I slept in late today, which is a nice change from my usual weekday. Even though I had a lot of sleep, I still found it difficult to get up. I believe the reason for that may have been the medicine I took last night. Ever since I have arrived, I haven't felt good. I felt a little sick on the plane and the feeling just hasn't gone away. I think it will take a few days for my body to adapt to the environment in Senegal. Since I'm only staying a week, every day of not feeling well is more than I can afford.
Today, we went to Saly, a resort area in Senegal. The area was very nice; the building there had air conditioning and we decorated very nicely. Saly is right on the beach, so there is a nice view of the ocean. Shortly after arriving, we went to a few stores that are around here to buy some supplies. Once we got back to the building we were staying in, we just relaxed a bit and enjoyed watching some movies in the evening.
It was my first time out of Dakar since I had arrived in Senegal. On our way to Saly, we passed a lot of villages, so I was able to see what some of the villages outside of Dakar looked like. Since Saly is ocean, we drove North from Dakar and didn't go in toward the country. On our way to Saly, we stopped to get some food. My fiancee's father went to get to food while the rest of the family stayed in the car. After we waited for about three minutes a group of young children approached the car. The first thing they did was just stare and look at what was inside the car. After about a minute of looking at the car, one of the children started tapping on one of the windows. After they had been tapping for a while, my fiancee's mother took some candy that was in the glove compartment and handed the children some candy. After that, the children surrounded the car, tapping on the window a few times trying to get our attention. About a minute later, they left and went on their way. This was a new experience for me and felt a uncomfortable at first. In Indiana, if a group of children approached me like that, I would be very suspicious, as many people in Indiana would be. I was not used to children staring inside cars and tapping on windows.
After my fiancee's father returned with some food, we went across the street to buy some bananas. There was a group of woman selling bananas, so we drove up to one and bought some bananas. The woman we were buying the bananas from tried selling us as many bananas as possible. Of course, anyone selling products wants to sell as many as possible, but in Senegal, people are much more aggressive in their selling. The woman we were buying from stuck the entire basket of bananas in the car and was really pushes us to buy the bananas. What I really found interesting though was that when the other women found out we were buying bananas, they surrounded our car, trying to get us to buy bananas from them as well. So, here we were, surrounded by women trying to sell us bananas and nuts.
Having people surround me in a car was very strange for me. I knew I was safe and I didn't feel scared, but the whole feeling was just odd and I just wasn't sure how to react at first.
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