Fish and Wolof and Homestays, oh my!

Just a taste of what our surroundings look like: 

the street where our hotel is located

the view across the street

Hello all,

So much has happened in the past couple of days, I was going to wait until the end of the week to update but I know I'll forget most of it!

So we've been doing orientation, which involves speaking/hearing a LOT of French and learning about health/safety things, homestay tips/issues, cultural norms, etc...not always through lectures, but through interacting with local people. I guess I'll do a day-by-day overview instead of a jumble of things, but this format may change as time goes on.

Monday: We started orientation, which I will not ramble about because it's nothing exciting. But during one of the breaks, a few of us went for a jog to try to find a water tower where an "aerobics class" of some sort was supposedly being held...but we never even found the water tower. (we later found out it's not a "tower," it's a water "box.") So me and a girl named Erin just kinda wandered around a bit and a kid started following us. He kicked a little rubber ball ahead of us and Erin kicked it back. It quickly turned into a big game of monkey in the middle when kids started flocking towards us, and people kind of rotated in and out as they had to leave. It was a really neat experience--so simple, yet so different from anything I've ever had happen in the U.S.  That night we went to a "jazz club," where we thought maybe sometimes there was live music; turns out we were wrong. There is never live music at the jazz club, it's just a bar that plays jazz sometimes over speakers. So we hung out there for a while.

Tuesday: We took a bus to see our school. It used to be a house so it's not your typical school building--there is one large room that we use for lectures for all 21 of us, and there are two tiny rooms that we use for the classes of around 6 people (language classes). There's a kitchen, two bathrooms, a couple offices, CLEAN WATER!!, and a really cute yard with tropical plants and a hut  :) We ate what I think will be the best meal I'll eat here: Poulet Yassa. And we ate it à la Sénégalaise: sitting on a mat in a circle with one large plate in the middle, each using only our right hand (and no utensils!). It was a lot harder than it sounds, as the food didn't stick together or anything. I will definitely be hosting dinners à la Sénégalaise when I return, so if you want to try, let me know. We also had exasperating French interviews to determine which French class we'd be in. It was difficult because we had to answer questions that we couldn't understand (I'm still getting used to the Senegalese accent) in many tenses, which I forget. Oh, and earlier that morning, to practice our French and our Wolof greetings, we did an exercise where each student was told to pick one object from a pile on the professor's desk, and to go out onto the streets and find out what the object was, why it was significant to Senegalese culture, when/how it is used, who uses it....etc. This was the first time we actually got to practice our Wolof greetings and speaking only French with no English explanations--I was really nervous at the beginning but once my partner and I talked to one person it got much easier. Everyone was very willing to answer our questions and was really friendly. The funny part was the object I picked: bin-bins. I went to an old man and asked what they were, and he said.."A necklace. A beaded necklace." And I thought oh, it must have some significance, so I asked and was told they were, "I don't know, for decoration?" We then found a couple of teen boys and asked them what they were, and they all kindof laughed at me! It turned out they were beads worn under the skirt to seduce men. Of course I'd pick the awkward object. Oh and for dinner we had whole braised fish. They had fangs.

Wednesday: Today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!!! AND KYLE!!!) we talked about health and safety a lot, had our first Wolof class,  and I met my homestay sister!!! I'll tell you what I understood from our conversation: She had with her her neice, who is three, and who speaks only Wolof. She is 18 and lives with only her parents (she has a lot of siblings but most are married and one is in Italy, another in France) and has a cat that the exchange student from 2000 left there. Its name is, I think, "peau de chat," or cat skin...which she was trying to tell me was some popular American TV show and couldn't understand why I hadn't heard of it. I hope I was hearing her wrong. (I just can't believe they have a pet!!! I've read that they don't keep pets here.) Anyway her two aunts and some cousins live next door, she has a TV and a fridge and lots of appliances, they eat fish and rice a lot (à la Sénégalaise!), she likes to go out dancing (and I'm welcome to come with her and her friends), ok there was a lot! She was very nice and I think she'll be a really good resource when it comes to asking about French/Wolof or manners. 

And now I am back in my hotel room, going to bed EARLY for once (unless I get too distracted)...

I hope everything's going well in the US of A! Another update soon, I hope!

Ba beneen yoon!