Mbour Day 3

We have been in Mbour for 3 nights and 2 days. The group is having so much fun on the beach especially since the village was probably one of the most difficult experiences of any of our lives (and the complete opposite of a tropical paradise). Nonetheless, Mbour is beautiful, it's the tourist capital of Senegal meaning that we have been bombarded by locals trying to sell us their overpriced goods and services, but despite all of that it has been quite relaxing. The beach is excellent and the food, superb. However, Mbour has not just been lounging around and eating mangoes while watching Maren attempt to peel a banana with her feet, the days have been busy. Today and yesterday we visited an orphanage, and while we were there the group played with babies ranging from a few months to about three years old. The minute I walked into the room adorable little babies literally ran into my arms trying to get picked up. But it was not as upsetting as I expected it to be, the kids are obviously well taken care of and the room was constantly filled with laughter and play. Then this afternoon we went to a village about an hour away from Mbour, and hung out at a mango farm that belongs to Youssou, who is a teacher at Lick. It was pretty awesome, but unfortunately I was unable to find any ripe mangoes there.
I have posted a nice, little video of Ethan dancing at a festival in the village called, "Le Faux Lion". The performers would pick out random "Toubabs" in the crowd and bring them out to the center to dance for the forty plus people who paid 100 CFAs to get in.
We have also had many people taking pictures so feel free to check them out at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/113671569896356801963
And for those of you who actually want to hear my personal opinion about the trip thus far I will give it to you. I am absolutely in love with this trip, not because I am living in the lap of luxury, but because almost everywhere I go I see something that rivets me. I think that it's experiences like this that make people question the purpose of their existence, as complicated and perhaps pointless as that may be. My African family spoke to me a lot about how impoverished their community is, and how envious they were of me because I come from a place that is blindly centered around wealth. And every time they brought it up, I explained to them that although excessive amounts of money is fairly ubiquitous, Americans don't have anywhere near the same amount of purpose as the people here do. I think that at home we wake to "succeed", but here they wake to just breathe. I feel that at home success is constantly defined by how much money you have made at your job, but here money means nothing if you have no one to share your wealth with. My family did absolutely everything in their power to make me as comfortable and content as possible, even if that meant they would have significantly less than me. I had never believed in true selflessness before this trips, but that's it, and as corny as it sounds, it's beautiful.
In any event, for those of you going through an identity crisis at this point in time, go to a place like this, and I can promise you that you'll come back with a complete understanding of who you are.