Conversations with Adama: Clothes!

Ado: Are there clothes in America?

Me: Yes, clothes are there.
Ado: And shoes?
Me: Shoes also.
Ado: And skirts?
Me: And skirts also and shirts also.
Ado: And headwraps?
Me: Yes.
Ado: Yes?
Me: Yes.
Ado: But konkorans are not there.
Me: No.

Two-zero

Almost every night I ask Mamadou if he played football that day, even though I know the answer is yes. Then I’ll ask who played and where did they play and who won. And sometimes the players or the location will change, but always his team wins, 2-0.

Exams!

One Saturday, while I was waiting for the computer class to begin, some twelfth grade boys sat at the table with me and I asked how their exams were going.

Student: Heh! That exam made some students to have very serious diarrhea.

Oops.

So apparently, I think, the radio will occasionally list the names of people who have recently passed away, but I didn’t realize that’s what the list of names was about so when I heard, “Neene Galle Jallow” I turned to Neene and said, “Neene! I heard your name on the radio!” and Gaye didn't hear me so I repeated, “The radio, it said ‘Neene Galle Jallow’” and then no one said anything in response and I was left to puzzle in silence why no one seemed to care even though everyone loves to point out that song where “Binta Jallow” is mentioned.

Then, a little later, Neene says to Gaye that So-and-so from Such-and-such village has died and I realize she must have learned that from the radio. But for sure things would’ve been a lot less awkward if Neene had just said, “Binta, that’s not funny, those are the names of dead people.”

Then again, if she’d said that I probably would’ve felt embarrassed and angry and wished that she’d just stayed silent and let me figure it out for myself.

Another word for degree

Student, after accidentally saying 120 dalasi instead of 120 degrees: Dalasi is another word for degree.

Me: Dalasi is another word for degree?
Student: Yes.
Me: So if I want some bread and beans, I can draw a triangle and give it to the women who are selling and they will accept? They will give me bread and beans?

Laughter from the class.

Student: Yes.

Not sweet!

Tijan is maybe three years old and sometimes visits my compound.

Tijan: Your ears are not sweet.
Me: And your nose is not sweet.
Tijan: You too, your eyes are not sweet.
Me: You too, your mouth is not sweet.
Tijan: You too, your chin is not sweet.
Me: You too, your arms are not sweet.
Tijan: You too, your legs are not sweet.
Me: You too, your stomach is not sweet.
Tijan: You too, your fingers are not sweet.
Me: You too, your shirt is not sweet.
Tijan: You too, your headwrap is not sweet.

And this is an abridged version of our conversation.

Thirty-five percent!

German Boy (who is not actually German, but that is his nick-name): There is a 35 percent difference between America and here…The heat. In America it is not hot.

Me: It is hot, but it is not has hot as here. Before I came to Gambia, I did not know this heat.

German Boy: Yes, it is hot, but the hotness is not the same. That is why I am like this [indicates his dark skin] The heat. If I went to America I would get what I need, the coldness. And good food. It is because I am here that I am like this [indicates his skin again]. If I had coldness, if I had good food, I would not be like this.

Me: You would be like this? [I point to my skin]

German Boy: Yes.

Then our conversation ends because one of his friends arrives and they start arguing in Pulaar about whether English or French is better.

Tea!

The radio program that had one day discussed expired food another day talked about how to identify a friend who’s cheap. I wasn’t fully paying attention, but one of the warning signs was that a cheap friend will only drink tea without milk. So two of the teachers start talking about black tea versus white tea (white tea is tea with milk) and I asked, “So which tea is better?”

Teacher: Tea with milk of course
Me: But actually I like drinking tea better without milk

The teacher gives me the same look a friend once gave me when I told her I really miss eating open-faced liverwurst and avocado sandwiches.

Then he said, “You have your reasons?” in a tone of voice that suggested his question really should have concluded with an “I presume?”

Me: Yes, I think the taste is better.
Teacher:You know it is the cheap people who will drink black tea because they do not want to spend money for milk.
Me: But I’m not cheap, I just think it tastes better.

 The teacher returns to to writing in his notebook.

Aversions!

