written Thursday, 17 May 2007
Yesterday I hung around with my host family for a while after dinner (dry, sandy millet, but it actually wasn't bad), so my five-year-old jailer was asleep before I went back to my hut, which saved me from having to refuse to let her sleep with me.
I got up at 5:30 this morning, when the muezzin started (the mosque is right across from my hut) so that I would be sure to have some time to myself before my jailers showed up. Which they did, promptly at 7:00, to tell me to come eat breakfast (millet porridge again - it will probably be that every single day). That hour and a half of free time really helped me, so today I'm not feeling like I'm in prison anymore and I'm just enjoying myself.
After brerakfast my counterpart Mamadou came to get me, and we biked to Dialacoto, a small town about 10 km away, where we greeted my other counterpart at the health post there and then went to meet the gendarmes (regional police, kind of like a sheriff or state police) and the commisariat rurale (I have no idea what they do, but apparently they're important). I was also supposed to meet the Dialacoto village chief, but apparently he's out of town, so I'll have to try to meet him next time I go to Dialacoto. Anyway, everyone gave the standard speeches to welcome me and wish me a good stay in Senegal, and the gendarmes promised to look out for me and protect me from any potential bad guys.
After greeting everyone we headed back to my village, and along the way we passed through a village where Mamadou said my host family used to live; they moved to the village where they're living now because there wasn't enough land to cultivate in the first village. There was a funeral going on in the village as we passed through; Mamadou said it was a relative of my host family's (and therefore my relative) and they were holding the ceremony for the seventh day after the death (funeral ceremonies are held the first day after a death, the third day, the seventh day, and I forget what after that, up to 40 days). So we stopped in the village a while to show respect, and we gave a little money to the family because that is the custom - because they have to provide food for all the people who show up and who can stay for as long as they want during the 40 days of mourning. I gave 1000 francs, which is about $2.
Back at home, I had lunch with my family (rice with "maffe" sauce, and a little piece of meat). When I first got here, my family gave me a spoon to eat with since I was a special guest, but now apparently that period is over, so I'm supposed to start eating with my hands like everyone else. Which is fine with me, but it's a lot harder than you might think - try eating rice with your hands sometime, and see how much ends up in your mouth and how much on the floor. Anyway, so I ate lunch with my hands, with my host sisters laughing at me and trying to show me how to scoop up the rice and squish it into a ball so it's easier to get in your mouth.
After lunch I managed to wash some clothes - in a bucket, by hand, but I left them to soak in the soapy water overnight, so they came out pretty clean in spite of my bad clothes-washing skills. Then one of my host brothers came to get me to teach me some Jaxanke - I think it's really cute how they're always asking me where my notebook is so I can write things down.
Speaking of Jaxanke, here is the actual language situation in my village: my host family speaks Jaxanke, as do a lot of other people, and then a bunch of people speak Pulaar. I don't know enough people here yet to have a feel for the proportions of who speaks what. Some people also speak Mandinka, but it's definitely a minority language. So it looks like I'll mainly be learning Jaxanke and Pulaar from now on.
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