Update

So I have now met my host family. The head of the house is a widow who is very kind. The family has hosted many K students before and seem wonderful. It’s a little difficult to figure out who exactly is in my family and who is given some cultural differences. In Senegal it is considered bad luck to state how many children you have, or to mention a pregnancy before the baby is born. Both are do to superstitions that talking about such things and drawing attention to it would bring bad luck to the people. So it’s not as easy as just asking someone “How many brothers do you have?” rather you have to be tricky. Usually the kids are the best resource because if you ask them their birthday they will list everybody and their brother’s birthday, unfortunately this also then includes cousins and friends and great aunts twice removed and by then so many people have been mentioned that you don’t even remembered what you asked.

But so far, I have one younger sister (Miriam) who is 10 years old. There seems to be a grandmother, or great aunt of some kind, another aunt, a fat little one year old who totally is what my dad would have looked like as a black baby and my host brother (Ibram?). I’m not sure how old my host brother is but he was surprised to find out I was twenty. At first I thought that I had misunderstood the question, and that he was asking me something else to which twenty was a ridiculous response, but no, he was just surprised. He is somewhere around my age and had headphones on his neck or ears since I got here. He was singing along to some songs in English so I was talking to him about music and apparently he likes Akon (badass).  Also when the call to prayer was sung and he began to pray, he was wearing a “vote for Pedro” t shirt which I thought was awesome.

It’s still hotter than hell here but there’s nothing you can do about it other than sweat a bunch.

I’m am so much less nervous about the coming year than I was before, now that I have met my host family and they seem so kind. I know the girl from K who lived here two years ago and when I had talked to her about study abroad she had really liked it so I have good hopes about this family.

They keep calling me Anna “Escargo(?)” because that is a character’s name on a Spanish soap opera that has been dubbed into French and plays on Senegalese TV. The show is called “Le deux visions d’Ana.” We watched it tonight and it was absolutely everything you expect a spanish soap opera to be.

It is Ramadan and while I know that it is traditional to break fasts with dates I was totally confused by the how the meals worked out tonight. So at about 7:30 when the fast could be broken, we all sat down on the mats to eat. So we had a few dates, some bread with mayonnaise, and swiss cheese and these fritter things that were super greasy and delicious and tasted like funnel cake. I kind of just figured that was dinner since it was 7:30 and if I had had been fasting for 14 hours I would have wanted dinner then too. But it wasn’t dinner. I did not know that. So after fake dinner I sat around in the living room with everyone chillaxing chatting and half watching “Les deux visions d’Ana.” After that people kind of cleared out which I guess was just coincidence. I thought since we had eaten and it was around 8:30 that I should put away my things. So I went to my room (I’ll try to get a photo soon [I’m in Africa so soon actually means in about two weeks if I remember]) and put away things for a while trying to sort though it all figure out what actually needed to be taken out and so forth. Then it was about 9:00 so I figured, “hey, I’m hot and sweaty so I should take my shower now,” and my host brother had taken a shower earlier so I figured it would be good. I got back into my room and changed into basically pajamas ( sports bra and my banana print shorts). Then I head them calling my name and through on a shirt and go outside. Nope, turns out it was time for real dinner which I did not know existed (though I did think it was weird we were having mayo and bread for dinner, but I just figured- hey it’s Senegal!”).  Too bad that those shorts are not super short by American standards but they are well above the knee, which is usually sort of the appropriate length. So I ate dinner in them anyway and then just changed into longer shorts after dinner. I wasn’t super inappropriate because rules about that kind of thing are waayyyy more loose around the house but still, I had barely been there for hours. So after real dinner we all headed back to the tv and watched some more. It was really nice because as we were sitting around, eventually watermelon was brought out and we all had a slice. Then twenty minutes later, beautiful pieces of mango. Then as that was being eaten a can of pineapple was being passed around. At around 11:30 I decided I needed to go to bed given that I hadn’t gotten much sleep the nights before. Unfortunately, as I was saying goodnight and walking to my room I saw them bringing out tea. Drinking tea is fairly important in Senegal and the rounds of tea get increasingly sweeter and conversations can go on for hours. I needed to give myself a bedtime though, and since I had already proclaimed me fatigue ot everyone it would have been rather difficult to get out of. But there will be many more nights of opportunity, though I don’t understand how people who will get up at 5 am to eat breakfast can stay up so late.

I am way more comfortable about the amount of French I have to use here as well. The baobab center employs people who almost always speak French, Wolof and English. Even though our Wolof class today was in French. If we were really confused we could ask questions in English (and our textbook is written in English). Speaking with the family though is honestly like being in french lab. Especially talking to Miriam. “when is your birthday? How old are you? Hold old is your brother” or even talking with Ibram, “What sports do you play? Can you dance? Do you like to sing?” Or even when I ask him questions, “ Do you like American music? Do you know the film Napoleon Dynamite? Do you like Akon? (answer: yes!) Once again though, other countries are putting us to shame by speaking native languages, colonizer’s language and now English, just for kicks (and probably some more regional languages as well).  I’ve written too much and it is getting too late, so I will stop here even though there is far more to say. If you have any specific questions, leave a comment (I don’t think you need to have an account) and I’ll try to answer as soon as possible (but this is Africa so that could be a while).  Bonne Nuit!