Bonjour!

I am officially in Dakar! I made it in (with all of my luggage!) sometime around 5am local time (midnight for you folks back home).

Senegal is beautiful - there are lots of pretty colours and flowers everywhere. It's great weather here too - in the 70s with a really nice breeze.

Our program coordinator (I think that's her title anyway), Elizabeth met us (Rebecka and I) at the airport. We waited in the bus until another flight with more CIEE students came in around 6am. Then we crammed all 21 of us (17 students plus Elizabeth plus our bus driver) and all of our luggage into this little bus (kind of like a hippie van actually...). I'll try to upload a picture later.

We are all staying at a hotel for the week. I think there's something like 47 students total... all girls except for 5 guys.

There are goats on the roofs of the houses next to the hotel. I can see them from our room and they are VERY LOUD. They like to talk a lot.

We had to carry all of our luggage up 2 flights of steps.

Some of us went exploring a bit and walked to where our classes are going to be. We also went to the ATM and got some CFAs (the local currency here). Their money is colourful and very beautiful unlike the plain green American dollars.

It's not even noon here yet but I'm already exhausted. We're going to head off to get some lunch soon and then probably crash for the rest of the evening.

Oh, and we managed to find a wireless connection on the top floor of the hotel, which is how I'm writing to you now.


Sorry this was so random - I'll try to be more structured in the future.

Jam Ak Jam,
Kelly