One more night in Cow-lack!

Finishing up with the more dull and required things (my essays for school) early enough to pass my afternoons with the family, I've been getting to do the Senegalese thing of coming home for lunch with the family, going back to work if there is more, or else sitting with the girls here all day, talking and making ataaya. I've gotten the chance to make ataaya with my friend Sokhna almost every day this week, and I think my pouring skills just might be improving. Of course, I can't match her practiced hand. I make the tea, pour it from glass to glass again and again and again in hopes of seeing that beautiful, hoped-for froth, then hand it to Sokhna, who has Midas' touch with ataaya. She is also an amazing cook, and showed me her style of making ceebujen with "goorjigeen sauce," a tasty tomato sauce. It was without a doubt some of the best ceebujen I've eaten here, because this girl really can cook. The word "goorjigeen," is Wolof for man-woman, or transvestite, and when I asked the relation to tomato sauce, I found none, but in general people think it's pretty funny.

There's been little work around here in the past week, so I've been doing things like this, talking to my coworker Coumba about recipes (since I realized she would much rather talk about fun things like food than answer my questions regarding the work of the mutual, we have a lot of fun), and working on research, which definitely leaves me with less stress for the coming week in Dakar. Yes! But I've also gotten the chance to go to quite a few "general assemblies" as of late, which are interesting to observe, in that the mutual is kind of like a credit bank for unions, and in general not an idea too different from certain systems in the U.S., but the assemblies are without a doubt Senegalese. The entire community is in attendance, there is always a dj and loud music until it begins,and the heads of the community sit in a group in front, taking turns welcoming everyone with "asalamalikum" and discussing. At the end, one of the women breaks out in a traditional song, modifiedto fit the specific people there and celebrate the community, and everyone leaves happy and ready for dinner. One of my favorite parts of this is the drive home, if we're in a more remote area, because it's always late and I love driving past the villages and plains at night. It's spectacular.

Tonight Renee is coming, and we'll leave in the morning for Dakar. My family here is wonderful. They're sincerely happy people who have a true appreciation for life and for each other. As far as my family in Dakar, I feel like I will be leaving a house where I've been boarding for awhile, but I feel like I have really lived as a family with my Kaolack family, and I'm leaving them so quickly. Last night, Momma gave me a beautiful, enormous boubou. Of course pictures will come when I can. She is also sending me back to the states with a giant bag of bouye, the chalky inside of the baobab fruit, which makes tasty tasty juice, as well as my favorite dessert here, called ngaalakh. It's made in a big pail, and someone will pour each person a ridiculously large amount, saying "Ahm!," which means "Take!" or "I'm giving this to you!" and is said constantly. (They're hospitable here, and a little forceful about it.) Ngaalakh includes bouye, peanut butter, millet, sugar, coconut, and mashed up fruit like grapes and banana. It's eaten chilled, and when I eat it, though savoring each bite, I think of the travesty of the lack of cinnamon here. So you all can get ready to drink some bouye and slurp up some ngaalakh.

Along the lines of saying "ahm" constantly, I'm getting the feeling that transitioning into not saying certain constantly expected and used phrases will take some getting used to. I'm thinking of things like greeting every person I see, often responding with "alhamdulilah," saying "wow" for "yes" and constantly thinking about the phonetics of my sentence structures. The last is something I've run into in the states for short periods of time when I'm in French classes for too long. I've been able to watch my use of English morph as my French phonetics progress, and as I speak there is always some parallel train of thought in my mind keeping itself aware of the way words are being structured. But language may flow easier than I'm expecting when everyone around me is speaking English and there is constant fluency and easy communication. The way Wolof is so easy to incorporate into French also leaves me wanting to head to France and perhaps clean up my Frolof, so I don't end up in France throwing in odd Wolof here and there, since it's often so easy to slip Wolof into French conversation here.

So the morning will bring me to the gare routier where Renee and I will cramp into a sept-place headed north to Dakar. I'll spend the next week with other students and then board an airplane that will bring me to Washington D.C., and on to "Terminal 1"! I'm looking forward to seeing the beautiful faces of my friends and family, hearing their voices and splashing into Nokomis again.