My endeavor to have internet in my hut is progressing. Last week, I went to the Orange boutique in Koungheul to acquire information on having internet installed in. The worker (forthwith known as the “idiot”) was a complete dunce and I let my American culture come out in a flurry. First, the idiot didn’t know anything about the bandwidths or the prices or the installation process. When the idiot finally located the prices on the net with his computer, I asked him to email me the link and he promptly informed me it wasn’t possible! I asked him if it truly was impossible, or if he just didn’t know how to do it. And at that point, any hope of getting info is lost. Luckily, he did inform me I needed to send in a demand to the office in Kaffrine.

So the next day I asked my counterpart how to write a demand and he was actually surprised that I didn’t know. At least I knew what one was, thanks to a story I read in a French class in college. It’s a request for something written in formal French and looks much like a memo. I told my counterpart that demands are not commonplace in the US, and I left out why. After writing the demand, I sent it in and then I waited. Remember, lots of waiting in Senegal.

After a few days I received a call from the office in Kaffrine informing me that I needed to go in person to the office! The idiot never said anything about this. There was no way around this and so I was off to kaffrine. It took me two hours in a sept place to reach the office and, after finding the office, I signed up for what I wanted. The only thing that concerns me was the technican who will install the internet next week was the guy who filled out the paper work. I have receipts for everything, but this is Africa and one cannot be too careful. He did tell me that I would have to pay an additional CFA 10,000 ($20) for installation and I could pay it while I was at the office or when he comes in install the internet. This makes no sense, so I refused to pay it on the spot and I need to call the customer service again to get information about this so-called “installation.”

On an unrelated topic, the children of the house have started school this week, and I’ve gotten a glimpse into the education system of Senegal. My assumption was that is very much a European system of education, with a French influence. Well, I certainly see the French influence, but I don’t think it is as rigorous. The children start later and there is no preschool. Children may attend school anywhere from 5 years to 8 years of age but they cannot partake in the class, they may only listen and watch. At eight years old, they begin school and start as we have in the States with the ABCs and reading. Why they start late, I don’t know. Maybe there is backlog in the school system. I do know that there can be around 50 children in the class and teachers are not paid well. So one afternoon, the children were reviewing what they had done in class that day and I got involved by giving them simple addition problems. I noticed right away that the 8 year old could do more than the 10 year old. I knew they started later, but I could tell something wasn’t quite right. I later found out that the 10 year is now retaking, for the third time, the first level, and is in the same class as the 8 year old, his cousin. Not much reinforcement at home, as his mother is dead, his father is MIA, and the adults here have no formal education. For the past few days, I’ve been working with him on the ABCs and simple addition and he can’t retain anything. I sing the ABCs in French, by section, and ask him to repeat it and he can’t. I wrote out the ABCs with every other one missing, and he can’t complete the blanks, even after stopping to sing the song again. I showed him the same math problem 4 times and on the 5th, I gave it for him to do, and he couldn’t. He just laughs and smiles. My outlook is grim. At least he lives in a country wrought full of manual labor. Right now, as I’m typing this, he is stilling on my floor counting his plastic Fanta bottle tops that he keeps in his Micky Mouse backpack, and soon, he’ll probably get up and start going through my trash again. He loves to open the yogurt packages and lick what is left.