For my next few posts I'd like to share a few journal entries with you so you can sort of experience first-hand the things that have been going through my mind as I have been studying abroad in Africa. 

April 7, 2005

The night of the living lizard who aggressed me.  Next to my head.  Did you know lizards talk?  I sure as hell didn’t until last night at 3 am.  The last time these eyes were able to close as the lizard was constantly at my side.  I started sleeping the other way.  To try and avoid his constant clicking noisy movements.  Fat chance, Em.  Ahhh sleep.  I hate lizards.  They look like snakes.  Same pointed little tongue.  I think it’s lezard in French.  It doesn’t matter they only speak Wolof.  Ahhhh lizard!

The Same Day

I like being treated like a princess.  Perhaps that is why I find my current living situation so v. favorable.  But I do question the bounds of the Diaws’ seemingly boundless hospitality.  I never know what to refuse and what to accept.  Lost in a sleep-deprived stupor today, I realized that I have been hosted/been a guest many a time in my life.  More frequently this year:  first the Leonards in Cinci, the N’Doyes back in Yoff, and now the Diaws.  But today over lunch, as I sat around the great communal tiebou diene bowl under the shade of the thatched shelter, women and men packed in all around me and all of the hallees (kids) at my right, up to their elbows in the rice of another bowl…I realized that I don’t regard the Diaws any differently than the Leonards.  In the most general sense, that is.  All are people.  All have feelings to be respected.  Individuals whom I recognize by the glint in their eyes, a half smile, tone of voice, etc.  Sure, I could understand the Leonards on multiple levels far better.  But if one is in the presence of another for an extended period of time, regardless of words exchanged, one grows accustomed to the feel of a person, one’s aura… or in birding times (I remember making so much fun of Vick for this one), one’s jizz/giss…general impression shape and size.  I think.  It’s a different kind of familiarity, intimacy even.  Not v. lucid today thanks to aforementioned lizard incident.  Oh, by the way, all that’s needed is a little flick of water to rid myself of the clucking, groaning, beast.  Oh, and more importantly.  I’m afraid of the dark.  I had always been in denial about this, but it has been confirmed.  Everything seems a bazillion times worse in the dark.  Ants become tarantulas and cockroaches scorpions.  Lack of sleep may play a role as well.