Danga doff waay!

Wolof word of the day: doff = crazy. It’s probably the Wolof word I hear most often around my house.

The person who taught me the word “doff” is also probably the craziest person I know. He knows everyone in the neighborhood and is a good friend of the family, and I think he’s actually living in our house right now. His name is Matar, but everyone calls him the Gambien because he has spent a lot of time in the Gambia. At first, I thought he was really exhausting because he doesn’t speak perfect French and instead tries to force me to speak Wolof, but he has grown on me quickly, and Meera and I have started to refer to him as our second father. He hangs around our shop all the time and yells at guys who pay too much attention to us or bother us. Ironically though, he loves checking out women on the street, and taught us that “jaay fonde” means a nice ass.

In addition to my family’s boutique, there is a woman who sells peanuts and fruit at a stand in front of our house, and sometimes on the weekends her little daughter is there instead of her. This daughter is the coolest person I know and my new best friend; I think she’s about 9 or 10. I don’t really know how to spell her name but the short version of it is something like Kadjat. A few days ago I introduced myself to her but she was really shy and just kept smiling at me. Then Sunday I offered to help her set up her stuff, and she gave me a bucket to sit on and showed me how to help her tie bags of peanuts. She is super adorable and I spent about 2 hours sitting with her yesterday. We played with my cell phone and she tried to braid my hair, and at one point a guy from the neighborhood came over and was kind of bothering me, so one of the other neighbors started yelling at him. My new best friend thought this was hilarious and practically fell off her seat laughing, then offered me some sage advice on how to fend off men. I was both thankful and impressed.

Another one of the new things I am experiencing here is housework! My host mom is really insistent that Meera and I keep our room spotless, but the best part is that once a week, we get to wash our own laundry, by hand! The first time it was pretty hard and we were really tired after, but each time it gets a little easier and more fun. Everyone in the house and even some who don’t live in the house think it’s exceedingly funny, and last week the Gambien came into the courtyard and said he wanted to take a picture, then offered us a glass of gin to “make us stronger”. This past Saturday, we put on music and started dancing while washing, which made our maid, Nabu, really happy. She is really sweet and fortunately gets treated very well here—she works really hard, but my most mom and sisters do a lot of the housework too, and she gets to go home every other weekend.