La Famille

This past week I spent two days exclusively with my host family, including the Muslim holiday of Korite (Eid al-fitr, the end of Ramadan) in which we delivered Tchakri (orange blossom/vanilla yogurt with couscous) to our Catholic and Muslim neighbors and hung out with them. It was fun to meet them all!

So here's a quick look at the family (when I finally remember to bring my memory card I'll add some pictures)

Papi (a retired math teacher who like watching documentaries)

Maman (a sweet lady who patiently teaches me Wolof and answers all of my questions. Since it's her summer vacation she is home a lot, but usually teaches 7 year olds at elementary school)

and my host siblings... the twins are both 30, but in Senegal it's the norm to live at home until you get married.

Gorgui (he is a nurse and works with different NGO's. LOVES to talk and tell me to eat)

Khady (she works in a medical lab, loves music and is teaching me to dance)

Amadou (23, he makes really good Ataya, the traditional tea and is a university student)

Fatimata (21, she is the same age as me and helps me with a lot, like figuring out chores, how to ride the car rapides [a sort of bus], and translating wolof comedy shows for me. She is a student in the university Finance, Banks, Insurance program)

Thierno (turning 19 in a month, he likes to watch sports and pray. He is learning English for his bac [the extremely difficult high school exit exam] so we teach each other English-French vocab especially during sports games and while playing scrabble in both languages).

The newest addition is “Haby” (her Wolof name, she’s named after Papi’s grandma and I’m named after Maman’s grandma) who is an 18 year-old student from Utah on a different program. I commend her courage for coming to Senegal when she knew no more French than “bonjour, oui, non, and merci” on arrival and no Wolof. It’s been fun being her “interprete/traductrice/prof de francais” although the French, Wolof, English language triangle going on at home makes my head spin sometimes, because everyone is talking to me in one of the three, often at the same time. I’m hoping Haby will give me some good tips in return, because she can already eat with her hands 10x better than me and I’ve already been here a week.