Un-deux-trois, cinq-six-sept

I went salsa dancing last night.

.......Salsa dancing!

It was fabulous. A little expensive, totally worth it, in a tiny room in the back of "Bar New Africa" with lovely (recorded) music. It was a class, too, beginners on one side and advanced on the other, I really really really wanna get that good. All the men there were teachers, at least five of them, Latino-African speaking French and English teaching a bunch of toubab girls (and not hitting on a single one) the mambo, rumba, salsa, tourne à gauche, à droight, un-deux-trois, cinq-six-sept it was easy and I caught on fast so I got to dance with the teacher in my group. We are *so* going back. Friday, I think. Classes are every Tuesday and Wednesday, ten bucks each but I can be back in time for dinner.

Why oh why didn't we start doing this a month ago? I didn't realize how much I missed dancing, *really* dancing, with a partner I mean. Ohhhh what a great night.

But when I got home I found out that Yacine, our bonne/maid, my friend and Wolof teacher, isn't coming back. She didn't arrive on Tuesday, never showed up, and yesterday asked Hadi the other maid to bring her her clothes that were still drying. She's fifteen, and probably found another job, better paid maybe, and didn't want to say so. My parents say that's how all maids are, they just want fancy clothes and don't care about keeping a job, they take money and go, you can never trust one to stay, she doesn't realize there's a social system here in the city, you can't be a city girl just by buying fancy clothes, all maids are like this, they're lazy. Don't want to work at all. That Yacine, she was always lazy, listening to music, wanting to dance all the time. Sereers are like that too, you can't trust them, right when you start to trust them they up and leave. Lazy, that's what she is.

I hadn't realized how much I considered her a friend, but realized last night that I'm really sad she's gone. I'm gonna miss Yacine, and hanging out making fatayas (of course for me it's something fun to do after school, not my 15-hour-per-day job) and learning wolof and teasing and laughing and singing quietly, maybe dancing a little in place. I hope she found another job, and that everything's okay.