Days 20 and 21

Yesterday was my 4^th time going to Teen Bi. Each time I go it gets more fun because the kids recognize me. Before classes start I always enjoy pushing the younger kids on the swings. After dance class a few of the girls asked me to seesaw with them. After seesawing they decided they wanted to play with my hair. They kept telling me how pretty it was.

They were playing with my hair and asked me what my Senegalese and my "usual" names are. At the end the girl is doing part of the cheerleading dance I've been teaching them.

 For the dance class I’m teaching, I decided to introduce a type of dance the girls have never seen before—cheerleading dance. So far they have done extremely well with it! However, some of them have a difficult time grasping the concept of sharp, cheerleading motions. I’m somewhat hesitant to continue teaching them cheerleading because some of them look like they don’t really enjoy it. However, Erin, who helps me with the class, told me that she has seen some of the girls practicing after class what I’ve taught them. She also said that the oldest girls enjoy it, but they are scared of what their friends will think of it; they’re afraid it won’t be cool. I think for the next class I’m going to teach them some hip hop. For my last week I’ll see if they will teach me a traditional African dance.

Today for lunch we had the famous Senegalese dish, Ceebu jen. Ceebu jen is like the hamburger in America—everyone knows what it is, and it is extremely popular. Kari told me that 95% of the people would be eating Ceebu jen for lunch. It consisted of fish, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, onions, and a tomato paste all over rice. Because I don’t really like fish, Ceebu jen was not my favorite. Because I wasn't positive I would like it, we got it "to go" (since we got it "to go," we had to take our own bowls to bring it back to the house). If we had eaten at the restaurant the host would have been offended that I didn't eat it. Because food is a scarce commodity here, it is very important that you eat the food that is given to you. Even though I didn't really like ceebu jen, I did enjoy at least trying it!    

 Ceebu jen

 Last weekend we got an email saying the power cuts would be occurring more often because the power company is going bankrupt. Since then though the cuts haven’t been as bad as they said. But today Kari thinks we got good news. She got another email saying the power company was able to get a loan so we should have power more often!!! The email was in French so she thinks it relayed good news and not more bad news.