's the front door to my house and my bed for the year!

Getting better

Hey all. Things are all starting to get better. I'm getting a lot more used to the living conditions and I'm making a lot of Senegalese friends who are helping me adjust quickly to the culture. Last weekend I went to my first Soccer match, it was Senegal versus Burkina Faso and Senegal won 5-1 oh yeah!! It was quite something, I opted to not sit with the other Americans I'm here with and I ended up in the middle of a wild and crazy bunch of Senegalese. Last weekend I also visited Gorée Island ...it's a tropical island 15 minutes off the coast of Dakar with lots of history. We visited the slave house on Gorée where all the slaves were kept after they had been taken from the mainland Senegal. After we visited the museums and the slave house, we hit the beach, aw yeah!

I took some pictures of my neighborhood for all to see.
These are the roads I walk on to school:

First 2 Weeks in Dakar

Hey folks!
As most of you know, I am here in a country called Senegal for the time being. I am studying the local languages of French and Wolof in the countries capital of Dakar. Senegal is a francophile country in West Africa, but don't be fooled, Wolof is spoken much more frequently than French. Adjusting to this country has been very difficult so far but it has been very enjoyable as well ...I have learned so much already. My trip began with several inconveniences like lost luggage that I finally got after 2 weeks, financial aid not coming through, and health issues i.e. intestinal issues. They call it Dakarhea because everyone gets it when they travel here, and everyone did get it ...everyone talked openly about it too it was pretty funny.

Things are starting to work out finally and fall into place. I moved in with my host family 3 days ago and they are very nice. They are a Catholic too, which is rare in this country.

I grabbed some pictures of the area from a friend of mine since I haven't taken any of my own. I really wanted to post some of the area for people to see.
Here's the campus of my new university:


Until next time! More pictures to come!