Wolof is silly. We did numbers in our last class, and they make even less sense than most things in Wolof. There are really only numbers up to 5, and then you continue with "five-one", "five-two" etc. BUT, with money it's a different story. The smallest unit is five francs, so fukk (ten) actually means 50 francs. Our professor kept insisting it wasn't that complicated, so he used an example:
975 is "temer ak juroom-nyeent-fukk ak juroom" or "five hundred plus nine times fifty plus twenty-five". Except that it's really fifty plus nine times ten plus five, then you multiply the everything by five.
The best part is how everyone always assures me that people always use French numbers, so don't worry, except that people in shops actually tell me that I owe them ten plus sixteen. Times five. Get it?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Senegalese Wildlife
Wolof word of the day: "yaangi noos" is a greeting that means "are you having fun?". You are never actually supposed to respond with yes, because if you are having too much fun people will think you have money and try to steal it, so you can only respond that you are having a little fun, or I think you can also respond with something like "I'm eating my money".
I don't think I wrote about our mouse ("jinax" in Wolof) before, but in the first or second week of living with our family, Meera and I found a mouse in our room. We heard it scuttling around and neither really wanted to look for it, but Meera decided to turn the light on. There was a lot more angst and sleeplessness involved, but to make a long story short, the mouse jumped onto my bed and then onto the floor and Meera screamed bloody murder, after which our cousin Daniel came running into our room and asking why it was such a big deal and didn't we have mice in America? We named him Jacques, and unsuprisingly we didn't stop being teased for weeks. Since we haven't seen him in a while and have cleaned every inch of our room several times, we decided he had probably gone. Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up this morning to have Meera tell me that she had seen a mouse on my bed with me last night while I was sleeping! Apparently Jacques is here to stay.
And now for the Senegalese culture lesson of the day: ataaya is the national tea of Senegal. The main point of it is not the tea itself, but the ritual of making it. You make it a really small pot that you put directly on hot coals, and there is one part sugar to about 3 parts water (but people in Senegal say that they don't like things "too sweet"). After the tea boils, you have to pour it back and forth between two cups in a special way that makes a lot of foam on top of the tea. The tea is no good without this foam. After you do that, you rinse the outside of the cups because they have sugar all over them, then you serve it. The ataaya glasses are only slightly bigger than shot glasses, and you're only supposed to use two, so two people drink at a time then you refill them and pass them on, with men being served first. The best part about this process is that it's usually men who make and drink the tea, so Meera and I get no end of amusement about Daniel and his friends having tea parties in his bedroom. They keep saying that they're going to teach us how to do it, and then we'll serve them, but as they are very particular about their tea, I think it will be a while before they entrust this task to us.
I don't think I wrote about our mouse ("jinax" in Wolof) before, but in the first or second week of living with our family, Meera and I found a mouse in our room. We heard it scuttling around and neither really wanted to look for it, but Meera decided to turn the light on. There was a lot more angst and sleeplessness involved, but to make a long story short, the mouse jumped onto my bed and then onto the floor and Meera screamed bloody murder, after which our cousin Daniel came running into our room and asking why it was such a big deal and didn't we have mice in America? We named him Jacques, and unsuprisingly we didn't stop being teased for weeks. Since we haven't seen him in a while and have cleaned every inch of our room several times, we decided he had probably gone. Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up this morning to have Meera tell me that she had seen a mouse on my bed with me last night while I was sleeping! Apparently Jacques is here to stay.
