Baby Abdou

Although Ziabata fixed my internet tonight, he was so so so nice to talk on the phone with customer service for over an hour, we didn't get to look at the Green Card Lottery site until today because we didn't have a picture of Ziabata. We took his picture this morning and for some reason my entire family went picture crazy. Ahmed grabbed it and started snapping away, mainly of his hand, but pictures no less. Jeenaba also approached me and asked me to take a picture of baby Abdou! I was really excited to take his picture because I didn't have any yet. I didn't want to invade Jeenaba's or Abdou's privacy so I hadn't asked. There are a couple more pictures in the "Softball Season" album if you want to look through.

Figuring out the Green Card form was fairly easy and I actually learned a lot about Ziabata and his wife Awa. Ziabata is 33, which is three years younger than what he told me and Awa is 30! I really thought that Awa was a lot younger. It definitely means that Jeenaba is lying about her age because they grew up together. Ziabata applied for the 2012 Green Card Lotto so he can't even begin to see if he won until next June. I'm sure it will be a huge topic of discussion.

After Green Card Lotto time, I went out to run a bunch of errands. I needed to go to the bank which took forever because everyone got paid yesterday so there were long, long lines at the ATM. I also went to a paper supply store to price out the promotional materials for the Artisan Expo and went to the toubab grocery store to get myself some cheese which I ate with Ritz Crackers and an apple for lunch. So much better than ceeb and I felt triumphant and proud of myself for standing up to my mom and telling her that I was not going to eat lunch today because I was full. She didn't need to know that I gorged myself on cheese in my room! I also made a very special trip to the photo shop for Jeenaba to print the new pictures of Abdou. She was SO excited when I brought them home and was obviously proud as she showed them to everyone.

Other than that I had a terribly embarrassing phone conversation, in Wolof, in front of my host mom. Mme Ly's daughter/ Dioss' sister called and was asking me about someone named Khady which was extremely confusing because her name is Khady. I was obviously confused and my mom kept demanding the phone and saying that she would translate for me. Translate into what language? Anyway, after wasting a ton of Mme. Ly's phone credit, which I felt badly about, I finally realized she wanted Kether's phone number. Kether's Senegalese name is Khady. Once I explained the misunderstanding to my mom and Jeenaba they advised me to write it down since I'm always writing everything down. Priceless.