(yes, true true!)
we only have french keyboards here so i’m not bothering with grammer also there is no spellcheck which means this will probably be a disaster…hah
so this is all of the wolof that i speak so far, but i am learning more from the guys at the talibes center with whom i take three rounds of tea in the evening after working and the kids that i teach in the mornings at l’ecole who call me tata toubab (white teacher) and laugh at my poor eating skills (i’m still having trouble with the whole eating rice with only one hand and not spilling all over thing…) anyway i’ve worked for two days now, both at the school where i teach reading to 5yo with a young school teacher named mamadou sy, and at the centre for the talibes where we care for street children who are sent away from their families to learn the koran from elders who give them a space on the floor to sleep but little else. our main job with the little talibes is to clean their sores and bandage their cuts..usually they are infected because the children sleep in the dirt and never bathe, so we have to cut away their scabs and, once the blood is flowing and we can make sure the wound is clean, rebandage the wound. we also shave their heads to prevent lice—its super hard bc we dont have real razors so we use just the naked blades and since most of them have already sores on their scalp, they can get cuts. dont worry mom, we wear gloves!
outside of work, i am just getting used to st louis—she is a beutiful old colonial town that has seen better days perhaps and is sort of falling apart slowly. i live about thirty min from the city by foot in the cite niah (sor) and because both of my works are on that side of the bridge, i dont often find myself in the vielle ville except to meet up with other volunteers (mostly belgian and brittish) or to use the internet. today i am here because i wanted to buy lighter cotton pants as its like 32°c and i didnt bring light enough pants. also i am going to try some jus de bissap with elise my roommate and maybe get some coffee that is not nescafe (since thats all we drink at home in the house). speaking of my host family, they are a very welcoming household—i dont remember their names yet but mme is very attentive and ensures that elise and i have all we need and her sister in law and older daughter taught us how to do our laundry by hand yesterday (although they laughed at how little dirt we could beat out of the clothes but i think that with some practice ça ira) they have a creche at home so there are always little babies around which is nice sometimes to play with them but since the mothers drop them off at 6.30/7, it is a little annoying because i wake up to their cries. their maid is a very good cook and we eat very well—lots of rice and fish and thouboudine which i cant spell but is a spicy tomato onion and eggplant sauce. i havent had many long conversations with the family yet but they are very croyant and pray many times in the day—it seems like the muzzerain is always calling for prayer which is really quite a pretty sound… what else? the volunteers are all tons of fun—we are always out in the night doing things together like grabbing a drink or listening to local music (there’s alot of jazz here and a local music that i dont know the name of…) and of course i live with elise, a belgian who is staying for 6mos so we will be together the whole time i am here.
otherwise, i dont know what to say… im a bit homesick but everything is so new that its not bad yet. everyone is very kind and i think i can get used to most of the customs, though i think after a few weeks i will be ready to kill for some green vegetables and a hot shower— or just a sit down toilet! i have gotten a new senegalese phone and recieving texts is free so if you are reading this and want to know about anything in particular the next time i write (maybe every 2/3 days), send me a text! or just to say hello— internet is expensive so im not really going to be sending too many individual emails i think. +77 109 4162 is the new number and id love to hear from you!
hahah i just re-read this post and my english is already getting bad—because i am running out of time at the cyber cafe, i am going to leave it—its funnier this way anyway!
