My First 100 Days

A few weeks ago I was listening to a podcast about a lady who wrote a book about Obama's mom, and it occurred to me that I was about to complete my first one hundred days in Senegal. Here are a few of the my early in-country achievements:

My language has advanced to the point where I can say "Hello Mother! I am going to with lunch Taki's friend here. There. There. I am going to lunch. Is not here, me, lunching. Lunch? To eat. With Taki from Etiolo. Friend of Taki house here. Ok? Thank you! Thank you much much much! At afternoon ok!"

All of the little kids in my neighborhood have stopped calling me "Toubab!" and started calling me "Adama!"

I built a little barrier at the base of my hut's back door so that the rat who has been digging a hole in my wall can't scamper in while I'm trying to enjoy my morning coffee.

I have established myself as the Resident Facepainter at the Regional House.

Diabou, the ten-month-old who was initially extremely suspicious about me as a person, has finally warmed up to me and now calls me "Ada!" and waves and gives me brisk little handshakes.

I new have a faint Chacos foot-tan and approximately two dozen new freckles, most of them on my ankles. 

Trouble with the Interwebs

Bad news.

This isn't actually my laptop, but you get the idea. Thanks to Senegal's wildly unreliable power grid and all the recent lightning storms something went horribly wrong while I was charging my computer and now it doesn't so much turn on anymore. *sigh*

Luckily there is a somewhat-clunky-but-totally-functional house computer at the regional house, and other volunteers (especially Sully) have been unnecessarily gracious about letting me monopolize their laptops to upload photos and e-mail and everything.

This trip into town has had pretty sparse internet access for everyone, though. The wifi at the house has been sluggish and choppy (slower then cold molasses, one might say...) and frequently unplugged, due to the thunderstorms and lightning strikes that come with the onset of the rainy season.

So, until I can get a replacement laptop or netbook sent over (in a Diplomatic Pouch, doesn't that sound fancy and important?) I will not be able to Skype/e-mail/etc as much as I would like. O well, I suppose.

Dinner in Darou

Thiéboudienne, the national dish of Senegal, is basically fish, vegetables and tomato sauce cooked with spices and served over rice. We had this for dinner on my first night with my host family, it was made with carrots, cabbage, eggplant, okra, bitter tomatoes, spicy peppers and sweet potatoes, and it was really, really good.

At meal times we all sit on a mat around one bowl, and everyone has their own little section. Like most of my host family, I sit on a little bench and eat with a spoon, but some people sit on the floor and eat with their hand - either with a spoon or with fingers everyone always eats and drinks with their right hand, since the left hand is traditionally the "bathroom hand."

For lunch and dinner on most days we have some sort of fish and vegetables over rice, along with with some sort of sauce and millet porridge for dessert. There's onion sauce, cassava leaf sauce, peanut sauce, bissap leaf sauce, and stuff-I-don't-know-what-it-is sauce, and they're all pretty tasty.

This is not my photo, it's from a German blog that I think is all about fish, but you get the idea.