I have not been sleeping well. Either I can't get to sleep for hours or I wake up throughout the night, or both. It could be the fact that my body is not accustomed to getting up and going to bed at decent and regular hours. It could be that I have not yet gotten used to the persistent braying of goats and the music/noise coming from the nearby mosque seemingly all night and all morning long.
It could also be due to the fact that I am in a constant state of slight discomfort. Never before have I been uncomfortable in so many ways at once. I'm not yet really comfortable speaking French, I'm certainly not comfortable speaking Wolof. Already that eliminates the facet of my life in which I am usually most comfortable, ie my ability to use language effectively and affectively. I live in an unfamiliar house with an unfamiliar family with unfamiliar customs. Despite my efforts, I am still not sure who is supposed to eat what meal where, when you use cutlery (which isn't often), if I am supposed to go and seek out every member of the household and announce my comings and goings or if I should just come and go, what the most effective way to use a squat toilet is. I can't figure out how to lie in my bed without it dislodging the bedframe and I can't figure out how to completely unlock my bedroom door. I feel socially awkward literally ALL THE TIME. In the house I feel awkward when everyone is chattering nimbly in Wolof and I ask a question or say something in my clunky French or even clunkier Wolof. Among my peers, both American and Senegalese, I feel equally awkward. I usually feel pretty socially awkward, but around the people who already know and love me, it seems to be part of my charm? But with people who I have known for nary two weeks yet, I am just weird. I overshare, make jokes that no one thinks are funny, tell stories that go nowhere and demonstrate nothing, and generally talk WAY too much. In five days of Wolof classes I have had as many professors of Wolof, each with a radically different accent/personality/pedagogical method. I don't know my way around, know how to use public transportation, feel comfortable negotiating with taxi drivers, know where there are things to do. Basically, my life is in a constant state of ignorant flux.
Yes, this litany of would might lead you to believe that I am unhappy, but such is not the case. I am happy as a clam in fact (oh to be able to use idiomatic expressions!). My choice of location and program for my study abroad adventure was predicated on the knowledge that I would be forced to live outside of my comfort zone. This is supposed to be challenging and I expected nothing less than to be ferociously uncomfortable. I take solace in my iPod and my favorite sweatshirt and remind myself what a rewarding experience this is and embrace the hilarious awkwardness of my existence.

It is funny to me that the culture/language here seems to be greatly focused on making peole feel comfortable and welcome, but the very elements of the culture/language that are so comforting to the indigenous seem to be precisely what put the uninitated ill at ease. My point is best illustrated by a brief lesson in Wolof grammar.
Wolof is a language permeated with flexible, transmutable, and inconsistent relations. There are many ways to say the same thing, but each separate grammatical construction puts emphasis on a different part of the phrase. Take the sentence, "I have two brothers." There is a sentence structure that says simply that, there is a separate structure to imply "I have two brothers;" another to imply "I have two brothers;" and yet another to indicate that "I have two brothers;" and even one to say "I have two brothers." I know, right? There are also different grammatic elements to indicate that somone is RIGHT here, right here, here, there, over there, way over there, and WAY over there. The actual designation of these spatial relationships are at the discretion of the speaker and vary from person to person.
I hope this little grammar lesson gives a little insight into hoz much broader seemingly objective or quantitative designations are here. The conception of proximity, the concept of duration, quantity, etc. are infinitely variable. One thing that has a markedly different, and across the board, broader meaning is "family." Actual households consist of anywhere from 6 or 7 people at the very least, to 14 or 15. Even that might be a conservative estimate. This includes children, brothers, uncles, aunts, friends of the family, ex-brothers in law, American students.