  tonight my roommate and i talked a little about the roommate hunt. she wants a boy. girls are catty. i agree, so start painting the room blue, for $500 a month, furnished or unfurnished. somehow that led to a discussion about africans vs. europeans, or, more accurately, non-american white people vs. non-american black people.
i told her about being the only white american surrounded by french-speaking congolese men all last weekend and how disorienting it was by the end of it. and about how exposure to that now is good for when i actually go to africa in january. but she said i was wrong about that.
she studied in switzerland for a year through an exchange program. at the end of it, when she met up with her swiss counterpart who studied in zimbabwe while dionne roughed it out near the alps, the swiss girl remarked how difficult it must have been for dionne because the zimbabweans were generally extremely accommodating and highly sensitive to the feelings of exclusion and isolation that she felt as a stranger. europeans are generally not that warm, the swiss girl said. all the congolese i have met so far fit the opposite mold, and chara has told me the same thing as dionne about the senegalese.
you'll fall in love and never want to leave dakar, she said. that actually might be a bit of a sticking point for me. i need to learn to let people be nice to me instead of mounting suspicions. that stops as soon as i come back to the states, though. 