I’ve developed an aversion to men in sunglasses and old women in general. Men in sunglasses, because conversations with them usually proceed as follows:


Sunglasses: Hey, white lady!
Me: [silence]
Sunglasses: What is your sweet name?
Me, coldly: Binta.
Sunglasses: Where do you come from?
Me, coldly: America.
Sunglasses: Oh, America is very sweet. I want to go America.
Me: [silence]
Sunglasses: So how long you have been in The Gambia?
Me, coldly: Almost one year.
Sunglasses: Oh, so you can speak the local language now.
Me, coldly: Eyi, mi naani Pulaar. E jooni mi yahi. [Yes, I hear Pulaar. And now I am going]

And with that I leave. Sometimes I try to prevent the conversation from going in an America-is-so-sweet direction by telling him I’m from The Gambia, but that’s too obvious a lie to last for very long. Maybe I should say I’m from…Estonia? I know nothing about Estonia, so hopefully no sunglassed Gambian man would either.


And old ladies, because conversations with them usually proceed as follows:

Old lady: Buy me a mango.
Me: ?
Old lady: Buy me a mango.
Me: But I do not have money.
Or maybe the conversation will go like this:

Old Lady: I am angry.
Me: You are angry?
Old Lady: Yes, I am angry.
Me: Why?
Old Lady: You did not come to my compound. “Pera” is there.
Me: What is “pera”?
Old Lady: You know “pera.”
Me: I do not know “pera.” What is “pera”?
Mamadou: Per-ra. Say “per.”
Me: I can say “pera,” but I do not know what “pera” is.
Mamadou: A naming ceremony.
Neene: “Pera” is a naming ceremony??
Old Lady: There is pounding. This, this. [she pantomimes pounding] And this. [she dances].
Me: Pounding and dancing? Still I do not understand.
Neene: Ask Amadou.
Mamadou: Ask Amadou.
Me: Amadou is there?
Neene: Yes. [I call to Amadou, who is inside his house].

Me: Amadou, what is “pera”?
Amadou: Marriage ceremony.

Me, to the Old Lady: Okay, I understand. There is a marriage ceremony at your compound?
Old Lady: Yes, and you did not come.
Me: But it is right now that I returned from school.
Old Lady: It is right now that you returned from school?
Me: Yes.
Old Lady: Ah-haa…
Me: The marriage ceremony is still there?
Old Lady: Yes.
Me: Okay, later I will go.
Old Lady: If you do this [she pantomimes washing], if you put on a compelet…
Me: If I wash and put on a compelet I will go, okay.

Neene: But the marriage ceremony has not come yet.
Me: It has not come yet? When will it come?
Old Lady: In the evening.

Sky!

One day walking back from the school I stumbled upon a chunk of sky. Okay, actually I didn’t stumble at all, it wasn’t even on my path…but I liked the alliteration of “sky” and “stumble.” And, fine, it wasn’t sky either but a chunk of cement with one crumbly side painted robin’s egg blue. But wouldn’t it have been better to stumble on sky?

2 p.m.

Neene: Get up and pray!
Amadou: Who, me?

Neene, Amadou and I were the only people in the compound.

Neene: Hah! He asks, ‘who, me?’

Amadou continues to lie in the hammock and discuss medicine for stopping bullets.

Neene approaches with a bucket of dirty dishwater and acts like she’s about to empty it on Amadou.

Amadou, leaping out of the hammock: The mobile will spoil!

Braids! Courtesy of Rugi...

The adventure of Rugi braiding my hair started one Wednesday evening. Although I realized I ran a great risk in entrusting my hair to Rugi, I so love the feeling of fingers running through my hair that I was willing to put up with excessive tugging and yanking and lost hair. After Rugi completes one braid and I examine it and it feels all right so I let her continue. She’s doing itty bitty braids but claims she will finish tonight.

She finishes two more braids she says she is done for today and will finish tomorrow. “Don’t take the braids out, Binta!”

So I don’t.

The next day after school Rugi continues braiding and another girl, Ceesay, joins her, but after a few more braids they both get called away by their moms. Later that afternoon I walk over to Sini’s compound and Rugi shouts out that she wants to finish braiding my hair. Fatou Bobo, her mom, tells me not to let her because Rugi doesn’t know how to braid, she will only play. In response, Rugi whips off my headwrap to reveal her handiwork. Fatou Bobo laughs and Sini asks who braided my hair. "Rugi," I reply. 

A little later, Isatou Pippi, New Isatou and Salimatou examine my braids and exchange exclamations of horror. “Binta! Rugi wasn’t braiding, she was knotting!” “Binta! If the children want to braid your hair, do not accept!” “Binta! Refuse! Look, Rugi has tired your hair.” A frizzy strand of hair is placed before my eyes.

