Wednesday

Today was busy. Whoooo It was great though. We have really become close with our African friends. We laugh a lot and even though speaking is difficult sometimes we are all patient and understanding. They have an amazing joy about themselves. They are also very helpful in teaching us about their culture. They show us the good food that you can buy right on the street, and they take us anywhere we want to go. What fun people!!

Today we had our French class where we learned many questions and phrases. Jean-Jaques (pronounced john jack, I think I misspelled it last time) is very helpful with translation. Lunch is usually around 1:00 or 1:30. We have been going to the same place all week and they serve a different dish everyday, which is usually some kind of fish. It is about a dollar a plate to eat and I am always full. The dish for today was interesting. I think I liked the others better. Then pastor Tim got us some mini ice cream cones on the street. It tasted like strawberries and cream. Needless to say it was very good. It was very sweet which is unlike normal Senegalese food. Usually they don’t like really sweet things. The people here prefer sour or spicy tastes. Jean-Jaques thought we should taste a fruit that they have here called mad (pronounced mod). It has a hard outer shell and then the inside has the texture of a mango and seeds that are the size of acorns. The fruit is very sour so you add sugar and it kind of taste like sour skittles. I liked this. We also tried these things called coconut cakes. They handed one to me and Pastor Tim told me that they were baby cockroach balls. I didn’t want to be rude so I did not freak out because I am up for tasting anything really, but as you know I am NOT fond of these creatures. No not at all, but how often are you in Africa? The joke was one me. I never know when to take him serious or not. They could definitely pass for baby cockroach balls by the looks of it because the coconut was discolored probably because of the sweet stuff on it, but these were wonderful as well!

We tried to do a little planning in the midst of our food tasting. We talked about going to the village next week and Tim laid down all of the very important things about their culture. They explained that greeting people and saying goodbye is extremely important. It is rude if you do not acknowledge people. Hospitality is to the max here. In the U.S. we sometimes just forget to offer drinks, but they don’t have AC many places, therefore it is hot and people are usually thirsty. Makes sense huh.

After our culture lesson we got to help with the kids club they have here twice a week. The kids were so fun. They were kind of crazy, and more on the tough side. You could tell they had to hold their own or they would be left out. We sang many songs and they had tons of awesome dances. We played some games and we got to give out children’s boxes that had been sent in from different places. This was such a fun time.

For the evening we played some soccer and volleyball on the roof of the church and then we decided to walk to the beach. Our friends Salomon, Etenne (pronounced eh chin), and Eddie accompanied us. Eddie is in the youth group. He is so fun to be around and does not speak much English, but we still can have fun. The beach was nice. On the way we would stop for peanuts and talk. We would sing songs or they would show us some of their favorite songs on their phone. They would break out in really neato dances. They are so full of laughter and life. On they way back we realized we didn’t have dinner (around 11pm), so we got some fatiyas. That is not the right spelling, but it rhymes with papaya. I don’t know what I ate, but it was very good. It was kind of like Chinese food in a toco beuno muchacho shell. So anyway today was full of Senegalese culture and just a great time!!