A Brief Message to Mom (abridged)

Hey Mom,

Its good to hear from you, and its nice to Know your concerned. The family situation is still quirky, but I have no qualms with it. My Malian cousins are great guys and my 5 yr old niece keeps everyone entertained. Its important to note, however, that this is really not strange for Senegalese family structure, especially for a family like mine whose children have all grown up and moved out. At the rate we host guests and exchange students, the Cardone compound might start looking like this place in a few years. I am saddened that there aren't more children as they always help with learning language, but I'm really getting a very important perspective on Dakar. Extended family and neighborly relations are VERY important here. The entire country is an extensive system of tighltly knit social networks, the broadest of which is simply the people you encounter on the street. Everyone is constantly looking out for eachother. Its really quite impossible for anything cruel to happen in public, at least in daylight. I feel safer here than I do in any other city, even when I'm walking alone.

A note on my blog entries, I'm writing these for family and for two academic institutions at the same time. I'm supposed to highlight cultural difference, ignorance, foiled expectations, and the like. I'm also 4 weeks behind in my blogging, so as it progresses you'll see comfort levels rise to the level that they're at now.

The gifts worked out fine. I still have the matchbox cars to give out. You need not send anything. I took a majority of my gifts to my village stay, which you'll be hearing about soon. As I distributed the little trinkets and toys which I thought would be such a hit, I realized that the village is really the essence of a collective society, and that many western toys are geared toward individual entertainment, Unfortunately, if something can't be shared in the village it really has no place there. The toys were received with great interest, but eventually only caused frustration. Before I left I bought a soccer ball for my village and donated my bandaged and antibiotic creme (supplemented with more from the market) for one of the children who had a significant wound on his hand. Medicare is very expensive in Senegal, an even emergency care requires payment before treatment. These gifts, though incredibly simple, turned out to be much more appreciated. A big lesson learned for john.
(all of the other gifts have been a great success, especially the bowl and kitchen towels).

Can't wait to talk to you more. I love and miss you all.
John

ps - Even with a steady schedule, Dakar has frequent power outages. We have less that 12 hours of electricity per day on average. So you really can't count on anything around here. I'll skype when I can.