out on the town

Finally got to see what real Dakar night life is like this weekend. On Thursday, I went with some friends to this great burger place we found next to that trashy Le Mex club. I think discovering this place was the only good thing about that night. Then we headed over to Institute Français to watch a music group from Mali. I have never seen so many toubabs in one place! It actually made me a little uncomfortable and I questioned what and who the french cultural center was for. But the music was absolutely incredible and the space is really beautiful. For the first time, I started to feel like I actually really like Senegal now and am happy to be here. It only took me about six weeks...
I ended up running into some students from CIEE, including a girl who is friends with one of my good friends from highschool. We ended up making plans to go to another music the next night, so segue to :
Friday night, I meet up with a lot of other SIT students and we go to this tiny bar in Ouakam called "Chez Mendy" or something like that. It's really chill, drinks are cheap and they're playing american rap so of course we're all dancing. Most people ended up going home, but me and my friend went to go meet the girl from CIEE at Pen'Art. After a crazy taxi ride back to my area of Dakar, we walk into Pen Art which is absolutely packed from wall to wall. But of course it wasn't difficult to find Erica, considering there were very few toubabs. She was also with a friend and we ended up discovering that all four of us play ultimate at our colleges! Gah, it really made me miss the frisbee community more than I already do...anyways, the music there is really great and I can't wait to go back again. Especially because we left only an hour or so later to go to another great dance/live music club called Papaya in the very north of Dakar. While at Pen Art we met a guy who coordinates study abroad programs, and he invited us to go up there with him. Papaya was really cool, but everyone left pretty soon after we got there. The drummer or guitarist from the band started talking to us and told us we should go to another bar near where I live in Zone B. So we climb back in the taxi and go south again and arrive at this bar that's literally a block or so away from me. It's really crowded and we are definitely the only white people there. It was a very chill atmosphere though, and a nice place to end the night. Or really, the morning since it was about 6:30 AM when I got home.
Saturday night started off with the birthday party of one of the girls in our Program. She had it at her homestay, so of course we had lots of delicious Senegalese fair like these empanada things with fish and spices. Afterwards, I went to this club called Ozio in downtown Dakar to meet up with some guys from the Peace Corps who I had met at Pen Art the night before. This club was the nicest club I've ever been to in my life. But that's not saying much, because the club I frequent is the Mug. After sitting around there for far too long, we end up at....the YMCA.
what?
And not only that, they pronounce it "imca" here. So we get to imca and I cannot believe how man people are at this place. It is a sea of young senegalese. Pretty soon I'm learning to dance the mbaalax and just trying to stay awake, because it's about 3:30 AM or so at this point. Finally I can't take dancing with about 5 different guys anymore so I get a cab back home.

I am so glad that Ramadan is now over.
And we go to Kedougou on Friday for a week, but then it's my 20th birthday when we go back! Hopefully I'll get to go back to that nice thai restaurant and maybe back to the YMCA...