New Name

Hello everyone :)

I have a Senegalese name! Je m'appelle Ndela Badji (nndayla bajjee). It's quite ironic actually: before I left the states, all of us who are a part of the MSID program were given a "pre-departure reading guide" and there were a bunch of Senegalese names listed, so I read through them and throught Ndela sounded pretty... I came home from school one day last week and my maman gave me the name Ndela. Pretty cool huh?!

Anyhoo... I have had many new adventures since my last post and if I were to write about them all, your eyes would probably fall out of their sockets... so I'll just quick touch on a few. (And when I say quick, I mean I'll do my best to condense my stories down a little... but you know me... ramble ramble ramble...)

Story #1: I went to the beach! It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I went with my friend Lauren and her host sister Leoni. So, you all know how pale I am regularly... well imagine me in a swimsuit amidst a whole crowd of seriously beautiful black Africans. Needless to say... I stood out just a little. The beach would have been fabulous if it were not for all of the men constantly "bumping" into me and asking me my name and bla bla bla. One guy (named Babocar Seck) followed me around for close to an hour! He told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. I told him to bug off, but he seriously would NOT leave me alone. Lauren finally got him to go away and we enjoyed swimming and laying on the beach. A wee bit later, as we were just about ready to leave, Babocar approaches me for the 50 millionth time and hands me a torn off piece of a cardboard food box with his name and his number on it... only he continues to tell me that the number beneath his name was his mother's number, so when I called (psh... like I was going to call!) I should ask to speak with him. Leoni, Lauren and I had a good little giggle over that.

Story #2: It's rainy. It is the rainy season! It takes me just over an hour to walk to school, which I love because it gives me time to observe the everyday culture, prepare myself mentally for the day, and practice my greetings with all the fabulous Senegalese people in the street. :) But when it's raining...it makes the walk a bit miserable. The first time it rained on my way home, it was kind of fun just to walk and think in the rain (even though it took 2.5 days for my clothes to dry). It was hilarious because I was just strolling along, minding my own business, but all the Senegalese people ran for cover and were waiting it out under overhangs and in little boutiques. When I would walk by, they would just stare at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was a little, because now when it rains and I know I have to walk home, it's kind of a bit of a pain... But the good news is: when it's December and all of you back home in Minnesota are complaining about the cold and the snow and the bitter wind, I'll be laying on the beach. :)

Story #3: It was the end of Ramadan on Friday so school was canceled and there was a huge celebration called Korite (cor-ee-tay)! As you all know, most of Senegal is comprised of Islamic citizens (minus the 10% or so that is Catholic - which includes my maman) meaning that this holiday is widely celebrated. The cool thing is: everyone celebrates in some way or another, even if he/she is not Muslim! All of the Muslim neighbors bring special dishes to their neighbor families that are Catholic! And then on the Catholic holidays, the Catholic families prepare food for the Muslim families. What a neat thing. Talk about mutual respect!
Because my mother is Catholic, she was going to go to a friend's home to celebrate at a Muslim friend's home. I decided to go hang out with Lauren's family. (Her family is quite large, and I like being there as it is a better place to practice my French because there are more people with whom to practice.) Lauren, Leoni and I painted our nails and hung out in their beautiful (LARGE) home. I loved it. There was no sense of time. We had all day to relax, eat amazing food, paint our nails and braid our hair. (Yes...we were totally being girly girls and enjoying every minute!) That evening, we went out dancing at a club! Only the club was empty because most Muslims do not go out on the evening of Korite as they have just spent a lunar month cleansing themselves of their sins... so why would they go out right away after all that hard work? Saturday night... well, that's a different story. :) It was still lots of fun: the club was cool and we danced a lot anyway and didn't have to pay a cover fee because apparently Lauren's host brother Pierre had an "in" with the owner or something! We returned to Lauren's around 3 or 4 in the morning. :)

Story #3: Saturday night. I decided to sleep pretty much all day Saturday, and Saturday night most of our MSID group decided that it would be fun to go out together! The plan was to meet at our friend Kenzie's home for bisap and chillin' around 10 PM and then go dancing around midnight. A few people met at Lauren's home before that to chill there and then we would all walk together to Kenzie's. It was so much fun! Most people brought siblings from their families and almost the entire MSID group was there, so there were about 30 of us that went out! We went to a different club than the one I attended the night before and there were SOOOOOO MANY PEOPLE there. Dancing is definitely one of my favorite things to do, so being in this place with such a diverse group of people was definitely something I'll never forget. I didn't return to my home until 5:30AM!!! People don't go out until much later here, and stay out until the wee hours of the morning. When we left the club, it was still extremely packed and showed no signs of letting up! Crazy!

Story #4: I have multiple mother figures here. So yesterday (Sunday) was a chillaxed day for me. I did lots of homework, cleaned my room, and went to buy another phone card and lots of water for the week. There is small football field down the street from my home where all the children go to play soccer and the old people go to sit in the shade of the trees. It's very open so most of the time there is a nice little breeze and always good company. I went to sit with my maman and one of her friends whose name is Marie. Because it has been so rainy lately, the football field was beginning to turn into a small lake. (it is composed completely of sand, like everything else here) Because the children love to play soccer so much, they were emptying the field of the water bucket by bucket. It was so much work and it was so hot out! It was beautiful to see all of them working together to clean the field so that they could play together. No one complained, everyone pitched in, and no one asked them to do it. So cool.

Marie, Maman, and I were sitting and chatting when all of a sudden a young man close to my age approached me and asked if he could have a drink of my water (I had a bottle sitting at my feet) Marie told him no, but he still didn't leave. He took my right wrist and began to examine my bracelets. (At this point, we could all tell that he had been drinking.) He took the only bracelet he had off of his wrist and added it to the collection on mine (it was made of metal, so he put it on and squeezed it tightly shut.) At this point I was completely confused and didn't know how to respond because I didn't know if this bracelet was a symbol of some sort or if my accepting it meant something more than just accepting a gift. Then, out of the blue, and old man with no teeth and extreme body odor approached the young man and took him by his shirt collar and started yelling at him in Wolof. I could pick out that he was scolding him for talking to me and giving me this bracelet. My maman began to attempt to take the bracelet off my wrist and the old man started trying to talk to me at the same time and I was completely dumbfounded by the whole situation that I just sat there trying to make out what this man was trying to tell me. But we all know that my competence level in Wolof is about a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. The bracelet was stuck on my arm because it had been squeezed so tightly and we had trouble getting it off. As soon as we slid it off, Marie said "allez-y" ("let's go") so we picked up our chairs and moved about 20 ft. to the outside of Marie's home. Both women were completely astounded that this man would do such a thing to me and kept checking to see if I was ok. I was completely fine, just a bit bewildered. "DeffDeff" (duffaduff) kept coming up in the conversation which means "crazy." Apparently both men were just drunk and being stupid. It was endearing to see how much both women were genuinely upset for me. They then continued to talk about all the mosquito bites I have on my legs and how awful they look and asked if I was using bug spray and taking my malaria meds. Later that evening Marie Therese came over for dinner and she was worried about my legs as well. I feel very well looked after here, as all of Maman's friends are becoming extremely endearing motherly figures.

Until next time,
Peace,
Ndela