Play (with me now!)

My family is happy I'm back, but only because they are sick and tired of Ahmed. Last night when Tamar and I finally rolled back into my compound looking a hot mess Ahmed could not hide his glee and gave us approximately 2 seconds to put our bags in my room until he started whispering "play" through my window. Ahmed's need to play only increased throughout the day as I tried to recover from the camp. Now that I've finally stopped I'm completely exhausted and all I wanted to do today was organize my room, nap, read, and have some alone time after a week of sharing a room and everything else. Ahmed had a very different game plan for the day.

The entire family hung out outside most of the day for two reasons: 1. our power was out and 2. there is no gas in Senegal. Not having gas means that Deenba started cooking over coals at approximately 9am and is just finishing now at a little after 9pm. She is amazing and a saint for everything she puts up with. With no power and no gas to cook with everyone took turns fanning the flames and sitting around aimlessly. I was allowed to fan the flames, but my more important job was playing with Ahmed so he didn't annoy everyone else. We played with toy cars, we played hide and seek (which is really not fun in a small courtyard when you can see everything), and we played a funny face game for what seemed like an eternity. Once the power came back on Ahmed and the other little girls at my house even talked to my parents on Skype. I'm pretty sure it was a ploy to get into my room and look for candy, but when they saw my cat Bubba on Skype they flipped out. They could not believe that my family in the US has a cat for a pet and that Bubba is as fat as he is. My fat cat was a major discussion point this evening.

When hiding in my room became impossible (mainly because when Ahmed and gang burst in my room they saw all of the crayons and paper left over from the camp), I relented and threw a bumpin' crayon party, if I do say so myself. I would also like to note that my Saturday nights now consist of throwing crayon parties. Think that one over. Everyone was all about the crayons since it was one of the big boxes with the sharpener on the back and my party drew not only the little kids, but also Baye Gaye, which was hilarious.

Other things to note:
1. While I was gone someone built a chicken coup, which although quite large looks ridiculously small when some of the Jurassic Park-esque chickens are in there.
2. I finally learned the baby's name; it's Abdou and he's way cuter now than when I left.