What my days are like

Now that I have had all of my classes at least once, I feel like I can give a pretty good sense as to what my schedule is here. Starting on Monday mornings, I get up around 8am, get ready and my host mom brings my breakfast into my room. It consists of a pot of tea, some sugar cubes, a mini baguette and a tub of butter and a tub of chocolate spread (like nutella, only not). I get ready in my room, and then meet up with my friend Alec at 8.40ish and we walk to school together. On Monday and Wednesday's my schedule is the same, so at 9am I have Wolof class, until 10.45. The class only has four people in it, which is really great because it allows us to work on our Wolof in an intimate setting and really do our best to get things down. Our professor is a Senegalese in his 20's who is very energetic and also answers a lot of our cultural questions. In Wolof we are working on getting down the different conversation tools we need to have, and we will eventually get more into the grammar. Wolof is very interesting because it only started to be written down in the 1980's, so it is very new in their education system, so we as students/foreigners will probably end up knowing the grammar better than the native Senegalese.
At 11am I have my Histoire D'Islam class, which is taught in French. In this class there is five students, so another nice and small setting. The course will start by focusing on Islam in general, but we will eventually work our way into looking at Islam in Senegal. Studying a religion in a country where it is so prevalant and surrounds me everywhere (especially since I live behind a Mosque and hear the calls to prayer 5 times a day) it will really enrich my experience here to better understand the religion that is so important to so many people (including my Muslim homestay family). The professor for this class gave us a long list of his various credentials and is clearly knowledgable about Islam, and he tends to lecture past the time of class ending, so we'll have to learn to give him warnings about it being over. But it is always great to have such an energetic professor. I then have from 12.45 until 2.30 free, and I usually stay on campus for lunch. They typically don't eat lunch here until about 2pm, so it is easier for me to stay here and eat a sandwich or go to the cafeteria (both very cheap options), than to do the 15 minute walk home, wait for lunch to be ready, scarf it down and then rush back to school.
At 2.30 I have my French Class, and I was placed into Advanced 2, where there are 9 students and one professor who speaks very quickly. For the most part I can understand what is being said. The course seems like it will be a mixture of grammar review and then topic discussions. At some point I have to read a book (preferably by a French African writer) and give a presentation, so hopefully I will manage to pick out a good one. It will be good for me to have the grammar review, but it doesn't seem like that will be the sole focus of the course, which is a relief for me. Also, on Wednesday's, instead of having two hours of french, we have one our of French followed by one hour of phoenetics. It seems like it will be an amusing course, and just getting down the pronunciations and the different nuances. The best thing about this professor is that he has got a laugh just like James Earl Jones- I nearly fell out of my chair laughing (with him, not at) at one point.
At the end of the day I usually hang out around campus, and maybe go watch a footbal (soccer) game that students play in- maybe some day I'll even join in for a game myself! I will probably vary what I end up doing with my afternoons, and since dinner usually happens at 8.45 or 9pm, I have plenty of time in the afternoon to do things. The only thing that I have to be aware of is how quickly it gets dark out and to make sure that I dont end up walking home alone. The neighborhood that I live in, Mermoz, is a relatively safe one, but it is typically a better idea to walk home in pairs or more. If I am in my area (at the telecentre calling home for example) it is perfectly fine for me to walk the two blocks home on my own.
In the evening I hang out with my family or read a little bit in my room. My little brothers get very excited whenever I come home, and love to play around with me and show me different things. It's good fun to come home to people who are so excited to see you, but sometimes peace and quiet would be nice. I can usually manage to get into my room alone for a little bit, but one of the kids is bound to eventually come to my room to seek out some playtime. When I hang out with the family we spend time in the living room, where the TV is always on, without fail. They watch a lot of music videos, dubbed over spanish soap operas and a few local programs. At night there is always an American movie (not always of the best quality) that is played. Being around the TV is more of a social thing, and everyone sits around and chats, but it simply astounds me (yes, me, TV lover) how often the TV is on! After dinner, depending on my plans, I either hang out at home and then go to bed around 10.30, or I go out with my friends for a drink and stay out until about 12. It's only been a week in our homestays, but I'm sure that the schedule will differ from this, but for now it seems to work quite well.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have the same morning schedule, and walk to school with Alec (I have all my classes with him), and I have Anthropoligie Sociale des Cultures Africaines (taught in French) from 9-10.45, and this class has 7 people, so another nice and small environment. Another interesting course, that I am very curious to see where it leads to. All of my courses tie in together very well, and have overlaps that I feel will help me to get a better overall understanding of Senegal and Africa. I then have a break from 10.45 until 4.30 (typically I blog after the first class) and since the break is so long, I go home for lunch. Lunch is the most important meal of the day as well as the biggest, so it is important that I make the effort to be around for lunch, and Tues/Thurs definetly make the most sense for me to head home for lunch. From 4.30-6.15 I have Senegalese Culture and Society (taught in English) with everyone from my program (35 people) taught by the director of our program and full of guest lecturers. It might get a little bit redundant with my other courses, but I think that it will be a nice break to have a course in English.
As for Friday's, well those are a day to do what I want (gotta love a 3-day weekend!), so if I ever go out of town to other parts of Senegal I will be able to go for a bit longer, or it will be a useful homework day. I'm not positive what I'll do with that time, but it sure will be nice!
That's about it, yet another long post!