85 degrees doesn't mean anything when it is 90 percent humidity!!!!

So I have been in Dakar for two nights now and it has been nothing but a whirwind adventure. For the people I did not talk to on my way to Dakar, here is a quick rehash of my adventure to Dakar...

June 19th, 6:30 am - Flight out of Portland is delayed because they have realized that the right engine is leaking fuel and so they are calling a maintenance crew to come fix it. We are delayed for over 1 hour. On the flight the woman sitting one seat away from me got sick and ended up throwing up and fanning herself for the last hour or so of the flight, gross!!!

Arrive in New York over 1 and 1/2 hours late, thereby missing my connecting flight from New York to Dakar. Called my dad and was told that our travel agent had rebooked me on a direct flight to Dakar with South African Airlines. The man I talked with at the Delta desk sent me to the South African desk (in another terminal) without issuing me a new ticket and took up so much of my time that by time I got to South African Airlines they had actually shut down the check-in booths and the woman said I would have to stay in New York overnight. Called Howard, the travel agent, and he saved me a place on a Delta flight from New York to Brussels and then Brussels to Dakar.

June 19th, 7:30 pm - left New York for Brussels, 1 hour late, and had to rush through security to be sure and make the flight to Dakar.

June 20th, 11 am - Leave for Dakar from Brussels and sit in the 46th row (the last one) of the airplane. I am almost 100 percent sure I was sitting next to a criminal who was being extradited from Canada to Dakar. It seemed like the "criminal" was being escorted by a man in a green suit who received a first class meal while in the last row and the flight attendants were not allowed to serve the "criminal" alcohol, tea, or coffee. Later on I saw him being escorted around the airport by a security guard; there were no handcuffs but it was all a little suspicious.

Upon arrival in Dakar I was greeted by a man dressed in an African tunic who walked with a limp and did not speak English. I realized very quickly that my bags were probably not going to show up and therefore had to be escorted to a baggage claim room in the back of the airport, where I tried to communicate in broken French and English what my bags looked like and where they needed to be delivered. The man who was helping me decided that it would beneficial if he gave me his personal phone number, just in case I had any problems getting my luggage, and made sure to tell me that he was giving me, not only, the office phone number but HIS number. Oh boy, I had been in Africa for 30 minutes and already was given a man's phone number! After filling out my forms the man in the tunic,who I had assumed was part of the study program, led me outside and handed me off to Hadi, the real program representative, who did speak english and welcomed me to the program.

Hadi and I then drove to the part of the University where we would all be staying. The Cheik Anta Diop University is a very large complex, however we are living in a small section of the school that is called the Ecole Normale Superieure. They spilt the group up into 8 people living in a house (this is where I am) and 5 people living in an apartment. The house (which I will post a picture of later) is in a gated, however the gate does not lock, complex. There are 4 rooms which hold two people per room and there is one bathroom per two rooms. The bathroom that I share with my roommate, Erika, and the boys' room has a very interesting draining problem. There is no curtain so water gets all over the bathroom floor. This is would not be a problem except there is no way to drain this excess water except through the naturals holes in the ground or cracks in the siding, therefore we have a lake in our bathroom most days! We are still trying to come up with a name for this lake and I think we might settle on something that conveys the fact that small worms creep out of the siding and reside in the lake...we no longer walk in or around the bathroom without footwear!

A quick note about the house and our amenities...the house is really quite large and spacious. We actually have a wi-fi internet connection at the house, the biggest shocker ever! Also we get around 6-7 fresh baguettes delivered to our house every morning to go with the jam, nutella, butter, and cheese we are also provided. We also have a TV room complete with working television that receives about 5 channels; 1 is in French and the others are in Wolof.

I will talk more about life here in a couple days but here is a preview...we have already been to a live music club, seen the Senegalese equivalent of "muscle beach", had housemate drama because strange things happen when you put 8 strangers in a house together, and are about to eat our first traditional senegalese meal in about two hours (there are two women in our house right now cooking for us and it smells so good, by the way earlier this morning they were cooking topless!). More to come about adventures here and description of this place and its people!