February 2

My second attempt to take a UCAD class was foiled on Monday-it seems that the university repeatedly and without apology continues to print and distribute schedules filled with classes that do not actually exist.  Fortunately, after a bit of scrambling, I found a real one (I know it's real because another student here has been there, and because I emailed the professor, who shockingly responded at all, in the affirmative) so now I have a set schedule, and hopefully the Amherst registrar will now stop sending me threatening emails about how I need to submit a schedule.  Sorry I'm not sorry that I'm just living a laid-back, fashionably late Dakar lifestyle these days.
Things are sdefinitely settling into a more regular routine, so I don't have a ton of new things to report...though in the past 3 days, I have been followed at some point by the following things:
a feral dog who decided tojoin me on my morning run
a socially awkward Senegalese student who creeps on the foreign students
2 taxis
a car rapide
a pickup truck full of teenaged boys making kissy noises
and a group of small children shouting "toubab" and demanding that I buy them all juice boxes from a street vendor.  (Not:  juice boxes are not, in fact, boxes.  Rather, I am pretty sure that the containers are the same things that hospitals use as blood bags that hook up to IVs.  Because that's normal here.)
Also a man named Mustafah stopped me in the road and tried to give me Wolof etiquette lessons amidst a torrent of bulldozers and other cinstruction work.  People (and animals, apparently) just have a verrry different conception of what personal space is here.  Actually, there doesn't seem to be any conception of it at all.
But, while it does get overwhelming, I am definitely acclimating...I'm actually finding that, instead of wanting to retreat and have alone time, I am craving other people's company more and more. It's nice to be able to be with people all of the time with no expectations other than proximity.
Also, I discovered that the way to Muhammed's heart (my 4 year old brother) is through his stomach...as many 4 year old boys are apt to do, he would perform such delightful little acts of affection such as coming into my room to dump his trash (often chewed up orange pieces), taking my soccer ball and punting it full force at my mirror, or starting neighborhood-wide chants of "toubabi."  Luckily he's so tiny that I can usually just pick him up and throw him somewhere (in the words of my host mother, "il faut le frapper," "It's a necessity that you smack him.").  However, thanks to my genius mother who packed Swedish fish in my suitcase, we are now friends and he likes to sit, docile as can be, and play catch with me in my room.  So yay for domestic tranquility.
This weekend we have a fieldtrip to...somewhere.  Nobody really seems to be sure, and we are repeatedly told that we will be receiving detailed emails but alas.  I figure I'll just show up at WARC along with the other students on the day of and hopefully we'll all get taken to the same place. 
I feel like when I come back home I will be abslutely useless in terms of functioning in any remotely efficient setting.  I guess we'll see.  But as for right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying the low stress levels so I'm not goign to worry about the long term affects for now.  Off to do some homework but I will write again soon.
Ba ci kanam