wrote this last night

On dirais que tu es en joy today. Hahaha just realized he wrote the last word in English. That would be my host brother who just sent me a text saying my fam said I seemed really happy today. And not only that, Yoro called me tonight.I feel quite strongly for the man. And we don’t get to talk a lot because its expensive and were broke. He is in Dakar. But we talked for over ten minutes which is a lot. And I cried because I miss him so much. Which shit its been a long time since ive done that. Which is to say, Im happy.

Even more so, I talked to my sister for over an hour tonight. Expensive TROP (very) but worth it! GREAT to talk with her. I bought 3 freaking cards of credit which usually I go through in over a month. Second time ive called her and its been over 4 months. Good times.

Right which brings me to the original point of this blog. Just like when Suzanne said things about having a small apartment or a little bit of money, I would sometimes refer to my much lesser circumstances. Which they are. But Ive also learned a lot. And I also chose this situation and I don’t believe ive ever really complained about it.

I studied abroad in England and started to catch onto cultural differences, greediness of the west and whatnot. But now living in the essentially opposite culture has done something different for me. I want to be clear I don’t think Americans are selfish or that all of you living much cozier lives than my friends and family here are wrong for doing so. It is what it is. And you go to work every day and earn your money for your life, so you deserve it. I believe that. If anything, living in Africa, which is like some dark mysterious place as portrayed by the media, has made everything that much more confusing. To me, its clear these people have obviously been screwed and have much less of a life chance and sense of optimism than my American ass does.

Its also clear they are awesome, deserving, smart, heart warming folks also. Just seeing the smiles on Daba and Anta’s face when I was coming back into my room tonight after buying my second phone card because they were happy for me reminds me how nice some people are. Sometimes I loathe my family here but its usually gone by the morning. And when I go off at them, they seemingly forgive and forget. Kind of like a family. Very Senegalese. So anyways. Theres a mosquito in my net right now and is gotten me a few times. Grr.

So, even though life sucks, it doesn’t. And you know,these people are happier than your average American. And I was reading barrack obamas book ‘dreams from my father’ and somewhere in there there is a guy talking about blacks in the ghetto in America and how its sad to see kids not smiling. Its not right and he waned to do something about it. And I thought, man these kids smile so much here. Today when Lamp called me over (who knows why) to watch him splash really cold water for a bath on top of a rock in the back of the compound while making ridiculous excited faces, it reminded me of my brother when he was little, as Lamp often does. (which gets him favoritism-aka cookies and a little pocket change) And its just so cute. The other day I bear hugged him in front of his friends. He is like 13 years old so that’s totally not cool. It was hilarious for me. And so the kids are happy here. The people generally are, though always complaining about money but often willing to spot you some. Anyways, today is one of those good days.