And now for the Senegalese culture lesson of the day: ataaya is the national tea of Senegal. The main point of it is not the tea itself, but the ritual of making it. You make it a really small pot that you put directly on hot coals, and there is one part sugar to about 3 parts water (but people in Senegal say that they don't like things "too sweet"). After the tea boils, you have to pour it back and forth between two cups in a special way that makes a lot of foam on top of the tea. The tea is no good without this foam. After you do that, you rinse the outside of the cups because they have sugar all over them, then you serve it. The ataaya glasses are only slightly bigger than shot glasses, and you're only supposed to use two, so two people drink at a time then you refill them and pass them on, with men being served first. The best part about this process is that it's usually men who make and drink the tea, so Meera and I get no end of amusement about Daniel and his friends having tea parties in his bedroom. They keep saying that they're going to teach us how to do it, and then we'll serve them, but as they are very particular about their tea, I think it will be a while before they entrust this task to us.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Everyday life is anything but boring
Wolof word of the day: jafe = too expensive or too difficult, but usually the former (JAH-fay). When someone tries to charge you the ridiculous toubab price, you say “dafa jafe”, “meaning that’s too expensive, I’m not a moron”. Because all words in Wolof have at least 2 meanings, when you repeat it ("jafe jafe") it means a problem.
Since I’ve been sliding into a routine here, I’m going to try to keep describing some “everyday life” things. One thing that’s pretty entertaining and also completely different from at home is taking a taxi. In the US, there is generally a standard price for a taxi, calculated by a meter. Because this is Senegal, you have to bargain for everything. Before you get in, you tell your taxi driver where you are going, and then he offers you a “reasonable” price, which is especially inflated for toubabs. Then you tell him what you should actually pay (this is where “dafa jafe” becomes useful), because there actually is an unofficial “standard” price of 1000CFA ($2) unless you are going all the way across town, in which case you can pay about $4. Another thing I don’t usually see in the US, once in the taxi, you usually sit in front with the driver and chat with him. If there are many people, you get in front first and then the others get in the back. This is just another one of those instances that make Americans seem unfriendly and private. Often when you pass another taxi, the two drivers will shout a hello at each other. A note on Senegalese drivers: they are CRAZY. I’m sure there are probably places with worse drivers (my friend Ginger assures me that India is much worse), but I’ve seen people do things with cars that I never thought possible. The normal way to park is by driving up on the curb so half of your car is on the sidewalk. People also drive across the boulevard things in the middle of roads to take shortcuts. And no one ever gets in trouble for going through parking lots to avoid no-left-turn intersections. I am already so used to this that I hardly notice how dangerous it usually is.
Yesterday I had my first real shopping experience. Coura, who works at our school, took Meera and me to the Marché HLM to buy traditional Senegalese clothes that we will need to wear this weekend for the religious pilgrimage we are going to (see below). The market was incredible: it was totally crammed with stalls, mostly selling clothes, and in one of the aisles cars kept driving by, even though there was already barely enough space to walk through! We went into an indoor part of the market to find a friend of Coura’s, but we weren’t wild about any of the clothes he had, so we went out to wander around. Of course, Coura was the essential part of the trip because once we found the clothes we liked she had to haggle with the guys to get us a good price. We ended up with one outfit for Sarah, and two for Meera, and we are heading off to the market near our house to find some more before we leave.
The pilgrimage we are going to is called the Magal de Touba, in the city of Touba. It’s a Mulsim pilgrimage to celebrate Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the two major Islamic brotherhoods in Senegal. All I know about the Magal so far is that millions of people will descend on Touba and it will be crazy and overwhelming and there is no way we can miss it. Since our family is Catholic, we are not going with them but with Amadou, a very good friend of our Maman’s who supposedly has some kind of mystical powers and protects the house, but mostly he just loves to talk and give people advice. But we figure if Maman trusts him it must be ok because she is VERY protective of us. Today we bought about 20 liters of water, because everyone has been warning us not to drink the water or eat fresh produce in Touba, but we are arming ourselves with powerful antibiotics just in case. I know it will be completely exhausting but an amazing experience, and I’ll have plenty of pictures and stories when I get back.
A bientôt, inchallah!
P.S. bonus Wolof lesson: "inchallah" is actually Arabic and means "God willing". The Americans all think this is both hilarious and morbid because people will say things like, "I'll see you tomorrow inchallah". Apparently you have to say it because you can never be sure, which makes sense, but we hear it as saying "we'll meet again, as long as we're both still alive tomorrow!" I will probably be saying this all the time back home, so don't be alarmed and interpret it as my newfound Muslim religious fervor.
