I Have Cornrows

Yes, you read that correctly, it was only a matter of time. All of my friends have had their hair done and I finally caved and spent two hours with my head in a womans lap and at the end, I have cornrows. I look like an idiot, but the Senegalese freaking love it and I cant go anywhere in Pout without someone yelling "Aby Diallo, rafeet na!!" which is "Aby Diallo (my name here), youre so pretty!!!"Its not true but bless them. Moments like this make me thankful my camera is broken. On the positive side, its incredibally easy to take care of, so perhaps I will do this more often.

In regards to my painting situation, naive American Mandi picked out paint colors for her house not realizing that in Senegal there are no shades. When you say you want a red kitchen, they buy the red paint, mix it in the big bucket of base and whatever color that turns out is what goes on the walls. Oh Jesus. This would explain my now yellow and beige halls, electric blue guest room and seafoam green (if you can in fact call it green) bedroom. Oh Jesus. The worst part is, as much of a mess as it is, it still looks better than when I found the place. So thats good. So much for bringing interior design to Senegal, huh? My place is bright, lets leave it at that.

In other news, site is going well although it is an uphill battle. Yesterday I went to an english class at the high school. It was on Englishes: the difference between American and British English. Super cute to listen in on. One person explained that the difference was that in America people say yeah, where in England people say yes. Also, apparantly the reason that Americans spell things differently is that in America time is money and we dont have enough time to spell things out so weve shortened our words. So cute.

After school however, my walk home sucked. The high schoolers were making fun of my Wolof, two women offered me their children, an old woman asked me to buy her medecine and I got really irritated so when two teenagers started laughing at my attempted Wolof I totally lost it and snapped at them. When I saw the looks on their faces I felt so horrible for being the big, scary toubab and ran back to my house and hid out in my room with a pack of biskrem and crunchy peanut butter. Rough day. My host mom eventually got me to come out, but it took persuasion.

So my life continues. Kiras coming over tonight for a slumber party and it will be nice to have an escape!!! God bless Peace Corps Volunteers.