In one week I have become integrated into a family, and still have close to no ability to verbally communicate with most of my family members. The Senegalese hospitality is quite incredible. Here is a day in the life of Leah in the training homestay:
Wake up at around 7 to sounds of my host father, Baba doing his morning prayers. He is a Marabou (look that one up on wikipedia) so praying is pretty important to him. Then I take a bucket shower, eat a breakfast of baguette and beans or butter with instant coffee in my room, then go over my lessons with a baby on my lap before I head over to Spence’s (now Bakary) house for morning lessons.
Our lessons are held under a mango tree with Aziz, our Mandinka teacher. It is a pretty intense yet relaxed atmosphere at the same time. If the three of us are not feeling great, our lessons will go slower, if we are feeling ambitious, we’ll go faster. Bakary’s dad makes us tea while we learn. Tea is a very important part of Senegalese cultures. We drink it in small cups, very quickly, and there is a lot of sugar in it.
Then I go home for lunch and nap/play with the babies time. There are about 7 kids under the age of three in my house (not all the same mom). Then there are two teenage boys, and 2 14 year old twin girls, Ado and Awa who are my teachers. They know French and seem really interested in making me their project. I also know some useful words such as nail polish and earrings. Words that the 2 boys in my language group appreciate less than they should.
Then we often have either tech or cultural class. We are making a garden in the neighborhood school, yet the well broke at the school and the grumpy gardener at the school yells at us most of the time we go there to check if it is working. This has been slightly problematic, but so far we have just prepared the beds and have not planted anything yet so its okay for now. We gotta get that working though.
I walk home with children screaming either “Toubab” or my new name “Mariama” as I walk. Sometimes I feel as though I live in a musical when I walk down the street everyone knows my name. Sometimes I dance at them for both my and their entertainment.
My job at home is to pound dinner. I pound the spices, onions and tomatoes in a wooden bowl and I am damn good at it. I even got to cut onions the other day, which I was not so good at. My goal for training is to be the Senegalese Julia Child. And try to convince my family to be more nutritious. I have had rice & fish with very few veggies for 2 meals a day for the past week. If I ever had a child in the near future it would likely be quite deformed due to mercury poisoning. Oy.
Baba (host father) also loves bringing me little gifts when he comes home from work every day. Bananas, coffee etc, to show me different treats of Senegal. He is a very sweet man. The word on the street is that he likes watermelon. So I need to do that in thanks.
We eat dinner late, at 8:30 or 9, and then hang out under the stars on a mat outside. Just laying or gossiping with the twins. Sitting/laying is another big part of Senegalese culture. It is something that can be very difficult for me to do sometimes but the heat during the day is forcing me to be good at it. Then I say “mbatata” (I’m tired) and go to bed at around 10:30. I am often the first one over the age of 12 to go to bed.
It is quite a nice routine. I am now back in the training center for a few days and it is quite a different pace, class all the time and everyone in my group’s energy is infectious. Its nice going back and forth, getting the different pace, but I already am looking forward to having a child on my lap 90% of the time I am home on Wednesday!
Language is going pretty well. The one thing is that when I walk outside of my house, nobody speaks Mandinka because we are in a Wolof area. So I can only really practice in my or David or Spence’s house. I only know how to greet people in Wolof. In one day, I speak English, Mandinka, Wolof and French. In my house its mostly Mandinka, English (when frustrated) and French with the twins. I call it Frandinklais.
