Arrival

This will be my home for three weeks. I have never found myself so lost, so shocked, so completely out of place since maybe my first day of school in America. I've never seen such poverty, such degradation, in my life. As a rich white kid raised in Bethesda, Maryland, this place is the farthest thing from home I have ever seen. The levels of poverty are comparable only to the worst slums of Baltimore, the degradation only to the saddest parts of Nevada, the chaos is... a bit tamer than that of Naples. Rubble litters the streets, streets already dark at 8:30, streets filled with hordes of people. And there are so many children. I was born in Italy, a country where the average age is 45. This is a country where people under 18 seems to be a good 50% of the population. The average age is in fact 18.7, and it is the twenty-second youngest country in the world. As for the much-praised Senegalese hospitality, I have to say that the people we have come into contact with were all harsher, meaner, less welcoming than the previous. I feel out of place, friendless, alone in a country not made for me. When I turned on the shower, I felt my heart sink. As Anjeli said, this will be my home for three weeks. 

All in all, the trip went great. I woke up early, at 4:30 (Anjeli was still awake), and after a short breakfast, we headed to the train station. We arrived at the Florence station, where we finished all the controls in 20 minutes. I slept on the way to Paris. In Frace, we ate lunch, and it was a very uneventful stop. And then we arrived in Senegal. The airport was dingy and hot, the crowd huge and hostile. We were summoned into a small back room because of our passport and were soon released. The officers were terrifying and very mean. We had a chauffeur waiting for us, and he drove us to the bed and breakfast where my dad will be staying for the week. It's not too awful. It would be embarrassing and disgusting if we were in the West, but after looking out the window, I'm jut glad it has four walls, a roof, and a bed. 

So far, I'm terrified. I have no idea how I'll make it three weeks. This is the first day, and first impressions aren't always true, but I'm very scared. The worst thing is that I'll be completely alone in a different world.