My family and neighbors, even the children, understand that I dislike when people call me “toubab” and believe this dislike extends to the word “toubab” itself. In actuality, I'm only upset when people use it as a substitute for my name and then demand candy. Sometimes there are perfectly legitimate instances when a person could say "toubab," for example, to tell me that a group of white people biked through the village the other day. To overcome this obstacle (of referring to white people without saying "toubab"), my friends and neighbors have decided that “toubab” and “Peace Corps” are synonymous. For example:
Musa, pointing to my hair: This hair is…how do you call this hair?
Isatou: Binta’s hair.
Musa pauses; while it is true that “Binta’s hair” is one way of referring to my hair, what he really wanted was a word to refer to toubab hair in general.
Musa: … Peace Corps hair is beautiful!
Another example:
Hawa: How many days does a toubab month have?
Me: What?
Fatou: How many days does a Peace Corps month have?
Me: I still do not understand.
Fatou: How many days?
Me: Thirty one.
Fatou: Thirty one days and then it dies?
Me: Who dies?
Fatou: Thirty one days and the month dies? It leaves?
Me: Yes. I thought you said a person died. I thought, “Who died?!”
Hawa and Fatou: Hah, Binta thought a person died.
The above conversation also illustrates how awesome Fatou is—notice how many different ways she was able to rephrase the question until I understood.
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