Snapshots: Thièssed Out

It's amazing how little time one has to write when not sitting alone in her village. The past few weeks are now a blur of fun and fattening up, with a few noteworthy snapshots:

Thiès-ed Out
-Picture the cat-sized rat (genus species catus ratus). Picture the bite mark on my foot. It started to swell with infection, but I got some meds and it's good now. My other scar from TDIDD still bulges nearby.

-Next shot: at Aissatou the tailor's. She makes clothes for us and is awesome and has cool hair. Not so awesome when we have to go next door to try on the clothes in random bedrooms. It's not as sketchy as it sounds, but one morning Mary (senegalese name Assy) and I were brought to a room with FIVE sleeping people of mixed ages and genders. We laughed, but still changed and conducted our tailoring consultations in their boob-grabbing entirity. My dress makes me look like I'm 8 but it was still worth it.

-Now picture me sitting with my Thiès family, watching hookers on the night street while my sisters lit their faces blue as they scrolled through their cell phone playlists. My forehead is wrinkled. "Buguna... Naka wa... Sama.. Baxna... Waaw..." I've just realized that the reason I've never really understood my family's Pulaar is because they actually only speak Wolof. Except when they speak slowly to me, "Sit dooowwwnnn. Eaaaatttt!" This epiphany actually makes me feel better.

-Senegad Fuki-Jay! aka tag sale for a cause. Found some hideous old volunteer clothes that I now wear all the time. The women who work in the training center kitchen rumaged next to us. One was thrilled to discover a flimsy swatter the shape of a hand that said, "Gotcha!" every time it made contact. We got giggley about it, but then I instructed her to spank Assy with it and she wouldn't stop! "GotchaGotchaGotchaGotcha!" Assy was sporting a purple swimsuit with a goldn buckle and a leather skirt on top of her regular clothes at the time. It was so absurd I nearly wet the 5 outfits I was wearing from laughing so hard.

-The Pulo Futa language trainers were supposed to help us translate all the technical terms we wanted. Instead, they mostly said they forgot the word or just became embarrassed at any sexually-related term. It was frustrating to be told to say stuff like "his thing" because we shouldn't be using the real words. Finally we got some out, but it was a shitshow of arguing giggling guys who had trouble spelling. The women poked in and left, save Houssay, who answered mostly modest questions and pretended not to hear some of the others. My favorite part was when a bunch of awkwardly grinning men were passionately arguing about how to say breast-feeding or something while the lights were out (common), and we were sweatily trying to transcribe. Houssay waddled her newly preggers self around the table answering, "Funky b!" (a non-english letter description) once and then just repeating it over and over to herself until she was able to ease herself into a chair. Funky b, funky b funky b...