Class and Beach Update

So I've been a little lazy of late, but here's a little update on how things are going, as we enter our last week in Dakar. We have one more week of classes, then a week of spring break (I'll be going to the Cassamance, southern Senegal, below the Gambia, with friends) and then we head off for our six weeks of internships. My internship, if there are no changes, will be at an eco-village called Mbam, located near the mangroves here. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing, but they have mangrove planting programs, vegetable gardens, some sort of biomass project as well as the possibility to teach kids about sustainability, so I'm very excited.
So a few highlights of the last week or so:
Class: not so much a highlight necessarily, but there sure has been a lot of it. All of our classes are two to three hours long and since two of mine are taught by people who work for government ministries, they get moved around constantly. Unfortunately, the professor we have the most (for both development and country analysis of Senegal), is absolutely insane. In trying to show off his English he has asked us whether we understand the words: town hall, pill, and witch. His style is to write his entire lectures on the board and then give us handouts (often without any indication of where they're from), and have us present in groups. The other day I thought I recognized the writing style of one article and sure enough, if you look up "mourides" on Wikipedia, you'll read what I did (assuming it hasn't been modified in the last week).
Beach: We finally made it to one of the nicer beaches around here: ile de ngor. You take a bus-ish thing up to a fishing boat that takes you to an island. It's kind of surreal once you arrive - touristy, restaurants on the beach etc. It seemed to be Senegal's answer to the Caribbean. Though the water was freezing, we did go in, built a sand castle and bought a coconut from a woman who cut it open for us so we could drink the juice.
This weekend I'll be headed to some markets for fabric shopping and visiting other members of my host family's extended family, and trying to make the most of some of my last time here. Best!