We're now less than three months from my proposed COS (Close of Service) date. As in, I've been in this country for nearly two years (minus a couple weeks). More on that to come. But for now, I just wanna show you a few photo's from the last couple days. After an exhausting stretch of Dakar/Med, Peer Support Conference, Close of Service Conference, and All Volunteer Conference, I got back to St. Louis, my second home. I seriously needed a day of alone time before heading back to site, but ended up "stuck" here for four days (24 hours alone time, three meetings and some paper-work/emails). Finally going back tomorrow.

In Peace Corps med sessions they tell you to be vigilant in your self-care activities, and that you may find you have to essentially double them to deal with the stress of this life. Well, ... I love this life, but they weren't joking. And I would proudly say that this experience has actually improved my ability to create and care for positive self-care techniques. So, here's a couple I've engaged in in the last few days:

Cooking myself an excellent meal with market-fresh ingredients:

This is a tomatoe based vegetable and fish curry with fry bread. Soooo good.

Today when I realized I wasn't getting home today because my meeting went past 5:00, I decided to take the long way home. As I've mentioned before, sometimes just going for a walk through this city changes my whole perspective. I wandered through the market, and somehow got myself in a conversation with a henna artist. For the next ten minutes I was drawn on, surrounded by a crowd, being a celebrity. Sometimes it really hits the spot. Everyone wants to see the toubab that speaks Wolof...
So,First I agreed to 500 CFA. But that was for the Chinese hair dye that tears my skin apart. He said 1000 for the Indian henna. Although I never agreed, I knew I was caught. But he only did my indext finger and half of the work on my hand. So when he asked for his money I told him if I was gonna give him 1000, he better add to it. So I got the other three fingers and the side fill in. In the end he tried to get me to give him more, and although I refused, he still added the fingernails. ::shrug::



I moved along with my original plan: to buy some cheap solid-color cotton to do some bleach dying. AAfter going into six shops I finally found the perfect color. I bought it, walked home down the long, beautiful corniche... it was a bright and extremely windy day, and the cold-season migratory birds were bobbing on the choppy waters. Then I did this:

I left about a third of it un-dyed. It's 5 yards total. The plan is to take it all to a tailor and have them do something fabulous with it. :) I'll put pictures of that up in a bit.

Love, Senegal.