The three girls set to work undoing the braids. When Rugi walks by and sees them undoing her hard work I expected a tantrum, but I explained that they’d told me the braids were not correct and then shortly after that, some random child threw something that hit Rugi’s toe and made it bleed, so she became more concerned with that. Meanwhile, I convince Isatou Pippi to continue struggling with a particularly stubborn braid and not go and find a razor to cut it off, as she had suggested she do. Isatou Pippi has become the main girl in charge of hair repair—Salimatou has wandered off and New Isatou has busied herself with gathering every last loose strand of hair. I guess she wants to make sure the birds don’t get a hold of the hair and give me headaches. New Isatou instructs me to hold on to the strands she’s gathered until she determines that I’m doing a poor job of that. Then she secures the loose strands of hair to the elastic, until she realizes I’m doing a poor job of holding on to that at which point she ties the elastic with the hairs into a corner of my headwrap.

When everything’s undone, Isatou Pippi starts to braid my hair, but not the small braids, the larger ones that go against my scalp. She completes one braid and says “wait, I will finish tomorrow.” But after all this, I don’t want to wait until tomorrow so I ask Noogoi, whose real name is Adama, if she could finish and she did.

And that was the end of that adventure.

"I saw it in a movie"

Student: Miss Jallow, is it possible to put a human being into a bottle?

Me: A fully-grown human?
Student: Yes.
Me: No.
Student: I saw it in a movie.
Another student: It was magic.
Me: If a human is not even a baby yet, if it is only a few cells put together, it can fit into a bottle, but there is no way to fit a fully-grown human into a bottle.

A third student nods in agreement.

Conversations with Rugi: Stolen clothes!

Me: Rugi, your outfit is pretty. Is it a new outfit?

Rugi: It is your outfit.
Me: My outfit?
Rugi: Yes, I stole it.
Me: This is my outfit and you stole it?
Rugi: When you went to Basse I entered your house and I stole it. [turning to Amadou] Isn’t that right, Uncle?
Amadou: Huh? [Amadou hadn’t been a part of conversation before this]
Rugi: When Binta went to Basse I stole her outfit.
Amadou: Yeah.
Rugi, triumphantly: Ah-ha!

"The cold weather is not here"

One night Kairaba returned from the mosque and greeted us with “Good evening! How is the cold weather?” And Sellu replied, “The cold weather is not here.” I think a more apt response would have been a sarcastic “ha-ha,” so I should learn how to say that in Pulaar.


And on a different evening:
Mamadou: It is cold here.
Me: Cold?
Mamadou: It is not cold here.
Me: Yes.
Mamadou: But tomorrow afternoon it will be cold.
Me: Tomorrow afternoon?
Mamadou:: Tomorrow afternoon.

It wasn’t.

Not even a little.

Isosceles!

One day in class, after I’d assigned some classword on identifying whether triangles were equilateral, isosceles, or scalene:

Student: Miss Jallow, she [points to the girl behind her] says that at Nassir the teachers pronounce it “isosceleet.”
Me: Isosceleet?
Student: Yes.
Me: Hmm. Well, you know the English spoken in America and the English spoken in England are not the same, they are different. In America the people say isosceles, but maybe, I don’t know, in England the people say “isosceleet.”
Student: Yes, but Bintu was saying in Nassir they say isosceleet.
Me: And maybe the teachers at Nassir speak the English that the people in England speak.

Later that same class…

A student has come to the board to solve classwork problem number three.

Student: It has two angles that are twenty degrees so it is “ishosholeesh.”
Me: Correct, but I think even in England they do not say “ishosholeesh.”
The student grins sheepishly and the class bursts out laughing.
Another student: Even in France they do not say ishosholeesh.

Genies, further explained

A few days after Fatou Bobo ties the red fabric around my wrist, one of Julia's host sisters further explained the red fabric mystery. Apparently, there are genies that will pick you and change you for someone else. Unless you’ve got the red fabric tied to you, then you’re safe.

So now I’m picturing a scenario that in addition to Moses and the Egyptians is also like those changelings in I forget what culture…Irish? Where the faeries take your baby and exchange it with another baby that isn’t yours. And you can’t tell just by looking but you know something’s off and you know this baby doesn’t have a human soul.

That’s how I’m imagining this genie works.

Genies!

