notes from my notebook

Well I figured that since I only posted once last week, I'd bombard you all with posts this week. In today's installment: things that interested me enough to make a note of, but not enough to put in a post.

But first...I updated my pictures which you can see by clicking the link on the right over there ----->

Now this list of things that were interesting enough to write down but not interesting enough to put in a blog will all come out now.

We'll start from the beginning: the plane trip

Air France coffee - STRONG (is it because it's French?)
Almost as soon as I arrived in paris, i started thinking in french - weird
Des que jue suis arrive a paris, jai pense en francais
The smell - smells like our house here used to...smells like France...musty?? mouldy??

Dakar - 1st impressions
Landing was a little hard..."whoops ground came up a little faster there"
turned lights off in cabin for landing...dark runway. (i'm not gonna lie it was a little freaky)
shanty town may have been passed on our final approach (i know think it was the shanty town that i pass every day on my way to school...)

other things: le viking - good food, good tunes, good beer, good peeps

Goals for Senegal trip:
dont die
stay out of african jail

Things to write about:

• doing evening prayers with the little brothers (an interesting cross cultural experience...i was doing them again later and my aunt came up..looked at me...looked at the maid...looked back at me...and then her and the maid broke out laughing. i dont appreciate being the butt of jokes that i can't laugh at too...)
• all the white people at the supermarket in downtown (le score) - its really quite obvious that toubabs like shopping at certain places - mostly these places are large, clean and air conditioned.
• politricks (no...not a typo)
• 3rd world tech: vhs @ cult & soc. class --> the computer lab
• It's always good to know that no matter where you are in the world, you can always find the Kama Sutra in english (yes...another toubab place)
• The saddest thing i've seen so far - a guy doing his afternoon prayers on a cardboard box instead of a rug
• the funniest thing ive seen so far - guys washing their taxicabs - the people dont care enough to pick up the trash thats strewn all across the street but they'll meticulously wash their cabs?? (though i have to admit they did look pretty darn clean)

Other:

• the chair renting business being run out of Hannah's house (her name's a palindrome AND you can rent chairs from her!)
• Freaking camels down the road from le regal - but the weird one that we noticed is the ones in the cage behind the fence, not the one tied to the post...i guess this is africa.

ps postcard stamps cost more than the postcards...what the heck man right?
thats all
love
jake