less happy news

So I thought this information should be put into a separate post than the rest, because it is so much less cheerful, and it should not cloud any other happiness that is a result of my trip to Senegal.

So my (or, more litterally, my mom's) iPod was stolen two days ago. I left it in my room next to my bed, where I often leave it, when I went to school on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, when I went to get it so I could listen to it while I ate breakfast, it wasn't there, where I had left it. I tore my whole room apart and it is nowhere to be found.

I'm upset on so many levels, but what is most upsetting is simply that I often get hit by random pangs of homesickness or frustrated boredom, and sometimes the easiest and most comforting solution is to listen to some music that is familiar and special to me.

I have a feeling that these next three weeks will be the hardest simply because I won't have that one single American comfort that gets me through the rough spots. The good news, though, is that it is ONLY three weeks, with a finite end, and very soon I will come home and have so many other Western comforts that it won't even be as important of a loss to me anymore.

I am trying to not let this cloud my idea of Senegal or of being abroad or of my host family or even of my karma/luck. Things like this can happen in any house, in any country, in any situation, no matter how careful or careless one is. Perhaps the door was left unlocked for even 5 minutes and someone got in.

A few weeks ago, Ndeye Thioune forgot to lock the door behind her after she left for school, and I was asleep and Khady was asleep, and my mom was in the shower, and somehow somebody came in in that 10-minute window that my mom was in the shower, and stole 30,000 Francs (~60 USD) and her cell phone out of her bedroom. My Islam professor shared a similar story about how one of the street children snuck into his house and took his briefcase with his iPhone, camera, wallet, and other valuables.

It's a big city where the poverty rate is high, and people are hungry and desperate. It's no excuse to steal, and it still makes me angry beyond belief, but I know that an iPod in a developing country is a luxury and an invitation to be robbed.

Now I have learned my lesson...