One afternoon in early May, I was sitting at Sini’s and I noticed that Pateh (who was napping on a mat) and Rugi (who was dancing and singing to stop Baby Musa from crying for his mom) both had pieces of red fabric tied around their left wrists.  A little later, after Musa has grown bored of Rugi’s entertainment and his mom, Fatou Bobo, has finished feeding him flavored margarine (and I imagine but cannot confirm that the flavor was chocolate because the tub says, “Coco” in large letters and the color of the margarine is pale brown) Fatou Bobo ties together some strips of red fabric, twists them and ties them around Baby Musa’s waiste.

I look out at the children playing in the street and notice that nearly every single one of them has a strip of red fabric tied around his or her wrist. One girl doesn’t have it around a wrist, but instead around one of her braids. Tijan is busily occupied with attempting to tie a faded and rather large scrap of red fabric around his own wrist. This was starting to seem like something more than a coincidence. So I asked Fatou Bobo. and Sini…

Me: Many children have this [I indicate the red fabric around Rugi’s wrist and then towards the children playing in the street].

Sini: Yes…

Me: They did this because…?

Sini: Because?

Me: For what?

[Silence. I wait.]

Sini, turning to Fatou Bobo: Binta wants to know why the children have this.

[More silence].

In Fatou Bobo’s subsequent explanation, she used a lot of words that I didn’t know, so here is her explanation as interpreted by me: “Because the big children said so. It is to prevent something from happening to their souls.”

When she finishes explaining, she pauses expectantly, but it is a hesitating sort of expectancy, if that makes sense.

Me: If the children have this [I gesture towards Rugi’s wrist] there will not be a problem?

Fatou Bobo, with relief, probably because I’m acting like red fabric scraps that ward off danger sound perfectly logical: Yes. You understand?

Me: Yes (although I didn’t completely).

Fatou Bobo: But it is not only the children. Me also, I will do this. And you? Would you like it too?

Me: Okay.

Sini: ??

So the fabric is fetched and cut and a strip tied around my wrist and another around one of Fatou Bobo’s braids.

Rugi: Tie it in Binta’s hair!

Fatou Bobo: No.

Me: My hair will not accept.

Then Fatou Bobo brings me along to one of the compounds with a grinder so she can grind a bowlful of recently shelled peanuts. Along the way I notice more people tied with red fabric and also notice that Fatou Bobo’s tied a piece of red fabric around her door. I’m reminded of that biblical story where all the Egyptian first-borns die. Will these scraps of red allow our souls to be bypassed by some malevolent spirit? And what do the big kids have to do with it?

Neighbors Near and Far

A few weeks ago I shared Neighbors Near and Far, an elementary school social studies textbook from America, from 1983, with some of the neighborhood kids who’d come round.

They're first reaction was to play the gender-guessing game. Fingers pointed to different photos, accompanied by the words, “Boy. Boy? Girl. Girl. Boy?” New Isatou (there is another Isatou, not Pippi Isatou or grown-up Isatou, who has recently been hanging out at our compound) hasn’t been to school, but she knows the words for “boy” and “girl” in English, so she played Girl?Boy? and practiced English.

After we'd been through the book once, we started again from the beginning. Salimatou, Mamadou's "wife," started to tell a story about one of the pictures, with elaborations by Pippi Isatou.

When the children were done with the book, Kairaba's niece Kadijatou asked to see it. She flipped through quietly, but asked about the bears. It’s unfortunate that I keep coming across photos of bears because there’s really no Gambian animal that I’ve decided makes for a satisfactory comparison. One volunteer told me she's explained bears are “like a dog,” which I guess is sort of true. Bears are more dog-like than goat-like, at least.

Another day I brought out the book and the boys played the “whose wife is this?” game. I liked to point out pictures of old ladies and shout, “Hiruna’s wife!” to which Hiruna would reply, “uh-uh.” “You do not accept?” “No.”

The boys were also fond of pointing at every object in every picture and declaring “My car!” or “My horse!” or “What is this?” “Bread.” “My bread!” The object of this game was to point and shout the fastest, thereby declaring as many objects as your own as possible. At one point, just before I decided the book had put up with enough abuse and needed to go back into my house, the boys took to licking (sometimes actually, sometimes make-believe) the pages that pictured juice or bananas or meat.

