Quickly Approaching

This time next week I will already be in Dakar for 12 hours which is unreal and hard to grasp. We have been very busy preparing and becoming more informed on the area in which we will be living in for three weeks. Although it is a very exciting and once in a lifetime opportunity my nerves and anxieties are beginning to take hold and kick in. I have been doing a great deal of research on the education foundations and laws over there as well as the comparisons to United States as well. Although I wish I had more details on what I will be encountering while I am abroad I really have no idea at this point. But am beyond excited to share along the way. What I do know is that it will be the first time we are traveling to the developmental school which will be very eye opening and full of new learning opportunities, heartbreak, and hope. I just recently went and purchased school supplies that I will be giving to the children at the school I will  be working in, they are always loving pens, pencils, and paper--it is very expensive over there. Aside from working on my own work within the school, we as a group will be traveling to the following places:

- NGOs Museums, Art galleries, Craft markets

- Pikine

- Supermarkets

- Angela Davis School

- IFANN Museum

- Yoff

- Goree Island

- Mariame Niasse School

The hotel that we will be staying in is located in the heart of the city with great store fronts surrounding us, I hope the first day will be filled with lots of pictures of the surrounding areas and our hotel. I will be rooming with other girl from my program and am very excited to be spending my journey with a familiar face, but all nine of us that are going all bring something to the table and that is refreshing and we all share a common passion for working while over there. While I am hoping that at nights I will be able to blog about my daily adventures I am not 100% that we will always have power, therefore we will be living with headlamps and laughter I'm sure. I hope to blog and post pictures as much as possible. I am also working on bringing a flip-cam which will allow me to capture video along the way which would be rather amazing! The weather in Kalamazoo has been a great reminder that although it is great to be lounging by the pool in 85 degree plus weather next week I will be covered in long skirts and shirts with head wraps on in 90-100 degree weather with high humidity---makes me thankful for shorts already. I look forward to updating later this week on a couple other things we have been working on in class--including tomorrow I will post about the University in which we are invited to in order to study while we are over there. For now I leave with a video from a documentary that we watched last week within this video there are glimpses into the Dakar looks like and the people that we will be surrounded by. It has a powerful message, and we are looking into being able to go to his music club one night while there, the music over there is supposed to be amazing!!!

Have a great Sunday!!