TOUBAB !

The little monster of a 2-year old named Mustafa calls me "Toubab" which means white skin , even after 2 weeks of living with him, he still doesnt remember my name is LULU. Hahaha he loves to run into my room and play with all of my cool stuff. He doesnt speak a word of French, except for "Merci" and "Bijoux!" when I ask him for a kiss (bisous). Whats funny is that in my house I dont know who is married or brother or sister or anybody's names.
Who is Malik's wife? Who is the guy who lives upstairs? Who is the random teenager in our house? Who got Mémé pregnant at age 17 (and is her name really Mémé?) These are all questions I ask myself the first week when things are still really unfamiliar and nothing has been explained to me - it's left for me to figure out. I will pick up later that nicknames here are used much more than actual name, even though Muslims have an elaborate naming ceremony whenever a child is born. I will learn later that my host sister's name is not Mémé but Mamy, and my host mum (the mother hen of the whole brood) is not Mami but Yaye, which means mother in Wolof. When I ask Magueye to clarify everyone's names in my house, he says that he actually doesn't know Yaye's real name and doesnt have the courage to ask such a daunting and disrespectful question. Hmmm... the whole naming thing here could not be more different than back home.

Another thing:the families here are enormous and everyone lives together. Whats even more confusing is that to call someone "your cousin" is actually an insult, so you call your cousin "your brother". I couldn't even begin to keep the family tree straight here because everyone is brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews. Also, the daughter of your aunt is "your sister", not your cousin. Beware ! To make matters worse for us toubabs, polygamy is allowed by the Koran and many Muslim Senegalese take this bit very seriously. Therefore it's quite common to come across someone with two, three, up to four wives. Magueye himself has 2 and they both live in under the same roof. This is more or less uncommon; usually a man with keep his second wife in a separate apartment as to not create jealousy among the wives. I'm not quite sure how Magueye's wives do it all together in the same house. Plus, both of them are pregnant at the same time!
As a result, the families are even more numerous because you have half brothers and sisters. Yaye, who is probably around 60, has a little sister of 28 years old - they have the same father. And let me get another one straight: Yaye's neice is younger than her own daughter, meaning that neice is older than aunty. Woo !
There are kids absolutely everywhere you look here- 30% of the population here is under 14 years old. The babies aren't coddled here the way they are in the States, and treated like fragile porcelain dolls. The women here strap them on to their back like duck tape and carry on with their daily chores. Another thing: it seems like it's the women who do all the work around here: laundry, cooking, child rearing, house cleaning. And the men? Usually lounging around in the shade working on their "social relationships."

Other things I have to watch out for: when we eat (on the floor, we all eat from a giant platter) you never eat with your left hand (your dirty hand) and never pose it on the ground because it's pushing your ancestors into the ground. For djuboudienne, the local dish of fish and rice, you roll up a ball of rice with your right hand and pop it into your mouth. Goodbye forks and spoons!


Today was incredible. I love Africa and the people here. They are very proud of their country - you see pictures of the African continent nearly everywhere you go. Islam has touched here in a way that makes eveyrone respectful and gentle. Once in a while you'll have a big, tall crazy African come by but you learn how gentle he truly is - such warm gentle hearts.