Day 18 - Home Again

Not too much to report today.  We left Toubab Dialo pretty early, and journeyed back to Dakar.  It was just the students this time, since I guess our professors had decided to stay another day for something, and a few of the students convinced the bus driver to let them out about an hour from Dakar because their African partners wanted to show them some kind of religious building.  I realized that on trips like this, I still don’t acknowledge the fact that we are all technically adults, since I am always shocked when people are permitted to do pretty much whatever they want to.  Everyone was kind of tired when we first got back, so no one really felt like doing anything, and Fridays are the religious days in the Muslim religion, so most things shut down in the afternoon.  I spent most of the day just browsing my wonderful American websites (which I’m pretty sure they just steal here like they do our music – the girls in my household are always playing these dress-up games online, but they are clearly on American sites) and then I went to the market in the afternoon under the pretense of getting more juice.  In reality I just wanted chocolate.  Food here is meant to be shared all the time, and the family would consider it rude if they found out that any of us kept our own food stocked in our rooms.  They would assume they weren’t feeding us enough at mealtimes, so it would be a personal affront.  We’re pretty sure that they wouldn’t understand the fact that American girls just need chocolate sometimes, so most of us have been sneaking out to get it from time to time.  I also stopped by the local pharmacy to see if they had anything good for allergies.  The hotel in Toubab Dialo had been crawling in cats, and the mediocre meds I brought just weren’t cutting it, so I decided that I was desperate enough to try sketchy African meds.  Those were effective, but they knocked me on my ass, so I wound up sleeping until dinner time (which is around 9:30pm here).  I’m still kind of tired actually, so I’m probably going to go back to sleep after I post this.