have your cake and eat it too

I was in charge of making birthday treats today. I made the famous crumb cake that calls for….drum roll…a box mix. My roomie commented, “Whoa Annie. You’re going all out.” It sounds funny that box cakes are a treat, especially since we have homemade (as in from scratch) cakes quite frequently. There’s just something about a box cake here that makes it melt in your mouth and taste like the most wonderful dessert. I guess that can be said about a number of American foods, especially peanut butter. I think it’s the transatlantic travel…it infuses something into the product…lol.

I’m so excited to come home. It’s hard to believe I’ll be home in about 3 weeks. Sometimes I feel like I just blinked and the entire semester passed.


The fridge drama continues…we are now back to living out of a freezer for the rest of the year. I’ll let you know how it goes.

More to come from life in Senegal…

yay yay

Happy Note of the Day: Fridge is fixed again...for like the 4th time. No electrical currents yet ;)

That's all...hehe

Just another day

So this weekend I had an unusual, yet usual day. It sort of encompasses how much life is different here.

I took a bold step and drove a car home from work. It was my first time driving a stick shift by myself. It was early enough in the day that I knew I wouldn't encounter any traffic. I backed up okay, got it into first, and then didn't stop until I parked the car. Let’s just say it was a slow Sunday drive. :)

Then my roomie and I went to Ngor Island. We always seem to have adventures when we go there. The water was really rough so they handed us life jackets. The boats to transport us are not sturdy metal boats. They are wooden fishing boats with motors attached to them. People have told me they have tipped on occasion. Let's just say I muttered a prayer for safety. We made it there in one piece, a bit wet, but at least I didn't fall this time.

We had our time of devotions as we watched the waves crash into the rocks. Then we moved to get a different perspective to read. My roomie nudges me and says “There is a naked man behind us. He’s walking.” We were like, “Do we move? What do we do?” We don’t want to look. Fortunately he bent down and started bathing. It’s common here I guess. Not everyone has indoor plumbing. The people bathe outside in the house down the way from our apt. It’s pretty common to see people going to the bathroom outside as well.

My roomie and I are now living without a fridge for the last month of school. It keeps going out and sending out electric currents when we touch it (not shocks but an actual current). We'll see how this goes. Fortunately I am a Pettit so I know how to live out of a freezer. (Thanks for the preparation Grandma and Dad.) I took the evening to cook up my food and freeze it. Now let’s hope our freezer doesn’t go out as well. :)

the other side of the box

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to hand out some of the shoeboxes that are filled for Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan's Purse. My roommate and some of her 4th grade students partnered with a church to hand out boxes to some of the Sunday School students. I have always enjoyed filling the boxes in the States so I was excited for this opportunity.

It was really so global. Half of my roommate’s students were there, and they represented 6 birth countries: US, Canada, Nigeria, Korea, China, and Russia. The boxes came from the US and Canada, and here they were being distributed to Senegalese children.

There was a little program, talk, and then the boxes were handed out. It’s hard to describe in words really. It started out with about 30 people there. It was done outside because the church meets in a garage. Then it kept growing and growing and growing. That’s what happens here. If there is an event happening, especially with Toubabs, people just come.

It was a great lesson in culture as most of the kids quietly walked up to get their box and they returned to their place without opening it. I learned here that they don’t really show emotion when it comes to things like this. You could tell they were pleased though.

We ran into a small problem towards the end…Perhaps you have already figured it out.

You see, the church had a set number of boxes for their kids. Other kids kept coming to watch (including one of my Jenga partners from the center I volunteered at over Spring Break). There was one box left. While happiness and joy may not be readily expressed in public among the Wolof, aggression is (not mean aggression if that makes sense). The poor 4th graders got pinned against the cars as kids kept trying to grab the last box. We all made it out in one piece.

A good reminder:
I’ve mentioned several times how I “forget” I live in Africa. At first, I kept thinking that the shoe boxes are packed for children in poverty so I wondered why they were being distributed here. You, being the reader may be thinking, “duh Annie. You are living in one of the poorest countries in the world.” That is true, but when I go about my day-to- day business, I forget about it. It doesn’t hit me until I take a step back. For example, I looked at the pictures from the event and thought, “This looks like Africa. I don’t remember it looking like this when I took the pictures.”

*I hope to have more pics uploaded to Facebook so you can see this wonderful event.