Sometimes, however, I would bring out the book and the children wouldn’t whip themselves up into a frenzy and I could quietly turn the pages and answer questions about the pictures. I like to wait until they ask me “What is this?” before giving my explanations, because I like their explanations better. For example:

• The table of contents displays each chapter number inside a colorful circle. These circles are footballs
• The family portrait with the grandfather holding a baby in the center and lots of other people around was taken at a naming ceremony
• The basketball is a football
• The marbles are footballs (and this is strange because I have seen Gambian children playing with marbles and I have asked what the marbles were called and no one told me “footballs”)
• The vehicle that looks like a train is actually a car.
• The Capitol Building is actually a mosque
• Oh, and that orange is a football too.

Also, because I made fun of that English textbook for only featuring sweatered children, here’s what I’d think of America if all I knew was this textbook:

• Americans occupy their time with preparing to eat, eating, or playing games. Most often games involving a ball of sorts
• If a person is not wearing full-length pants, he or she is wearing short shorts.
• And a person wearing short shorts is also most likely wearing striped knee-high socks, and you’d wonder, since the combination covers nearly the entire leg, why the person wouldn’t just wear pants.
• American houses are all shades of beige or brown
• Americans will eat banana, tomato and lettuce salads for dinner
• Americans like to give speeches
• American moms sometimes interrupt breakfast to skewer oranges in a demonstration of the orbiting planets. So apparently, metal skewers are a part of the American breakfast utensil line-up.

Expired food!

One morning on the radio the topic of discussion was expired food (we were not listening to the BBC). The hosts, a man and woman, were debating whether purchasing and consuming expired food was a good or a bad thing. They concluded the program by reading the comments submitted by listeners:

• “If you eat expired food you will expire faster”
• “The reason so many people die in Africa is expired food"
• “Stop eating expired food though it’s delicious.”

There were also comments by people who admitted to enjoying expired food even though it made them release bad air and others who vehemently argued that expired food was not only cheaper, but tastier, than non-expired food.

Four-legged baby!

Neene was lying in the hammock when she picked up the littlest baby goat, held it, petted it and cooed to it. Then she returned it to the ground 

Me: Neene, you have a baby.

[Neene picks the baby goat up again]

Neene: Yes, I have a baby. [she changes to a cooing voice and faces the goat] A four-legged baby, a four-legged baby, a four-legged baby!

Oceans! They exist.

Shockingly, sadly, I’ve discovered ninth grade boys are more poorly informed about geography than Ado, who thought I could go to America and back in a weekend. One afternoon when school was letting out and I was locking up the computer lab, some ninth grade boys walkd by and greeted me.

Student: Good afternoon, Miss Jallow.

Me: Good afternoon. How are you?

Student: Fine. Did you go to Kombo?

Me: No, just to Basse.

Student: But I think when school closes you will bike to America?

Me: No, I cannot do that, it is impossible.

Student: No?

Me: Between Gambia and America is a large ocean, a lot of water. You cannot bike across it.

Student: Heh?!

Me, pointing to an imaginary map on the outside wall of the classroom we’re standing beside: Here is The Gambia. Here is America. In between is all water. You must take an airplane. Or a boat.

Student: But I think you can go to America anytime you want?

Me: No, the pass is expensive.

Student: I think it is not.

Me: Maybe…25,000 dalasis.

Student: But I think you are rich!

Me: No! I do not have a lot of money.

Student: But all white people are rich.

Me: That is not true. In America there are people who are very poor who do not even have food.

Student: But you are rich.

Me: No, I am not. Before I came here I had just finished university. I did not work a lot. I do not have a lot of money.

Student: No, you are rich.

Ugly Dog

Levi’s new friend is the ugliest puppy on the planet. Seriously. He’s a little taller than Levi but a lot stockier. His fur is a dirty, scruffy coat and is mottled grey and beige. He belongs to someone, so his ears have been cut to uneven stubs and his face…is indescribably ugly. Sort of round and flat, with poky round eyes. I have yet to get a photo of Ugly Dog, but to emphasize, this isn’t a dog that’s ugly in a cute way, he’s ugly in a how-did-that-poor-creature-end-up-with-such-an-unfortunate-face sort of way. You really don’t want to look at him, he’s so aesthetically displeasing. At the same time you’ve got to look because you can’t believe your eyes.

Ugly Dog has been coming to hang out at our compound for the past few days. Levi and Ugly Dog will lie down and nap together and when Levi gets up to greet me, Ugly Dog will follow and I’ll feel obligated to give him a little pat on his ugly head. His fur is surprisingly soft, especially considering that it’s simultaneously surprisingly dirty. Isatou Pippi told me his name is Bavi, but I must’ve heard wrong because I thought the lack of “v”’s in Pulaar is what causes everyone to mispronounce Levi’s name. Probably his name is Babi, which is what some of the kids called Levi before they learned his name.

