Brief (probably boring) résumé of what's been going on. New Years Eve = relatively uneventful... That day, I did laundry! Even though everyone told me to my face that I wasn't going to be able to do it. And everything is even clean! One of my shirts is even WHITE again! Amazing. That night, I was actually pretty sick. Goudiaby invited me to the party his roommates were having. The women were dressed to the hilt, and we ate so well. Mmmm. When midnight rolled around, we had just started eating dinner. On the TV, there was a bit of a party, but the countdown came and went pretty much unnoticed... except for the text messages everyone was sending to each other. I called it a night around 2am because I could hardly move... I slept until about 11, woke up and did some work, took a nap (for two hours), ate lunch, slept for a few more hours... and then I went to the market because I told myself that I have to do something. I was up and about for 30 minutes, and I was completely exhausted. I slept a bit more, and then turned in for the night around 11h30... Very early for me and for the rest of the Senegalese population... especially on January 1st. I'm feeling better today, but it's still not completely better.

Today was a good day, tough. Got up to go to work, did some extremely boring data entry, got my butt kicked at checkers by some of my boys, had lunch with some pretty adorable 5-year-old girl twins, and had an interesting conversation about the woman's position in society. As much as I love Senegal, I could never actually live here forever or raise children here. My daughters will be taught, just as I was, that women can do anything men can do. That they will work with all their souls and love with all their hearts, yet they'll never lose sight of what's important to them.

Afterward, I got a call from Adjou who said that there are some other Americans that just arrived in Ngallele for two weeks, and they wanted to come into town. I met them at the market. We walked around for awhile, and it was really great. Everywhere I turned, there was someone I knew that came over to say hello... every different type of person: beautiful Senegalese women, respectable men, some not so respectable men, taxi drivers, salesmen, my kids, some Beyfalls (the "free" rasta men), etc. It really just felt like I belong here. I know a lot of different types of people, and that makes me really happy. And it was nice to have Adjou see how well integrated I am. She was pretty impressed. I really hold my own here. I like being here. And now I'm with my host family. It's always nice to come home to them.

Happy New Year!