Wow. It's been a week since I've left home. I feel like I've been here for ages already! In a good way!

Stepping out of the pressurized airplane cabin onto the runway at the airport nearly brought tears to my eyes. It smelled like Senegal. :D I'd finallly arrived. My bags successfully arrived, and then one of the workers offered to help me get a taxi. In 20 minutes after finishing his shift (so Senegalese). So, he let me wait and talk to his boss before he finished. And those 20 minutes turned into 40 minutes, but I finally did get a cheap non-foreigner-priced taxi to the gare routière to get to Saint-Louis. I finally made it to Ngallele, the town where my host family lives, and I had a delicious yassa lunch with Adiou's family. I went into town to go visit some friends (so nice to see everyone!) and then made it back (quite late) to my host family's place.

Sleeping was hard those first few nights because it was about 90° in the middle of the night. With no air conditioning or anything. They have fans, but there are power outages all the time... so sometimes in the middle of the night, I'd wake up, sweating through my clothes (TMI), thinking death would be a better option... all because the electricity was out.

Basically, this week has been a great time to be able to reconnect with really great friends, really cute kids, and a great program. I'll be working with Claire Enfance again... and this weekend I also hope to talk to Mr. Barry to see if he needs any help teaching English classes at the universiity. So there's always that, too. That'll be a lot on my plate, but that's okay. It'll keep me busy!

On Monday morning, I made my way into town to go to work. :D I was walking across the bridge, and I hear, "ESTEPHANIE!!!" I turn around and see a dozen of the boys that I worked with before. Big grins on their faces. And the Seneglese people walking around me on the bridge thought it was a bit weird... a bunch of talibés (the boys) talking to a toubab (a foreigner)... in Wolof, and calling her by name. Hahah. The looks I got were pretty funny. I guess I get that a lot.

The most interesting thing lately would probably be work. This week, I helped out at two different workshops/forums for young girls who are already in the work force about sexual health, unwanted pregnancy, and general reproductive health. It was fascinating. At the second workshop, there were about 40 girls (13-18ish) and a few older girls from the community (maybe... 20-25ish?) to help facilitate. The whole experience was fascinating. The older girls especially are the ones who took time out of their jobs and their lives to come and teach younger girls... to empower them to take care of themselves. This was the final wrap-up meeting of a series they've been doing, I guess... So they were kind of reviewing things that they'd already learned. They discussed a few big-idea questions:

1. How is "sex" represented? What does it mean?
2. Why do people have sex?
3. Where does abuse occur?
4. What are the consequences of sex?
5. What controls your sexuality?

The girls' fashion was interesting, too. Many of them were dressed in the "Sunday Best" for something like this: beautiful Senegalese ensembles. Others were dressed in nice-casual Western clothing. Some were veiled (Muslim-style), others had their headdresses on (Senegalese woman style), and others were not covered at all. There were lots of different comfort levels in dealing with the topic and there were lots of different experiences that you could read on their faces. It was fascinating to watch. I'm excited to be able to be more involved in things like this in the future. I think the work that Claire Enfance does is really important, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

In addition to those aspects of work, I also get to hang out with the talibés during the day. :D And lately, I've been teaching them English. The English they're learning from me ranges from very useful (how are you, where are you from, what's your name, I want to go to America) to just fun (you are crazy, you are rude, you are a gangster). Hahah. They're enjoying it... And it's fun to see so many familiar faces around here.

All in all, it was an excellent decision to come back here. I'm already reconnecting with pieces of my soul that had been lost in Korea. Alhamdoulilahi!