Since I’ve been sliding into a routine here, I’m going to try to keep describing some “everyday life” things. One thing that’s pretty entertaining and also completely different from at home is taking a taxi. In the US, there is generally a standard price for a taxi, calculated by a meter. Because this is Senegal, you have to bargain for everything. Before you get in, you tell your taxi driver where you are going, and then he offers you a “reasonable” price, which is especially inflated for toubabs. Then you tell him what you should actually pay (this is where “dafa jafe” becomes useful), because there actually is an unofficial “standard” price of 1000CFA ($2) unless you are going all the way across town, in which case you can pay about $4. Another thing I don’t usually see in the US, once in the taxi, you usually sit in front with the driver and chat with him. If there are many people, you get in front first and then the others get in the back. This is just another one of those instances that make Americans seem unfriendly and private. Often when you pass another taxi, the two drivers will shout a hello at each other. A note on Senegalese drivers: they are CRAZY. I’m sure there are probably places with worse drivers (my friend Ginger assures me that India is much worse), but I’ve seen people do things with cars that I never thought possible. The normal way to park is by driving up on the curb so half of your car is on the sidewalk. People also drive across the boulevard things in the middle of roads to take shortcuts. And no one ever gets in trouble for going through parking lots to avoid no-left-turn intersections. I am already so used to this that I hardly notice how dangerous it usually is.
Yesterday I had my first real shopping experience. Coura, who works at our school, took Meera and me to the Marché HLM to buy traditional Senegalese clothes that we will need to wear this weekend for the religious pilgrimage we are going to (see below). The market was incredible: it was totally crammed with stalls, mostly selling clothes, and in one of the aisles cars kept driving by, even though there was already barely enough space to walk through! We went into an indoor part of the market to find a friend of Coura’s, but we weren’t wild about any of the clothes he had, so we went out to wander around. Of course, Coura was the essential part of the trip because once we found the clothes we liked she had to haggle with the guys to get us a good price. We ended up with one outfit for Sarah, and two for Meera, and we are heading off to the market near our house to find some more before we leave.
The pilgrimage we are going to is called the Magal de Touba, in the city of Touba. It’s a Mulsim pilgrimage to celebrate Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the two major Islamic brotherhoods in Senegal. All I know about the Magal so far is that millions of people will descend on Touba and it will be crazy and overwhelming and there is no way we can miss it. Since our family is Catholic, we are not going with them but with Amadou, a very good friend of our Maman’s who supposedly has some kind of mystical powers and protects the house, but mostly he just loves to talk and give people advice. But we figure if Maman trusts him it must be ok because she is VERY protective of us. Today we bought about 20 liters of water, because everyone has been warning us not to drink the water or eat fresh produce in Touba, but we are arming ourselves with powerful antibiotics just in case. I know it will be completely exhausting but an amazing experience, and I’ll have plenty of pictures and stories when I get back.
A bientôt, inchallah!
P.S. bonus Wolof lesson: "inchallah" is actually Arabic and means "God willing". The Americans all think this is both hilarious and morbid because people will say things like, "I'll see you tomorrow inchallah". Apparently you have to say it because you can never be sure, which makes sense, but we hear it as saying "we'll meet again, as long as we're both still alive tomorrow!" I will probably be saying this all the time back home, so don't be alarmed and interpret it as my newfound Muslim religious fervor.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Family Time
Yesterday we finally had our first music and dance class, only 2 weeks after classes started! As with everything in Senegal, all in its own time. We met at school, with the guy who works there who was going to take us to the class. Then we all walked together to the main road, Cheikh Anta Diop, to get on the Car Rapide. For those who don't know what a car rapide is, it's the most common form of public transportation. They are smaller than buses, usually painted blue and yellow and covered in all kinds of weird and tacky decor, and have guys hanging off the back of the bus who collect your money and bang on the side of the bus to let the driver know when you want to get off. It costs 100 CFA francs, roughly 20 cents. They are surprisingly comfortable on the inside, and true to their name, are much faster than the "real" buses. So, we all got on the car rapide heading towards Ouakam, a neighborhood north of the city, which is kind of a smaller city within Dakar. It's very traditional and feels like a village rather than a big city. Once descended from the car rapide, we went to the home of our guide's grandmother to pick up our djembes (drums). We finally got to the actual location of the dance class around 10 am, despite being told that the class was from 9-12. The actual dancing was really fun and exciting. The dance instructor was introduced as [forgotten name] from school, but while here you all have to forget she's from school, and at school forget she's your dance instructor. The dancing wasn't nearly as racy or scandalous as that introduction would suggest. We did about an hour and a half of dancing, then played djembe for about a half an hour.