Bavi is too pretty a name for an Ugly Dog anyway.

Badude

We like to marvel over how Pulaar has words for things that take at least a sentence or two to convey in English. But I’m starting tow wonder how much of that is the efficiency of the Pulaar language, and how much is my inability to extract a concise definition when I learn a new word. Especially if I have only the one context to interpret meaning from. For example, remember how Sanna once defined “daarnde” for me as “when you stand up it’s where you are?” I’ve since learned the word means “height.”

One night I'm sitting outside with Pateh and Mamadou. Pateh instructs Mamadou to “badakam.” From the “kam” I assume this is some sort of verb and Mamadou’s about to do something for or to Pateh and if I watch carefully, I’ll be able to learn the meaning of “badude,” which is what I assume the infinitive form of this verb would be.

Here's what happens: without request for further explanation from Mamadou and without any protest from Pateh, Mamadou picks Pateh up and lies Pateh down on his lap, then rolls him over so he’s lying on his stomach. (“Oh,” I think, “maybe it’s the verb that means ‘to drum’.” It’s sort of similar to drum the noun, “mbaggu,” and I’d been pretending Pateh was my drum some minutes earlier). Then Mamadou slings Pateh over his shoulder (“Oh,” I think, “maybe it’s a word that means 'to flip'”) and grabs Pateh’s ankles, so Pateh is now dangling upside-down over Mamadou’s back. Arranged thus, Mamadou stands up and, still holding Pateh by the ankles, walks home to their compound.

So, as far as I can tell, “badude” means “to carry a person home by slinging him or her over one’s shoulders so that he or she hangs upside down while you grasp the ankles.”

"I have no eyes!"

Mariama, covering her eyes with her hands: I have no eyes!

Me: Where are your eyes?
Rugi: I ate them.
Me: You ate them?! But you did not cook the eyes? If you do not cook them, they will not be sweet.
Rugi: Okay, I did not eat them.

Strange fruits!

Still in front of the computer!

During this trip to Basse I've been coming across strange-looking fruits that I decide I must buy.

Friday afternoon I am walking into the market when Alex asks me what those fruits are, piled next to the mangoes. I had even noticed that there were fruits next to the mangoes; I'd just assumed the fruits Alex were asking about were rotting mangoes. After all they are mango-sized and mango colored, except for scabby-looking brown patches and a lumpier texture. I didn't think to question why anyone would be selling rotten mangoes. I told the women selling them, Isatou, I learned her name was, that I had never seen these before. She tells me to come look. I put the bike down and move closer to investigate. Yes, definitely not mangoes.

Isatou tells me the fruit’s name in Pulaar and it reminded me of either the word for “groundnut shell” or the word for “stranger,” but I forget which word the name reminded me of as well as the actual name. I decide I need to buy one. Bizarre fruits should never be left unpurchased. I want to buy the little green one, because it has the funniest shaped bumps and the most twisted stem, but Isatou tells me that although it is ripe, the others are more ripe. I decide to buy three, to share with the people at the house, and Isatou throws in the little green one for free. Hooray! She tells me to add a little sugar before I eat it.

Back at the house I set to work preparing the fruit. Since it sort of resembles a mango, I thought it would be the kind of fruit you can slice. Nope. What I’d thought was the skin is really more of a rind, so then I think it must be the kind of fruit you can peel. Nope. It’s the kind of fruit you rip open and then scoop the insides out of. What’s weird is, it reminds me of baobab fruit. Not the color (it’s orange and baobab is greenish brown on the outside, white on the inside) or the consistency (it’s juicy and baobab is dry) or the taste (it’s sour and baobab is sweet) but in the relationship between the flesh and the seed. The flesh sort of clings to each individual seed and then each packet of fruit flesh and seed is crammed next to a bunch of other packets that are contained inside the rind, and you eat it by popping the seed in your mouth and sucking off the flesh.

Then yesterday I bought smaller fruits that maybe were nuts and not fruit. They were kind of shaped like a kola nut and dark purple. The lady selling them said they’re from the bush and gave me two for one dalasi. I needed pliers to crack the shell open and inside there was this foamy green stuff that I kind of gnawed off. And under the foamy green stuff was another shell and I cracked that open caveman style with a wooden club. And inside that was a seed, which is what had been rattling around when I shook the fruit-nut-thing prior to cracking the shells open.

