Thursday, September 25, 2008

Dirty Underwear, Random Conversations, and Mangoes

So in Wolof culture, it's rude to ask for someone to wash your undies... like with the rest of you laundry (understandably - i wouldn't wanna wash somebody else's dirty undies). So this means that everyday before i take a shower i wash my undies first. At first i wasn't very good and though... oh god, i'm gonna be wearing dirty underwear for three and a half months... but i'm getting better at it...

Random conversations - they happen so often here. Is seems like the main reason they start is a wolof lesson... but usually ends in the senegalese males favorite question - are you married? as if i'm going to say: why, not i'm not... did you want to get together later and get married..?

Random conversations also come about within us Americans too... whether it be about D, cockroaches, big toes... the convo normally ends with "only in senegal"... a few good only in Senegal's:
  • I'm afraid to go by the man who has a closet-sized boutique on the corner cuz i forgot to return my coke bottle one time
  • the 'new' peanut butter flavored chocoleca is the shit
  • i've had bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner the night before, but i still want bread and cheese from the guy at the corner at 5 pm
  • i tried to explain my absentee ballot to our maid and she has no idea what i'm trying to say
  • there's a flashlight on your cell phone that comes in handy all the time

Mangoes: since i've had mangoes here i'm pretty sure i'll never be able to have a mango in the us that i think tastes good. They are supposedly not in a season here anymore, but they are soooo good. Today Prof. Sene came to introduce a friend to us. After telling us he was going to Ethiopia soon and talking about Bob Marley he decided to buy us all mangoes to prove our friendship... Neex na.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

yes. american mangoes, and basically anything tropical SUCK. since being in guatemala, i hate american mangoes.