the beach is better in winter

Hi everyone! First of all, Patriots suck. Dave even got to watch the game at the residence of the Marines who guard the American embassy, and because of the time change it went on past 3 in the morning. Not worth it. Moving on. I had the most awesome weekend. On Saturday I took a boat out with some friends to this small island just off the coast of Dakar called Ile de la Madeleine. It's a low, flat island made of volcanic rock that's home to hundreds and hundreds of birds. Once you go around the main strip of land, there's a small cove that's probably one of the top ten most beautiful places I've ever been. It's surrounded by pillars of basalt that form a natural barrier from the Atlantic waves, and inside is a calm, deep pool that you can swim in. It's full of little fish and crabs and coral. We spent all afternoon there, then we took naps for a bit and went out dancing all night. It's a little weird to be taking classes in development here. I'm pretty well-covered in terms of my Senegalese history, because Iv'e already written some papers on it, so a lot of what we study is review for me. We haven't had many debates about the different perspectives and possible courses of development, which is what interests me, and the ones we have had are pretty mundane, like is globalization good or bad. I'm definitely not here for the classes. But Wolof and Microfinance are each really good. We don't have much homework, but a lot of writing assignments and a lot of class hours every week. I'm starting to shadow one of my friends, who's here on a Fulbright, as she interviews women involved in microfinance around Dakar. I'm really excited for it. Also, this weekend, Dave and I and another friend are thinking about taking a shuttle car down to this small fishing town on the coast south of here, just to explore. Apparently they have tours (by boat) of the mangroves there, and you can stay in a hostel on the island itself. In other news, I'm not sure what the situation will be with my host family in the next few days. Everything's fine on our end, but Mantou's cousin died in the Gambia suddenly of an illness, and she needs to go down for his funeral. I don't know if Patrick will go too, but if he does I imagine that they will find us a temporary host family. I don't think they'll let us stay on our own. We'll figure it out. I think it's time for class, so I'll talk to you later. Ciao!