I wonder what I'll find next!

Rain, rain, please don't ever ever go away...

I am in Basse, in front of the computer, right at this very moment! And guess what happened a few days ago in village? Rain! And guess what else? I missed it!

I seriously cannot believe I missed the first downpour of rain. I woke up Thursday morning and found the ground soaked, the roof soaked, and a layer of dirty water in a previously empty bucket.


This was the rain I had been dreaming of, and where was I? Off having other dreams, since forgotten. I slept right through the whole thing.

If events had gone according to plan, I would have welcomed the rain as follows: First, I would have run outdoors and laughed excitedly as rain poured down my face. Next, I would have twirled around in happy dizzy circles. Then, I would have bent down and kissed the earth. Suddenly, I would have remembered the bars of soap, the towels, and Levi’s cardboard-box bed, scrambled to my feet and brought these things inside. But I did none of these things. Which is why I spent much of that morning watching my dripping wet towels and dreaming of rain.

Here’s how it happened: Thursday night as I was climbing into bed it started to drizzle. I thought maybe it would turn into a downpour so I decided to lie in bed and not fall asleep. But as I watched the branches of my mango tree appear and disappear with the flashes of lightening, I got frightened and realized sleeping beneath a mango tree during a lightening storm might be a bad decision. So I moved my mattress, blankets, and pillows inside and slept on the floor. It was like a slumber party! Minus the pizza, sodas, and other people. Anyway, despite a head filled with images of waking up covered in creepy crawlies, I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly. When I woke up hours later to pick a beetle off my shoulder, the rain was over. And my house smelled like the hamster department of PETCO. It must be the damp thatch roof.

The Funniest Joke Ever

In a minute, I will tell you The Funniest Joke Ever. Seriously. This joke made people laugh as heartily as they did after the shrew-eating-the-frog-in-Binta’s-house incident.


Sellu, my host dad: I forget Pulaar. I only know, “come, let’s eat.”
Me: Your head does not have a mouth. Only your stomach has a mouth.

Kairaba’s niece Kadijatou (who visited for a few weeks) and Gaye (who's been staying at our compound for a few months) laughed and LAUGHED.

But wait, there’s more!

Later that night at dinner, Gaye recounts the above conversation. Sellu responds, in English, "Come and eat."

Me: My father does not hear English. Only his stomach hears English. He said, “come and eat,” “arr ñaamen”—it is his stomach!

Hysterical laughter.

"There is something that doubts me"

At the end of class one day, after I’d answered some questions about recognizing acute angles and isosceles triangles:

Sankung: Miss Jallow, there is something that doubts me. In every other class the teachers have been able to give me a definition but never has a teacher given me a definition for maths. What is the definition of maths?
[the rest of the class looks up attentively]
Me: Never?
Sankung: Never.
Me: Hmm…
[and then I stumble through a definition that discusses geometry, algebra and statistics until I am forced to admit…]
Me: But a definition for all of maths? I do not know.
Isatou M. saves me: Maths is the key to life!
Me: It’s true, maths is the key to life. Even if you want to go to a naming ceremony and you have to buy asobi you must use maths. How much fabric do you need? How much will it cost?
Therese jumps to her feet!
Therese: Yes! Even if you are walking you are using maths. [she takes a few steps] How far are you going? Me: Even if you are buying a bean sandwich!
Therese: Yes, even beans! That is all he [she points to Sankung] is thinking about, ‘should I buy half bread or full?’
Then Ansumana presents an acrostic poem definition of maths, in which M stands for “movement,” but I forget the rest, unfortunately.

However, the definition of maths question continued to bother me. After I went home, I referred to the How and Why Wonder Book of MATHEMATICS but none of the questions listed in the table of contents (“what is the language of multiplication?” “how did the Phoenicians navigate?”) includes “what is mathematics, anyway?” The Introduction even claims the book gives “an over-all view of what mathematics is” but it’s left to readers to figure out how prime numbers, polygons, graphs, and the sexigesimal system are related.

Did you know??? The sun is hot.

Kairaba: Binta, the sun is hot.

Me: Yes, the sun is hot.

Kairaba: Hot.

Me: Hot.

Kairaba: The sun.

Me: The sun.

The above exchange is clear evidence of the sun's damaging effects on complex conversation.