tutoring: try 2

Wolof tutoring success! I was worried about my Wolof coming along because my first tutoring session was less than helpful (I’m using that phrase literally, I felt like it discouraged me and taught me nothing) but today’s session was great! The first session I brought my Peace Corps Wolof textbook and my tutor pretty much just read it to me and didn’t translate anything. This time I came with questions and scenarios to learn vocab for and it worked really well. I guess tomorrow I’ll see if it really did work because I’ll be giving a self-introduction to the presidents of the women’s group that my tutor helped me write. I’m trying to lower my expectations for tomorrow because they’re really high, but I hope a lot of work partners come out of this meeting.

When I got home from tutoring, I got the typical response from one of my hfcousins, “where were you, it’s hot. Aren’t you hot?” To which I give my standard response, “it’s always hot, I’m always hot,” I mean it both as a joke and to make a point, just because it’s hot (which it is always hot) doesn’t mean you get out of doing work all the time (though I do appreciate the afternoon naps and tea drinking sessions). Usually that comment get shrugged off but today I got a response! “Yeah. That’s why Africans are black. You’re white because you never see the sun.” CLEARLY she was joking, and she was laughing as she said it. It was SO nice to have someone joke with me. I often find what I’m doing to be ridiculous and am the only person laughing (not too different from my life in the US come to think of it). Moral of the story, it was nice to joke around and not with the joke of “oh you can’t speak Wolof.”

Also this morning I tried to meet the Mayor and managed to meet the 1st deputy. I kind of dug myself into a hole when I brought up that I might try to re-start the compost project. Two background notes before I continue: 1. My introduction usually goes like this, “I’m here to work with small businesses, I know that my ancienne started a compost project that I might try to re-start. I also want to work with women’s groups and youth, but! My first three months are for learning Wolof. I have training in January and I’ll start working after that.” I feel like it gives me credibility and shows I have something to offer while, at the same time, insuring they aren’t expecting results tomorrow. 2. My ancienne worked pretty closely with the Mayor’s office on the compost project (they gave her city land to use). That being said when I brought it up the deputy mayor had NO CLUE what I was talking about. After trying to explain the project as well as I could, he made sure to tell me that the mayor’s office is VERY happy to work with me on EVERYTHING. So happy I should stop in every few days and keep them up to date on what I’m doing. I was already planning on keeping them in the loop as much as I can but I’m going to have to go out of my way to make sure I’m doing it a ton now.


Heat: 10 minute walk to Mayor’s office (I stopped to greet people) at 11am and my hair was totally dry. I’m told it’s going to get cold in December…

The start of week two!

I'm a day into week two (I'm predicting it takes util about week 20 for me to stop counting) and everything's coming along. Yesterday was all about installing my modem so I could actually, finally, get the internet. I also went to the market and bought some margarine, two eggs, and something I think (and hope) is flour. I had the eggs for breakfast this morning and I'm still trying to clean the dirty pot - I think I'll be sticking to hard boiled for a while.

After the scrambled/burned eggs this morning (I'm still getting used to cooking on a gas flame... I make killer hot water though, you should try it if you're in the neighborhood), I sucked it up and did my laundry. Laundry is never a pleasant task if you don't have a washing machine (and sometimes even then it isn't fun), but here laundry is more of a spectacle... at least me doing laundry was a spectacle. When I told everyone last night that I was doing laundry today, they all got excited, I'm sure they said something like - oh this'll be good... she's going to make a fool of herself! Unfortunately, this was something like the tenth time I've done laundry in Senegal so it was quite a disappointment for my host family. Never fear, they still managed to critic it (your clothes aren't clean.) but as far as I'm concerned water and soap = clean.

I also found a boutique that sells Biskrem (see previous blog) in 10/11 packs. Briefly, Biskrem come in 2 sizes of packs: 4X4's (which only have 4 cookies and are actually called 2x2s but I called it the wrong name and have kept it) and 10/11 packs. My friends and I aren't exactly sure how many come in a 10/11 pack. I understand the solution seems simple, count the biskrems idiots, but each time I count, I forget. And I've stopped caring! All I know is that 4 Biskrems is never enough and 10/11 Biskrems is perfect! I had only seen 4x4s sold in Bambey but today I found a place to buy 10/11 packs! (Listen, yesterday I watched a goat jump on rocks for an hour, wandering around boutiques is quite an improvement.)

After doing laundry I went to find the woman I was suggested be my tutor. When I say find, I mean literally, walk down the street, stop, greet the first person, ask "where is Awa?" and continue from person to person getting a little closer each time until I'm at the right place. The tutor lives close so today it only took me 2 people! I'm going to start with 2 hours every Tuesday and see how it goes before increasing the hours of Wolof lessons. My Wolof is coming along, I still can't have a conversation with anyone and sometimes can't even respond to the standard questions. I'm getting good at recognizing words but sometimes it takes a little prompting before I remember what the word means and can form a response. Luckily for me the Senegalese are great at helping with gestures:
Senegalese woman: wolof wolof wolof wolof wolof doum?
KO: (thinking) crap... doum... I know that word... they're asking something about me.. but what is it.. jekker is husband... so that's not it...
Senegalese woman: (grabs her breast and shakes it at me) doum! am nga doum?
KO: Deedeet! amuma doum! (Thinking) that's right, doum, kids! of course!

Honestly that exact interaction has happened at least once the last 3 days... you would think I would remember the word but I have a lot of words to remember and "children" isn't on the top of my list.

Today, however, after much flipping through my vocab notebook, I was able to say to my host mom: Think you that if I go mayor office there, madame the mayor, be located she office there? Now?

Part of horrible state of those questions is because Wolof is structured, sometimes, to have the subject after the verb, but still, my Wolof is pretty much non-existent. Hopefully that changes soon!

As I would say in Wolof: I go sit my family now. After I dinner. After I regard tv. Tomorrow. God willing!
(I'm going to go sit with my family now then have dinner and watch tv, I'll blog again tomorrow, god willing).

KO