St. Louis continued....

Continuing.....

I kind of lost my flow with this entry but will finish it anyway.

We spent our last night in St. Louis having dinner with the sister of Kris's old host family and some other family members. They had decided that we should eat dinner at the sister-in-law's house, which were kind of annoyed with. A lot of visiting people is sitting and waiting and we didn't understand why we needed to go to the trouble of taking all the food over there, etc.

This was until be saw the house. Then we understood why they were going though the trouble. This house was AMAZING and only 3 months old. It had a spiral, tiled staircase that went up 3 levels, 2 of which had balconies. The top floor was one huge room with windows all around, 4 couches, nice curtains and a TV. The second floor was bedroom and the first floor had some bedrooms, the kitchen and the living room. It was baeutiful! I don't think I've ever been in a house that big. It was a very interesting contrast to the house that we had spent the morning in which was basically 3 cement block rooms off a sand courtyard. I don't even think they had running water or room for everyone to sleep.

We spent the night at the Safari Club hotel that I mentioned before. Hot water, real mattresses and feather pillows!

We took a sept-place (Peugot station wagon that seats 7 passengers) back to Dakar in the morning but payed for 3 places for the 2 of us. We had the very back seat, which is normally the worst, but we had some extra room and were able to use the baggage in the back as a pillow, kind of. The ride back was about 4 hours and I somehow managed to sleep through a lot of it. Probably because it was so hot. The air was so so dry and I had a hard time beleiving that people live on the roads that we drove by. Nothing but sand and exhaust it seemed! I was happy that were just passing through some of the towns.... I guess I forgot how much pollution there is along those roads!

Not too much exciting since then. Went out to a club in Medina last night (Le Voyageur...Casie, did you ever go there?) I went this morning to look at a room to rent in a house in Amitié III (quiet neighborhood not too far from where I live now), which interestingly enough is not a neighborhood that exists on any map but is instead pretty much in SICAP Karack. Whatever. We had a very intesting time trying to find the place because the direction that the girl gave me said "go around a round point" and there was no round point. It was a U turn. After wandering around in the wrong direction, we asked a few people and finally figured it out (this is what usually happens here anyway). The room was NICE and hopefully I will be able to move in after the owners get back from Mecca, supposedly tomorrow. I almost have one of my goals accomplished!

So I guess these entries have been a little disjointed because I didn't get to a cyber cafe for a while after I get here and then Kris came. I'm going to try to go back to beginning a little more soon. Also, I will take requests for things that you want me to write about. I don't want the blog to get boring so tell me before it does!

Well, we're off to eat downtown. Kris is currently working on a guest post about her visit.

Emily