So first things first: it turns out that my name has multiple spellings. So sometimes it is Khady, but sometimes… it is XADI. I’m sorry, but that is awesome. My name starts with an X. Like Xena.
I just finished up a long two week stint with my host family. I’ve slowly learned more about them, but a lot of information I thought I understood at first is now under scrutiny. For instance, the other day my host mother urged me to read a letter she found in her living room. It was dated from 1997, addressed to my host father, and the writer said a lot of unsavory things about who I assume is my host mother? I could not for the life of me figure out…
a) if this letter was about my host mother
b) if my father secretly has a second wife somewhere else and the letter was about her
c) if my host mother can read French and even knows what this letter said
d) why I was being so happily encouraged to read the letter, despite my repeated asking of, “Prive? Prive? Is this private?”
But I can’t imagine a world where my host father has a second wife. My host parents flirt with each other all the time and they cuddle together on the couch, which is shocking for a culture where men and women often don't even eat dinner in the same room. My host mother, Yacine, as is usual with my African host family experiences, is a trip. She loves watching the popular “Indian” soap opera – I use quotes because this show is actually made in Italy with Italians dressed up as Indians, dubbed in French, and probably only shown in Senegal. A lot of the Indian culture seems to be lost in this design, not to mention the fact that they stretch five minutes of storyline into an hour by using the same shots from seven different angles in a row. But my host mom – yeah, she is the only lady I’ve seen in town who drives a car. And drive she does! The other day, she decided to take me to visit my grandmother, despite my reminders that I had to be home to catch a bus in an hour. So Yacine took control of the situation. We were FLYING down roads, back and forth across the width of the road as is the Senegalese way in order to avoid pot holes, skidding through gravel, and, of course, screeching to a stop every 4 minutes when she saw someone she knew. Because it’s rude to keep driving when you should be greeting your friends and second cousins of your father's uncle on the side of the road. But bless Yacine, we made it to grandma’s house and back in record time, and I even had time to eat my fabulous lunch of fried chicken, rice, and vegetables before the bus came. Granted, this was the one day that I was not given a spoon, but forced to eat in the traditional way, with my hand. But I did it! And it was delicious, licking every last bit from my fingertips when I finished. It’s not rude to do that here. BOOM!
I originally had the impression that my father worked in the fabric industry in Italy. I have since learned that duh, “fabrique” means that he builds buildings… not textiles. But yes, on Monday, my host father left for 8 months in Italy. A lot of the men in my extended family all work in Italy and send money home to support everyone. I imagine it’s a pretty lucrative job because it must suck not seeing their families for such long periods of time. One of my host brothers has been in Italy for 10 years without being able to come back to Senegal, due to what I assume is a visa issue.
In other news, the baby likes me now! Yes!
And speaking of pleasant surprises, I am continuously astounded by my lack of stomach issues with the food here. My diet primarily consists of white bread (about 1 baguette a day), white rice, vegetables fried in excessive amounts of oil, and SUGAR. What does it say about my physical health if I have experienced no problems in adjusting to this? I can’t decide if my body is just really strong or just really used to this type of abuse. But whatever. I like bread and sugar and fried foods. So good times.
In Peace Corps news, we’ve embarked on a few trial projects over the past two weeks – small tastes of projects and the work we will eventually do once our stint as trainees ends and our 2 year volunteer part begins. So we painted a map of Senegal at a local school – I was the genius who misspelled a regional name and wrote things in English instead of the national language of French, but paint can always be reapplied to cover up mistakes! We also made a fabulous mural consisting of a bowl of water, a bar of soap, and a magical arm not connected to a body in order to encourage hand washing. We’ve continued working on our garden and built a fence around it. We also visited the local health post to help with baby weighings and polio vaccinations. The baby weighing session is one way they screen kids for malnutrition here. I was asked to debrief some of the mothers after the weighing about breastfeeding – due to my lack of language skills, this “talk” basically devolved into me pantomiming breastfeeding in front of a crowded room. I had a similarly humbling experience during the vaccination sessions when a group of unruly elementary school children decided to follow me for 45 minutes, repeatedly slapping my arms and running away. From what I can gather, children in Senegal suffer crippling levels of MOB MENTALITY. Over the course of the next two years, I hope to at least find a way to make them stop hitting me.
Another interesting aspect of Senegalese culture is their belief that everything should be shared. Our group first observed this concept when a mob of unruly children (I’m telling you, the mobs are everywhere) ran in front of our bus in the middle of the road until we stopped and our language teacher gave them money. To me, it was like an impromptu toll road by terrorists, and my language teacher let the terrorists win. He later explained that everyone just gives everyone else stuff. So yeah, people just ask for all of my stuff all the time. Most of the time I just roll with it. I mean, I don’t give them my stuff, but it doesn't really bother me. But sometimes my host brothers see me with bananas or oranges... and they’re like, “Give me that.” So I’ve taken to giving them whatever else is in my hand at the time, and running away before they can clarify what they wanted. Sharing! Integrating!
I also discovered a great way to deal with my occasional language frustrations: try to teach my host family how to say something in English. When they try to say "How is your family?" in English and still can't quite get it after 10 minutes, I think we all feel better about my language struggles, empathy on their part and pride on mine.
Currently, I’m back at the training center for a few days. On Thursday, we all find out where we’ll be living for two years, so it should be a pretty exciting day! I actually had the fabulous opportunity to go to dinner at a French-like restaurant last night and indulged in 4 courses of desserts and a margarita – things that I didn’t expect to see until 2013, so that was a pleasant surprise.
Hmm other things!
- Senegal won their first soccer match of the year, against the horrible, smelly, no good Cameroon! Yay! Dancing in the streets!
- My family’s favorite wrestler won his big match on Sunday! Yay! More dancing in the streets!
- My family gets a music video channel that plays excessive amounts of Justin Timberlake and Rhianna! Yay! Lisa teaching them American dance!
- The other night I couldn’t sleep because it sounded like someone was breathing in my room. I eventually deduced that a goat and/or human was sleeping outside in the courtyard under my window.
- One day we went to my grandmother’s house and she gave us mangos and rabbits. I just got in the car to leave and there were rabbits in the backseat. I still don’t know what the rabbits were for. We didn’t eat them… YET. I don’t feel like there is a big market for rabbit fur in Senegal?
- I visited a Catholic monastery last weekend! They sell goat cheese.
- Tomorrow night I am going to watch The Lion King! In Africa! It should be very poignant.
- I really enjoy using the phrase “the village people” to describe the people in my village
I hope everyone is doing well. Wish me luck as I head into these next few weeks… I’ll not only be finding out my SENEGALESE FUTURE, but also doing a brief visit to my future village for about 5 days. Let’s hope my sanity and stomach continue to serve me well. Ciao loves! Keep in touch!
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