Tokora An

In Senegal I am named after my host mother's mother, Adama Diallo. In Pulaar the word for someone with the same name is "tokora," so she is tokora an, my name-twin. She doesn't live in Darou, but this past week she came to visit, and my host aunt took a photo of the two of us together.

 

Adama Diallo I and most of Adama Diallo II

It turns out that it's easier to make myself shorter than it is to explain zooming, so this is the best photo we got:

Bineta, Adama Diallo, and Adama Diallo

 

This is me drinking sugary, sugary tea with Houssey, my LCF (Language and Culture Facilitator) She is fantastic; she's very, very patient with us, even when we're being ridiculous. (On a side note, most days it is really, really hot and I stay out of the sun as much as possible. Which may be why I have been living in Africa for almost six weeks now and only seem to be getting paler.)

Houssey and Adama (aka me)

And this is little Aminata, "studying" under the mango tree in the side yard where we have language and culture class most afternoons. She is adorable.

 

Aminata, my 18-month-old host cousin.

Pula Fuuta! Pullo Fuuta?

Today we got our language group assignments (which will pretty much determine the region where we'll be placed, and I will be learning a type of Pulaar called Pullo Fuuta (or Pula Fuuta, depending on which handbook you're reading). This means I'll most likely be placed in an Southeast-ish part of Sénégal (I am re-learning how to use all the accent shortcuts, have you noticed?) where there will be lots of wonderful fruit and veggies to eat with my rice and sauce. So far Pullo Fuuta seems pretty cool for a language, nouns aren't gendered and there are only seven characters that completely don't exist in the English alphabet...  Tomorrow, in groups of three, we'll be going out to our homestay families in villages around Thiès for a week of intensive language training. We'll have language and culture classes with our Language and Culture Facilitators (LCFs) during the day and will be eating meals and socializing with our host families in the evening. My LCF is a great Senegalese woman named Houssey, and she'll be coming along with us and staying in the village during the homestay. We each have our own host families (and our own rooms and all that) but since they're trying to ease us into Senegalese culture we'll all be quite literally next door to one another. We'll spend most of our Pre-Service Training in the villages, but will come back to the Thiès Center every week or so for technical trainings and whatnot.

Today we went to the market, where I bought a brightly-colored thin cotton dress, and to the Catholic compound, which is where people congregate to hang out and drink beer. We've all been told several times that it's not acceptable to walk around town taking photos of people and places, so I won't be posting many photos of Thiès outside of the Training Center, but I'll see if I can find some pictures around and post those instead.

In any case, I'm off to pack for the homestay! I'll be back at the Training Center on Sunday evening, but I won't have any internet access until then. Have a lovely week!