Pas de Problème

We were told before arriving that the Senegalese are known for Teranga (hospitality). It’s been a few days since I moved in with my host-family and I’m not going to disagree.

The first night, I slept in the “girls’ room.” There are bunkbeds and a third bed on the opposite wall. I spent the night there with Khady, my host-sister (28) and Fatimata, my other sister (19). My host-mom, Fatou showed me the bathroom I was to use that was in the “boys’ room” shared by my brothers, Amadou (20) and Thierno (16), and a cousin Marodou (21-22ish?). “There is an ‘English Chair’ in this bathroom,” she explained. She pointed to a toilet. The boys use the hole in the ground.

Yesterday I moved into my actual room. They had been painting it a comforting Michigan State Dormitory eggnog color when I arrived. I share this room with Khady, and we have our own bathroom (ie, toilet with a shower a foot away and a drain). It seems like my host-mom has read the entire manual on hosting foreign students. When she was explaining my bedroom arrangements she gave me a look and said, “They told me you needed to have your own bed, but so you won’t be alone, Khady will be there with you.” Every meal so far she has described at length all the ways I’m to avoid Diarrhea while I’m here. “Alice can’t eat raw vegetables yet, or she’ll be running to the bathroom every 5 minutes.” “Alice shouldn’t eat couscous two nights in a row- it’s too hard to digest and she’ll spend all day in the shower.” The kids just laugh and try to get me to taste whatever it is she wants me to avoid. I had a vegetable salad and a fruit salad a day ago because I missed raw food so much. But I got to eat cucumbers last night for diner so it’s all good. I should count my blessings that someone cares so much about my digestive system.



There’s a goat on the roof- I can hear him bleating. Oh, I mean sheep. It’s a sheep. He looks much more like a goat to me, but they insist it’s a sheep. How do you tell the difference, anyway? Fatou says that most Senegalese families have a white sheep in the house or on the premises to chase away bad spirits. Khady always tells me he’s her sheep, and I asked her yesterday what his name was and she said he didn’t have one, but after much thought, decided maybe she’d name him Hope. I asked if they were going to eat him, and she said yes, probably soon. “You’d better pick a different name,” I said.