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well, I’m going to start this little shout out from France with some news about France. I quote from the BBC:

“Floyd Landis, grew up a Mennonite – a Christian community which rejects any influence from the modern world – in Farmersville, Pennsylvania, without television, computers or alcohol.”

Ok, so I’m positive that the BBC got the definition of Mennonite wrong, but he still won the Tour. I’ll keep it quiet while here that I’m one, an American, and two, a Mennonite. It has to be a sore subject right now.

We’re in Deisenheim, a rural, small farming village near the French city of Colmar and also the Swiss and German borders. There is a German influence on the lifestyle and architecture here. We’re staying with Heidi and Paul Lehman, friends of the family.

Its so quiet and peacefull here. We’ve again found the close knit community feel of Senegal that we missed so much in Paris. We play with their kids and enjoy things that we’d forgotten about the past 3 monts, like the taste of fresh milk, brewed coffee, pancakes, eggs cooked without grease, etc.

Its also been an unique language experience. Paul and Heidi live in the same ‘compound’ as his parents, as they’ve held on to their traditional swiss-german. Therefore, the kids are learning Swiss-German, Engish, and French… we’re all jealous.

Tomorrow we head out for a Medieval Castle… the one time period in history that I’m sure I would not want to live in.

We made it to France.

I’ll admit, we were in a sorry state by the time we reached our apartment in Paris. I for one, hadn’t slept in over 26 hours and we had just lugged our copious amounts of luggage through the airport, trains, and metro system. so many stairs… so much sweat. We decided to stay in Paris that night and rest up before heading to Nice.

We’ve been getting our meals from the local supermarkets and shops, keeping a list of the cheese that we’ve tried. The streets are extremely clean and quiet in France, a switch from Senegal. Its great to lay out our Senegalese pagnes in the park and enjoy a tomato/cheese/zuchinni sandwich… or even a liter of chocolate ice cream.

Ok, so we’re in Nice now and we got here by a not-so-sleep-friendly night train. Again, were dead tired and spent the first half of our day here sleeping. The Med. sea was a great refresher from carrying around luggage, plus I discovered that I can float again thanks to salt water… it’s been years. Tomorrow we’ll head to Colmar, in the Alsace region.

I love hearing French in public and on the street, not something Senegal was good at thanks to Wolof.

right now I’m 32 minutes away from my computer timing out and only 7 hours away from catching a cab to the airport. time flies!

We’ve spent the last few days in Dakar with the whole group as well as some nights with our host families. I am again grateful for their hospitality and their continued invitation to come back whenever. ‘our house is your house. just call and we’ll prepare a room.’ Senegalese hospitality (teranga) is top-knotch and I’ll never forget how it feels to give and recieve it in the future.

Good grief, how does one put closure on 3 months in Africa? What has changed? what have I learned? I sure don’t know quite yet, but I do know one thing… Everything seems ‘normal’ now. Walking the streets, living with my family, communicating in French, greeting everyone and their neighbor with ‘salam alakum,’ eating rice and fish while sitting on the floor, bucket showers, crappy taxis, etc. Whatever has been odd, different, or flat out bizzare in the past is now ‘normal.’ It feels good and I don’t especially want to leave it. In the next two weeks I’ll make my way back in to Western and American culture and likely be reminded about alot of forgotten things and definelty notice things for the first time.

We leave tonight for France where Alex, Alana, Emily, Kate and I will spend a few days each in Nice, Colmar, and Paris. In Nice we’ll be bunking up in Hostels. In the Alsace region we’ll be welcomed by Heidi Lehman (Schamback) and in Paris we are ever so lucky to be apartment sitting for Kates friend. More about France later

This is the last that you’ll hear from me in St Louis. Tomorrow I’ll spend the whole day with my family at the house before leaving Saturday for Dakar. It seems like we just got here yesterday and not like we’re catching a flight out of Senegal in less than a week.

We said goodbye to the students and teachers at the horticulture school (although 4 of the girls are still with us at the cyber and afterwards for lunch). I’m not sure if I’m ready for all of the upcoming goodbyes. The fact that my host brother might be studying engineering in Montreal this winter helps ease the goodbyes a little. I’ll definetly cross into the maple leaf state to see him if he does.

thats about all for now, I’ll probably post one last time while in Dakar. after that it’s France!

Our 4 day adventure to the southern villages was great. I spent the night in 3 different villages with different students and their families. Village life is alot more laid back than the city, plus people are more relaxed and content to make casual conversation.

It was also a relief to see some ‘natural beauty’ for the first time. being an outdoor/camping nut, it was getting a little depressing to constantly see a flat terrain of sand, rocks, garbage, and scum water in Dakar and St Louis. As we went south it became greener and greener. In the villages you hear the birds in the morning instead of traffic and loud senegalese music. By the way, roosters don’t only crow in the morning.

For the most part, I realized that 4 walls and a roof is home, no matter if there is running water or not, thatched or steel roof, concrete or tile, etc.

new experience: sleeping while constantly sweating. When cold, you can always warm up by moving around or getting a blanket. When hot, there is no escape. You’re laying on sweat soaked foam mattress at 1am, already as inactive as you can possibly be with no sheets. What do you do? It’s enough to drive you mad with frustration and helplessness to the heat and fatigue.

after a day of 2 transport buses (cheap but packed to the max) and 2 peugeot 505s, Brad and I returned to St Louis and it honestly felt like home. We knew the fares (much to the dismay of dishonest taxi-drivers) the layout of the city and the language. Add that to the fact that we have beards and we are far from being tourists.

three cramped taxis, a few thousand CFA, and 5 hours was all it took to travel south to the villages where the rest of the groups is. It’s a switch from the Urban Senegal that I’ve been in for the past 2.5 months but its great.

we’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing and hanging out… hopping from village to village visiting people.

Yes, it really is square huts with thatched roofs.

Yesterday I went to Church for the first time in Senegal. One thing is for sure… no matter where you are it is difficult to get out of bed on Sunday morning. It was a small baptist church (the size of two dorm rooms) in the same complex as the health clinic that I’ve started visiting and observing at. Many songs carried the same familiar tunes but with French translations. I hope I never forget the sound of the little girls singing, “victoire! victoire!” between the chorus and the verses

It rained this morning for 10 minutes (rain count: 2) and it wasn’t really that hard of a rain either. However, drainage doesnt exist here and it flooded many roads and walkways around the city. whew… I hope I don’t have to experience a full day of rain here.

My world cup final prediction: Germany vs France (2-1)

My camera was stolen last week so I thought of a new method of pictures…

Yesterday I took my GPS and marked the coordinates of a few of the places I visit daily. Use Google Earth or Terraserver to look at them via satellite.