Day 16: C'est lundi. /It's Monday.

Last night at dinner, I got the sense that Michel was upset that I hadn't stayed down at the soirée for very long with my friends. One of my goals for tonight - which I accomplished! - was to reassure him that we had tons of fun at the soirée and we just didn't know how to salsa so we felt a little goofy. He reassured me that it's not a problem that we don't know how to salsa, nobody notices, the Americans just do their thing and nobody stares or anything. He then informed me of when all the other soirées will be. I'm psyched to go!

When talking to Claudie last night, telling her something similar about how we didn't know how to salsa, she said I could try a class, try learning how to salsa. She told me the days and times - there are two different classes. I thanked her very much and told her I'd love to try, thanks for the offer.

This weekend, Michel went to a market (at 5am on Saturday morning!) and bought tons of fruit. He then showed me all the fruit he had bought and then told me he had noticed that I was only eating one piece of fruit breakfast. He told me I should eat more than one at breakfast, bring one to school if I wanted, and/or eat one as a snack between lunch and dinner when I return home from school. Almost a whole shelf of the fridge was filled with fruit - bananas, apples, pears, kiwis, and clementines!

Today I had two classes - history and political science. Both classes are still my hardest classes, and I really have to focus and concentrate to follow what is going on. It is good practice for when I start my class at the University (which I still haven't selected because they still haven't posted the schedule) and the professor will speak "normal" speed.

I finished my first container of Nutella today at lunch. It is so delicious, I can't help it! My host parents today were commenting on how I don't eat a lot but that's good in comparison to other Americans who sometimes eat a lot. They told me about one student they had who ate Nutella constantly. I will certainly not be doing that any time soon!

Today as I was leaving for school, Claudie was making letter head (I think) or some kind of stationery for Michel's humanitarian organization. She was putting pictures from Togo along the side. Then later this evening, I joined them/they showed me an email they received from a student who stayed with them back in 2004. I asked her if she had finished making the letter head, could I see, and could I look at the photos. Michel had to go downstairs for a little while, so I wasn't able to look at the pictures tonight, but he is going to show me the prints of the pictures. I'm very excited to find out more about what he does and to speak more with him about what he does in Togo.

When returning from school, I watched a show with Michel about the choices Obama is making about the banks, how powerful and big they are, how his actions will affect other stock markets of other countries, if other countries could effectively follow suit, and if Obama could actually make it happen. I didn't follow all of it, but Michel explained parts of it to me as we were watching.

Claudie and Michel will not be here on Friday night and told me I could put some food in the fridge for dinner and/or have friends over to cook dinner together while they aren't there. Also, on Saturday there is going to be singing/theater combination performance on Saturday night at 8:30 that they invited me to go to if I wanted to. I think it's something Moroccan and/or it's related to Sufiism - the more liberal/modern version of Islam - if I heard correctly. I told them I'd love to go! I'm so lucky that they invite me to all these things at their theater!

I also received 2 letters in the mail - one from my parents and one from my grandparents. Everyone was jealous that I had already received mail! It was very exciting - I got my first when I was coming into school. Then my friends were returning from buying some food and told me I had another. What a surprise!?! Two in one day!

For dinner, we had some kind of special French dish "'something' veau" (veau is baby cow). It was tied up with strings which you had to cut before you ate it. It can also be made with other meats. It was very delicious. I have also certainly lucked out - Claudie is a great cook!

À bientôt.