05JAN2012

I meant to post last night, but the power went out just after I started so I went to bed. Great day - though a little more sitting than I usually like. Pictures above are of our Wolof instructor, Binta; Phillipe Badji, the director of Senegal Lutheran Development Services; and Pr Thomas Joof of the Lutheran Church in Senegal. We had some very interesting conversations yesterday. Phillipe told us of the work that is going on in his organization, he really has his hands full! Pr Thomas spent a few hours in the afternoon explaining the Islam as it is in Senegal - quite a bit different from in much of the rest of the world. Great information for the start of the trip.

I have to get going. It's 8:00 here already (only 2:00 in MN right now). Here are the rest of the day's pictures if you'd like to see more.

Arrived this morning.

Just got in this morning. Long flight, had a little bit of a tour of town - not enough to remember anything yet. Managed to sneak in about a half an hour nap, but it should have been longer - didn't really miss a full night's sleep last night since it was only dark for about 4-5 hours. I'm really just here to get some kind of a first day post up & a few pictures. Nothing real exciting yet, but that might be better when everybody is rested a little anyway.

Here are the rest of the pics from today.

Heading to Senegal

It looks like I'll be spending most of January in Senegal, beginning in Dakar, and that seemed like enough of a reason to get another blog going. This will be a much shorter trip than last time, three weeks total. Tentatively, the first week will be spent brushing up on French, the official language of Senegal, and learning Wolof - the language that is actually spoken in most daily settings.

In case you are not quite sure where Dakar is at.

And, in case you aren't quite sure where to find Senegal.

I don't have much to add yet, similar process of forms & things as the last trip, it doesn't seem like that would need to be repeated. I'll be there to learn about Islam within a Muslim setting. The country is only about 5% Christian, but not as extreme as many Muslim countries and so offers a good learning context. It's too soon to say if I'll have regular access for posting or uploading pics, but I hope to a few times (weekly would be nice - we'll see). Being three weeks rather than 12, this will be a quite a bit shorter run, but hopefully interesting all the same.