Le Meridien President Dakar

... apartment through N'Gor village. He walked me all the way to the main street, probably way out of his way, just to be hospitable. I came back to the apartment radiant after such a great day of really interacting with locals and speaking French.

On Thursday, Kareem had arranged for me a tour of Dakar and Ile de Goree with a local guide, Doudou, and a driver. Doudou went to university for geography and history and is a wealth of information about ...

... slaves were kept before being taken to America. Lucy had an interesting moment when someone asked her 'how does this make you feel?' as if she was responsible for the entire slave trade! Very funny to watch from the sidelines. As well as doing the tourist thing me and Lucy were living in the lap of luxury, a hotel room with a flushing toilet, a sink to brush our teeth in and a hot shower!! After having gone 5 weeks without any of the above in my ...

... Ashley, Candace, and Haley. I hang out with Ashley a lot on board and Haley goes to Clemson with me but all the other girls I just met for the first time. It's a good group though and I am thankful that my living learning coordinator Jason has done such a good job at organizing small group and planning worship. I have heard that on past voyages many of the extra activities provided on board are student led ...

... aos endinheirados que possam desembolsar a soma necessaria para se alojarem nos hoteis à beira-mar. O Senegal, como a maior parte dos paises não produtores de petroleo e sobretudo paises africanos que estupidamente acabaram por se dedicar à monocultura de matérias primas, esta a atravessar uma fase complicada, derivada mais que obviamente da crise mundial dos ultimos tempos, sobretudo ligada ao preço do petroleo e aos créditos de risco (subprimes). nos estados ...

... why we wouldn't just take a taxi. Just fyi a take would have cost about 12000 (ãbout $30) francs where the bus was about 400 (about $1). The fishing village was interesting. We had a guide show us around and it was a very enjoyable afternoon. We were quite amusing for the local childrn who would run up to us yelling toubabs, toubabs and coming up and saying hello or showing us a fish they had caught. This one little ...

... med student who I discussed medical issues with, as well as, a very tall Senegalese man who took up his seat and half of mine. He kept falling asleep and slowly leaning further and further my way until I would wiggle a little and bump him back over into his section. Right now, I am eating fresh mango which is delish and slamming cups of coffee to get through the day. We are going to Pikine which is one of poorest neighborhoods in Dakar with my mom's ...

... of stalls to let someone pass. As soon as you step "into" (by a foot) someones stall space, you immediately provoke a vociferous and loud welcome ... "salaamaleekum, regardez-monsieur, many tissus, beautiful "wax" (wax dyed cloth), haut qualite". At the heart of all this .... if you can work your way in there .... are the really good little stalls. The holies of holies .... probably the most expensive to rent, and with the best stuff. I found one, with fabulous fabrics (more ...

... a friend in another village and doing a 40 k bike ride to the famous bird park of St. Louis, Dakar was hardly relaxing. However it does bring some perks, like the super market, free modern dance show at the French cultural center, great great Lebanese food and Thai (which was eaten on my birthday) and fun surrounding islands like Ils de la Madelene and Ngor Island. I got my fix of nature and exploring and am now ready to return to the ...

I wouldn't say anything as clichéd as "this is the life" or anything like that, both because it's not that great here, and clichés are to be avoided like the, uh, peste, by any writer worth his, uh, paper (dodging clichés can be difficult). Of course I hear people refer to Thailand as 'paradise' and I don't know what they mean. I guess it can be an ego booster for someone with low self-esteem, though perhaps the opposite for ...