There are a lot of things that I love about this place, but one thing that I can't stand is the inefficiency! Especially as an American! It's CRAZY.

- ATMs are apparently really difficult for everyone else in the world. Even the French tourists that come! You slide in your card, select your language, enter your pin, enter the amount, and wait for your money. I takes me probably about as long as it took you to read that. I was waiting for a good 5 minutes for 2 French people to withdraw. Unbelievable.

- Stamps. I just bought stamps for postcards. The woman, instead of giving me the 450F and 50F stamps (that I could see right in front of her) to make 500F, she gave me this: 50F + 200F + 75F + 175F. Haha. 4 stamps. Your cards will be really cluttered!

- I was working on the end of the year reports, and we have to make charts of the daaras served and the infections treated. Every month, instead of keeping the same order, they make an entirely new chart!! I couldn't really handle it... So, I kinda did it my way...

- On the database that I'm working on in Excel, I have to type the daara the child attends (among other things). The coworker that started it ALWAYS puts "D. Moussa Sow". D is for daara. ISN'T THAT IMPLIED in the column heading?! It doesn't sound like much, but to have to press Shift+D+Shift+. for every name of the tens of thousands I have to enter... it's annoying. Same with the percent sign in the percent column. Why would you do that?!

Someone called me out about never wanting to do any more work than I had to. As if it was a bad thing... like I was lazy or something. I explained to him that if you spend all your time writing extra Ds or %s, it adds up to time that can't be spent doing something else. He recognized that a lot of the time, they waste their own time... and create their own problems. Haha.

- They spit a lot on the ground in the house or throw things they're finished with (peanut shells, toothpicks, bones in the food, etc)... And then the women complain about always having to wash the floors (which they do everyday). Ummm... if you stop throwing shit on the floor, you wouldn't have to clean it as much.

From an American perspective, there's this lack of... understanding... I guess really it's a lack of connection of events. If I do this, then this will happen. If I change this, this would be easier...

:D Just thought I'd share my pain, haha. No, it's not really painful unless something needs to get done ASAP (haha, ASAP in Senegal... haha).