So, this post is for Tricia... who has been wanting me to update for awhile... and who actually called me to let me know. Haha. Oh, sisters.

First of all, just know that no news is good news. If I don't have time to update my blog, that means that I don't have time to be sitting around doing things that aren't very African. This /definitely/ is not the case for me.

For the past... long time since I've updated, I've been in town almost every day either working or hanging out with people from my internship... and life has been amazing.

This past weekend was the jazz festival... something I'd been waiting for for a /really/ long time. Really long time. And it was fantastic. Totally not what I expected, but that's Africa for you. The first night, Thursday, I was out with Rita and we went to the opening festival which was... Senegalese traditional music....... and kinda a waste of time, so we left around 2am. Friday night, I started out with all my girls, but then Melissa and I broke off to go say hello to Lamine, Bouba, and Abdoulaye. Spent a couple hours with them and then went to catch some real jazz. The way Saint-Louis is set up is that there is quite a collection of little venues all around the Northern part of the island... ideal for bar hopping. We were able to hit up 4 different venues in about 2 hours. Great times. Got home around 4am. Saturday, I spent the day with my second host family in town and then the night at a show. The drummer is blind... and does a lot of Stevie Wonder covers when he's not playing jazz. The band was great. Good times. Lots of singing, dancing, lots of fun. Ended up getting home around 8h30am. Sunday night, I ended up sleeping for most of the day, so I went out again. The other week, I went out with a musician friend of one of my colleagues, so Sunday night, I saw his band. They were phenomenal. Got home around 4h30 again.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. And it's fun to be with Muslims going out because that means that people don't drink. On Monday, I had to get up to meet the Hamline delegation at 9am!!! And then I went back to sleep. I'd set my alarm for 2h36... not 14h36, so I was quite surprised when I woke up at 17h36, running late for our fancy dinner with Hamline at 18h30 in town. Got dressed up in my nice pagne and headed into town for what I was assuming was going to be an extremely awkward dinner. Turns out it was really nice. There were a good 30 people there: the 4 of us, our host parents, the Hamline delegation, and anyone they saw fit to invite. It was a good time. We ate at La Louisianne, a really nice fancy restaurant in Saint-Louis all the way on the North side. It was really nice. A good time.

Basically, my life here is amazing and I really don't want to come home. Not that I don't miss all of you, but I definitely want to stay. I'm excited for my projects at home, though, so that makes things a bit more do-able.

Breaking news about classes: I'm getting 8 credits for Wolof and 4 for my internship. That means I'm already a full time student and don't technically need to take any classes. I'm going to take 2 sociology courses to finish off that major so I can graduate in time, but other than that, nothing. I'm really excited about that. I love so many things about Sénégal, but the education system here is a big waste of my time. Huge. Going to class takes time away from things that I could be enjoying. So, at the beginning of taking classes, I was planning on taking 10 hours. Plus 4 hours a week of Wolof. Now I'm down to 4+4. Which I think is perfect. As I still need to finish my research. /cough/

I'm buying souvenirs now, so tell me what you want! Get me your measurements in metric if you want anything from the tailor.

Hope all is well... sorry this wasn't too exciting. Miss you and love you all!