Our counterparts are here and both my counterpart and supervisor seem to be nice people. They both seem really interested in working with womens groups and with girls groups which makes me very excited for the potential work opportunities. There is a hilarious possibility that I'll be helping write bylaws from some of the womens groups (I was bylaws chair for my sorority in college and I thought I had escaped it, oh how circular life can be). One of the curious things about Senegalese culture is, even though I've explained that I cannot speak Wolof yet, it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone speaks to me in Wolof, even after I say "Only French, not yet Wolof" or the million other ways to convey that message. The bizarre thing about language, however, is that some of the time, I can understand the general message of what they're trying to say with simple things.
Before the counterpart workshop, there was one Senegalese behavior that really bothered me: hissing. The Senegalese hiss when they want your attention. They hiss at each other, vendors hiss if they want you to buy something, children hiss before the say toubab or ask for money, you hiss if you want a taxi (somehow it works too). Today, I added another behavior to that list: snapping as you raise your hand to speak. During the counterpart workshop when the counterparts had something to say they would raise their hand, snap, and usually say "eh" or something. It's just bizarre.
Last night, I had my first bad run-in with Senegalese food. Looking back on the situation I should have known better: bread with tomato/onion/noodle sauce with flavorless fried dough balls was probably not a good choice. Oh well. It was a weird sandwich and, let's just say, we did not agree.
Oh well! Back to the counterpart workshop!
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