A world away from Washington, D.C., but only four hours ahead of Georgetown, studying and living in Dakar, Senegal has its challenges. But the off-the-beaten-path program also brings incredible rewards.

The everyday challenges that come with living in Africa can seem startling at first, but it’s nothing you can’t get used to.

The bathrooms leave something to be desired. There is no hot water. Sure, you can heat up water, but don’t look for a convenient red handle dispensing hot water from a faucet. This means cold showers for a whole semester. But, with temperatures averaging 80 degrees every day aside from a few cool nights, showering with cold water is not so bad. Taking a bucket shower, however, by filling a bucket with water and then pouring it on yourself in cupfuls, can get a little tiring.

The plumbing here isn’t what we’re used to. Many toilets don’t flush. Even worse are bathrooms where there is no toilet, but instead require you to squat over a hole, which is not so easy at first. And people here don’t use toilet paper — ever. Instead, they splash themselves with water. Luckily, toilet paper is available to buy, and none of the locals seem to mind that we use it on a constant basis. Traditionally, people actually used their left hands to wipe themselves, and it remains a taboo to this day to touch someone else or anything communal — handling money, shaking hands or eating, to name a few — with your left hand. The rule is never far from mind in a country where people often eat with their hands out of communal bowls — but definitely only using their right hands.

While we have the impression that dogs are a man’s best friend, families in Senegal don’t own dogs as pets. Instead, packs of stray dogs roam every street. The best way to describe these dogs is mangy, dirty and flea-ridden, and about half seem to have distended anuses.

Studying abroad normally involves some level of a language barrier, but Senegal provides an even greater challenge when it comes to communicating. While Georgetown requires that you know French to study here, people in Senegal only learn French in school, and mostly everyone’s first language, the one they use on a regular basis, is a tribal language connected to their ethnic group. Forty percent of people in Dakar are Wolof, and we have been learning the language. This has been interesting, but we have quickly found some frustrating and almost ridiculous things about the language. For example, just to say “99,” you say: “Juróom ñent fukki at ak juróom ñent.” All that seems a little unnecessary, but we have learned to communicate in Wolof, and people really appreciate it when we do.

Living in Dakar, we never lose sight of the many things to thoroughly enjoy.

The weather is beautiful and the beaches are just a short cab ride away. Everyone is incredibly friendly — no stuck-up or anti-American Europeans. Walking down the street, everyone says “Hello” and “How are you?” In fact, they are so serious about this that they find it almost inexcusably rude if you walk into a house and say “hi” to some people but not to everyone.

Our living situation is pretty sweet, as well. The unemployment rate here is above 40 percent (including those not officially listed as unemployed). In an effort to create more jobs, almost every family has a domestique, or maid. The idea that is, even if you don’t have a lot of money, there is someone with less than you, and you should be helping them out. For us, this creates a pretty cushy living situation. Our rooms are cleaned, our laundry gets done, and we get two hot meals prepared for us each day.

Being here has given us an amazing opportunity to travel to countries whose names would be entirely unfamiliar to some of our classmates. Gambia is actually located entirely within Senegal, save one side bordering the ocean. Mali is right next door, home to Timbuktu as well as the Dogon country, which Lonely Planet lists as one of 10 places to visit before you die. Head north to Mauritania for a camel ride through the Sahara. Talk about going to places off the beaten path — many of these locations don’t have electricity, running water or schools, and definitely no cars.

Additionally, there are a lot of opportunities to travel to rural villages and see how people live there today, often in a manner that stays true to their original tribal roots. This includes traditional healing (using no medicine, even for treatment of AIDS), initiation rights and celebrations for almost every occasion — from circumcisions to the start of the wet season.

Because so many people are unemployed, there is a lot of time spent sitting around, doing nothing but talking. The lifestyle is slow, making it a calm respite from the stressful life back on campus. This frequent lack of activity offers an amazing opportunity to really get to know some of the local people. To pass the time, there is a tradition of men making attaya — a mint tea that can take multiple hours to prepare and is served in several rounds. Only in a society where people have a lot of time to kill is a beverage like this a viable option.

Living in Senegal for a semester has allowed me have experiences like nothing I’d done before and has opened me up to a world and a way of living about which I knew very little. Whatever the frustrations, being in Dakar has been better than I could have imagined, and I have no desire to leave.