When we got home from dance class, most of maman's sisters, mother, and other women from our family were in the courtyard getting ready for a feast that we were hosting for the whole family. A few days ago, Maman told us that we were going to have pork for said feast, and the night before, Sandra took me out into the front courtyard to show me the pig that she was going to kill the next day for the feast. Unfortunately, this happened while I was out. My vegetarianism has clearly gone out the window, because I was genuinely disappointed to miss such an opportunity. Anyway, Meera and I helped the women get the food ready for a while, until all the men in the family descended on us to chat with us and pretend they spoke english and try to give us kisses and alcohol. At this point we fled to take refuge in the boutique with Jean-Daniel. This would turn out not to be the best place; when we returned after eating "lunch" (at around 5 pm), Maman's younger brother showed up to pick a fight with one of our good friends from the shop, who would never hurt anyone. There was a lot of shouting in Wolof and a struggle to prevent a physical fight, so I figured it was probably a good idea to gather up my little cousin Jennifer and take her into the house. This turned out to be a great idea because she's now my newest fan and also really adorable.
Most of what happens now seems normal to me, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm just becoming accustomed to the bizarre. An example of something that we always get a good laugh about among the Americans: no one ever has change at stores etc. In fact, they say the don't have change and make a big fuss when you present them with a big bill, but then it turns out they actually do have change when you say you really really don't have any petites pièces. Additionally, every customer tries to use the biggest bill they can get away with, so they can have change. People come in the the shop specifically to ask us to "faire de la monnaie", and we've dubbed this the "game de la monnaie". It is like a big game, and it seems that everyone in Senegal is just hoarding change, with no intention of really using it. Just one of many weird phenomena of everyday life in Senegal.
Well, until next time. Leegi leegi!
When we got home from dance class, most of maman's sisters, mother, and other women from our family were in the courtyard getting ready for a feast that we were hosting for the whole family. A few days ago, Maman told us that we were going to have pork for said feast, and the night before, Sandra took me out into the front courtyard to show me the pig that she was going to kill the next day for the feast. Unfortunately, this happened while I was out. My vegetarianism has clearly gone out the window, because I was genuinely disappointed to miss such an opportunity. Anyway, Meera and I helped the women get the food ready for a while, until all the men in the family descended on us to chat with us and pretend they spoke english and try to give us kisses and alcohol. At this point we fled to take refuge in the boutique with Jean-Daniel. This would turn out not to be the best place; when we returned after eating "lunch" (at around 5 pm), Maman's younger brother showed up to pick a fight with one of our good friends from the shop, who would never hurt anyone. There was a lot of shouting in Wolof and a struggle to prevent a physical fight, so I figured it was probably a good idea to gather up my little cousin Jennifer and take her into the house. This turned out to be a great idea because she's now my newest fan and also really adorable.
Most of what happens now seems normal to me, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm just becoming accustomed to the bizarre. An example of something that we always get a good laugh about among the Americans: no one ever has change at stores etc. In fact, they say the don't have change and make a big fuss when you present them with a big bill, but then it turns out they actually do have change when you say you really really don't have any petites pièces. Additionally, every customer tries to use the biggest bill they can get away with, so they can have change. People come in the the shop specifically to ask us to "faire de la monnaie", and we've dubbed this the "game de la monnaie". It is like a big game, and it seems that everyone in Senegal is just hoarding change, with no intention of really using it. Just one of many weird phenomena of everyday life in Senegal.
Well, until next time. Leegi leegi!
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