hello everyone!!!! sorry i have not posted much since ive been here! i am feeling very well today, especially since yesterday was absolutely horrible!!!

i had a fever a couple of times plus i was still very stuffed up (ive had a head and chest cold for a few days now...) so yesterday i supposed was the sum of all of that... i notified my group leaders from home ... thank goodness yesterday was a free day!! and slept 16 hours between yesterday afternoon and last night. my host mom took really good care of me so that was great!! im really glad i decided to just take it easy, that was really what my body needed. everyone at home, not just my host mom but everyone, took really good care of me and were very concerned about my health. i have to keep drinking water though, today, and do my best to stay out of the sun...

i really enjoy senegal as a country, things are so beautiful here... i am amazing myself at how few resources i can use to survive... at home even taking a quick shower wastes a lot of water, here when there is no water in the shower, which there hasnt been a couple of times, i take a bucket shower... i used maybe two to three gallons and was able to wash everything very well, including my hair... its amazing. its mango season here in senegal, and we have a mango tree in the back courtyard at home... almost every night we eat the best mangoes i have ever eaten in my whole life, they are the opposite of artificial, and are absolutely delicious!!! i bought some amazing artwork as gifts, and its amazing how much less i paid for something here than i would get it for in the us and i paid a price that was good for my pockets as well as the vendors.

there is a look of desperation on some of the peoples faces here that is hard to bear, but people dont go hungry really in senegal... everyday when i walk home for lunch and then take the return walk back to the aci baobab center (where all of our classes etc are held) everyone we pass who is eating offers us something to eat, even if they dont recognize our faces... when i had a sore throat, i went to ask a fruit vendor where i could buy some of the local cough drops (which are not artificial at all and are made of arabic gom and menthol with a light sugar coating and work wonders) he didnt know where i could get any but a man who was standing and talking with him went to a small boutique near the vendors spot and bought them for me... when i tried to pay him back, he wouldnt let me... things just dont happen that way in our part of the world. kindness is just not a social value the way it is here in senegal, everyone is so kind and willing to help you here. if you are lost and ask for directions, the senegalese will either walk you there themselves or find someone who will be able to get you to where you want to go, and will not rest until they do so.

it was not mistake to come here it is changing my life to be here as we speak... i would not trade this experience for the world. i am being humbled every day that i am here and cannot stop finding the beauty in every single thing here... i have too many stories to share, ever. i do not think i could express it all if i ever tried to tell any one of you what its like, because it is indescribable. i know that at some point in my life though, that i WILL be coming back to senegal. i dont know when or how that will happen, but i know it will...

love you all and see you in about three weeks

-ali/alma/almita