Three weeks and counting

I’m stuck in this strange limbo of being excited to go home and see family and friends I’ve been missing, and not wanting to leave this new life I’ve built here and people I’ve met. To illustrate this inner-conflict, I made me some fancy lists I thought I would share with you:

Things I will miss:

- MY FAMILY (even though Ma can be over-controlling, and hoards things in her room like a packrat, she means well, and I will miss her.)
- Having funny/interesting interactions with funny/interesting people in the most unexpected places and times
- Senegalese fruit and juice (Buiy, Ditakh, Bissap, Guava)
- French bread
- Senegalese prices (breakfast for fifty cents!)
- Attaaya (concentrated and very sweet green tea)
- Eating out of a communal dish
o When I have to resort to using my hand to eat because I can’t
quite get all the food on my spoon into my mouth, it looks like
I’m just more Senegalese, not more of a slob.
- Colorful and bright traditional Senegalese clothing
- Having 60 degrees Fahrenheit be the coldest part of my day
- Nearly constant sunshine
- Affordable public transportation
- Having an excuse to never do my hair or make-up (blow dryers waste electricity, and it is usually so hot that it would melt away immediately anyway)
- Cheap liquor
- Cathartic sassiness (here, when I stand up for myself, I generally get a desirable result- LEFT ALONE. In the states, the result might be less desirable, such as SHANKING)
- Two hour lunch breaks
- The call to prayer
- Having a get out of jail free card for doing awkward things just because I’m a toubab, and toubabs do awkward things
- Talking about whatever I want, whenever I want, because most people don’t understand English
- Cooking with Shani and Giulia
- Beautiful, cheap henna
- Cracking up in Ellen’s room for no real reason
- Seeing Ellen’s face errryday

Things I will not miss:

- Being harassed by Senegalese men
- Cold showers
- Being poked by the springs sticking out of my mattress
- Having unidentifiable sheep organs as a regular part of my diet (including, but not limited to the head, feet, testicles, liver, intestines, and stomach)
- Senegalese Cous Cous
- Suppakanja
- Finding an acceptable excuse to justify every time I want to go out of the house
- Needing to bring a flashlight with me into the bathroom
- Wet toilet seats from the showerhead that sits almost directly over the toilet
- Cockroaches
- Mangy cats and dogs dying or fighting in streets
- Bad hangovers from cheap liquor (ellen wants me to take this off the list, because going to the states will change nothing)
- Different forms of carb counting as different food groups (e.g. fries on spaghetti eaten with bread)
- Trash in the streets
- Sewage water in the streets
- The smell that comes with the two previously listed items
- The only forms of dairy being laughing cow cheese, ice cream, and powdered milk
- Navigating via landmarks and vague gestures instead of maps or street names
- Awkward conversations with acquaintances, explaining why I do not have a fiancé or husband, nor do I have any interest in finding one in the near future
- Pulling bones out of my mouth as a part of every meal
- Flies
- Having strangers demand that I speak Wolof, and then get very frustrated when my level of Wolof is about the equivalent of a mocking bird that uses the same handful of phrases at random no matter what someone says to it