Seersucker Boo Boo

Although I have been dreading going out to the villages lately, I was excited to go today because Jackie was going to meet us and because it's a Catholic village with a monastery that makes goat cheese! Goat cheese! Yeah, obviously it didn't happen. I got to the office and Diof was surprised to see me since he completely forgot that we were supposed to a village today and he was way too busy to go. Fortunately he told me this right when I got there so I didn't waste half of my day waiting around for him trying to pry information out of him.

Leaving the office I decided to be productive and go to a woman's organization that I've been too a few times for the rest of the morning and then the high school English club in the afternoon. Ambitious. I arrived at Keur Yaay, the women's organization, and walked in on an adult English class. Obviously, they were excited to see a native English speaker... or at least the students were. I made the teacher, the only man in the room, really nervous and he probably didn't enjoy the fact that I corrected him several times. I didn't really know what my place was, but when I saw blatant misspellings I thought I should correct him. It was interesting seeing an English as a foreign language class. The teacher kept giving varied pronunciations of words like Monday. Again, I wanted to correct him, but I didn't know if I should and I was confused about the multiple pronunciations of Monday.

After the class ended, Boya, the director of the center took me aside to talk about what type of projects we could do together. She definitely wanted me to come and help with the English classes, which isn't really what I want to do long term, but for now and to get to know these women I can sit around in an English class. Boya was very adament about empowering the women who come to the center and she thinks learning the global languages of English and Arabic are very helpful. I pounced on the Arabic and supposedly Boya has a friend who teaches Arabic at a high school so we're going to try and set up an Arabic class as well. At the very least I hope that I'll be able to meet the Arabic teacher and maybe just set up a time to talk or attend his classes.

I was having a really good time with the women and they invited me to stay for lunch and it was really hot today and I was feeling really lazy so I agreed. Bad, bad decision. They served supukagny aka the only dish in Senegal that I find completely unpalatable. They obviously could tell I didn't like it and they were totally cool with that. I said that I could just eat a granola bar I had with me and they made me some hardboiled eggs, which was incredibly sweet. They are really nice and really fun. I think I will enjoy hanging out there.

After lunch we went to another groupments meeting because I wanted to meet some women who do food transformation. Unfortunately, after two hours my mind had completely turned off and I told Boya I had to leave. It was fairly insufferable. I'll have to meet the food group the next time. The only aspect of the meeting that saved my sanity was one very stately older man wearing a seersucker booboo (a traditional male outfit here that is like a muu muu with pants under it). It was AMAZING and I now want a seersucker dress.

Today's Ridiculousnesses:
1. I listened to Chris Brown's "Forever" at least 7 times at Keur Yaay. I lost count after 7.
2. 3 year old Ahmed took a bag of chips threw them on the ground, stomped on them, opened the bag, and then poured it into his mouth... this was during the 45 minute blackout
3. My dad was furious at dinner because no one had prepared his Fosters Clark, which is the equivalent of Kool-Aid. My dad drinks a pitcher every night.

I am absolutely exhausted from speaking in Frolof all day with no breaks. Goodnight.