Settling into the culture

Now we have been here for three weeks, it is almost unreal that it hasn't been that long. In that time we landed, orientated to Dakar, started living with a host family and began taking classes, all while learning about the culture around us. My family that I am living with in Dakar, needs some explanation, as they are important, fun, and confusing to explain! First off there is the mother, father and aunt (no, I don't know names, I am terrible with names here because they are all so round sounding they roll off my tongue and out of my head), all of whom are at least in their 80s.

After the older generation there is my sister, who seems to be in her mid 20s, and my brother, Alioune and his wife who live upstairs next to me. They have four children, Moussa is 11, Sheriff is 8, Hjadi (I believe that is her name) is 4 and the baby Daba is just over 1 month. My brother and mother are the ones I have the most communication with, as they both speak French fluently and are interested in my life. There are also four female maids that live with the family, all of whom are in the their mid teens, and one adult male driver who drives the family car. I try to make connections with the maids, as they are closer in age to me, however they are always busy when I am home and so it is hard to make connections. To Americans, having maids is an odd concept, but here it is very natural. In the Islamic religion, giving back to people, and so if you are wealthy it is expected that you help others by giving them jobs, rather then spending the money on yourself.They are very generous with me, and it's been nice that they allow me to come and go as I please, but I wish that there was more that I could do with them. My mother owns a boutique where she and the man that works there make hand made traditional clothes (the equivalent would be a tailor). I have been talking to the man who works there, and when I get back from the village stay I will be able to help him with some of the clothes. I also hope that he will be able to make me a traditional outfit for Tabaski, which is a big celebration here on November 7th.
We had two weeks of classes and getting used to life in Dakar, which was great because I ended up getting sick. Everyone gets sick here at least once, but it was nevertheless a very tough situation to be in. My family especially had a hard time understanding that I was really sick, and that I needed to eat plain simple foods. Here, rice is eaten with every meal, but it is smothered in sauce and a little bit of meat. Generally, I love this food, but when I was sick, I did not want to eat it. I will spare you the gross details, but I basically didn't eat much at home, had bread from street vendors, and slowly gained strength back. By the time we were ready to leave for our week long excursion, I felt much better! The next update will be from my village stay, but it will just be photos, as it is very difficult to explain everything that happened there. In essence, we stayed in a village for 3 days/nights, in a family that hardly spoke french, just Wolof. I am having a blast, and enjoying every minute so much! Here is a picture on our afternoon off from classes, and we decided to go to the beach, what a life we have!