Today wasn’t good or bad. It was just kind of hard. It started last night before dinner. I was sitting in the living room and heard yelling upstairs. It continued with increasing intensity for about twenty minutes. My host brother went upstairs and tried to mediate it but there was clearly a problem between my host sister and mom. Since it was in Wolof I have no idea what they were arguing about. I sat on the couch and the daughter came down, sat next to me, buried her face in her arms, and started to gently sob. Crying isn’t acceptable in Senegal, especially for a woman. Women are strong here. After a loss a Senegalese wrestler will sob but women simply don’t cry. I found myself unsure of what to do. To pat her on the back would be to involve myself. To leave would be disrespectful. So I sat. I sat in silence, without movement, for about fifteen minutes. I was surprised when the cook brought dinner into the room and my host brother suggested that we eat. The two of us sat on the floor and ate, my sister now silent on the couch next to us, my mom upstairs too upset to eat. My brother made it clear that it would be a good idea not to let the meal go to waste since it was only two of us eating a meal cooked for four. I had no problem with that.

Meals here are very heavy. They love mayonnaise. They love thousand island dressing. My mother has cases of thousand island dressing sent from her sister in America. We eat it on salad, meat, rice, fish, just about everything. Last night we drenched our already heavy meal of fried eggs, vegetables and paste with it. I’m ashamed to say I had no problem eating for two.

I never asked what happened as I don’t think its important. I don’t know if I did the right thing but I felt as if I did what I needed to do. There exists a certain tension between Rama and myself. She’s nineteen years old and is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I suspect that the argument had something to do with boys trying to talk to her. I try to diminish the tensions as much as possible. They have enough problems with boys coming to the house trying to court her. The last thing that they need is for the American to do the same. This means that I never gave my host family the clothes that I brought for her. I didn’t want it to be taken the wrong way. I’m not trying to stroke my ego here I’m simply saying that any man in his right mind would think this woman is beautiful and I want to let my family know as firmly yet surreptitiously as I can that they will have no problem with me.

That was quite a tangent…Anyways I slept in until nine this morning which was great. My room is very comfortable and I’m very lucky to have all that I have (a fan, a shower and toilet, a window, my own bed, ample closet space). One of the girls from our program had told me that her brother’s basketball team was a man short and asked me if I wanted to play. Sports have been the ultimate equalizer during my time in Senegal so I told her that I would play. The match wasn’t until 7 so a bunch of us met up early and went to the market Sandaga, the biggest market in Senegal.

I new that we had made a mistake as soon as I stepped out of the cab. Immediately we were swarmed by street hawkers. With my back to the cab and literally hundreds of people making their way towards us I had half a mind to get right back in the cab and go home. However, I put my backpack on my chest, shoved my hands into my pockets and began to try to navigate the way through the crowd. I have two strategies when it comes to markets: walk quickly and confidently as if you know where you’re going or avoid eye contact and stay quiet. With a group of people, I wasn’t able to do either. The first problem came when I girl stopped to buy sunglasses. She quickly bargained herself a good price and as she was trying to pay a man who was attempting to be our guide told her for the tenth time how much it cost. She curtly said she knew and to leave us alone. This was the wrong move. Irritated, the man began to get a bit confrontational. Being the only man in the group (remember this is an extremely gendered society) I told the man that she was sorry but we didn’t have money and we just wanted to walk in peace. This too was the wrong move.

He started following us, telling us that the Senegalese do not eat white people. That all Americans thought about was money That when you come to a market people talk to you. If you don’t want to be talked to then you should stay in the United States. He told me if I wanted to be mean he could show me that he was meaner than me. When he started yelling that we were racist I simply asked him what he wanted in an effort to pacify the situation. I was flustered and outright scared. He said that he wanted to show us his work, that it was in an apartment across the street. I told him that we would be more than happy to look at his work but that we had to stay on the street. Thus he brought us to a stand that sold fabrics. His entire family was there and I started to talk with his unlce who was praying when we arrived. He told us that the Senegalese were not violent, that they loved everyone. I had a hard time accepting this. However, I continued to talk with his uncle as the girl looked at fabric. They ended up buying some fabric and we ended up talking to the man for a while. A lot of people walked away saying he was nice. I walked away confused. Was this guy nice? He gave us a good price and got us a taxi but why had he followed us. Was he trying to make a living? Did he not understand how flustered we were? The situation bothered me. However I know now that I won’t return to the market without my host brother or mother. The word no doesn’t exist in Senegal for a toubab (white person).

After that little incident we headed to the beach. Its becoming our default. Next to the Raddison (a very fancy hotel on the sea) is a shopping mall. As the girl headed to the clothing stores, I hit the casino (a French grocery store). This store was cool enough to make any Whole Foods goer shit their pants. There were prawns the size of my head, ridiculous amounts of cheeses and meats, and giant (I mean giant) tubs of nutella. I bought some to take home to my family knowing that it will show up on my breakfast plate in the morning. The experience of casino juxtaposed with Sandaga gave me a good sense of the Senegalese extremes. Most of the people in the Casino were white or arab. Just by looking at them you could tell that they were rich. The only Africans that I saw were those working behind the registers. I wish I felt more comfortable at the market. I wish the sterile smell and feel of the casino didn’t make me comfortable. I hope this changes. I hope that I can find my own place in Senegal, some where between Sandaga and Casino.

On a more pleasant note I learned how to make attaye (Senegalese tea) today. Before we went to the market I had gone to a friends house to pick her up. I arrived in the middle of lunch and was asked to eat with the family. The Senegalese love to share and they don’t accept no for an answer. We ate meatballs made with fish (fishballs?) rice and onion sauce. After lunch the girl fell asleep (the heat of the day combined with a filling meal most usually results in a nap) and so I accompanied the family in the kitchen. Attaye is made by creating a froth in each two ounce glass by pouring the tea while raising and lowering the glasses respectively. This creats a white foam that stays in the bottom of each glass. After all the glasses are properly foamed the tea is poured. Admiring his skills the man asked me if I want to try. I hastily accepted and quickly learned how difficult making attaye is. The hard part is not pouring the liquid into a glass from a long distant but rather doing is quickly. If one were to (as I did) leave their thumb on the glass for too long, they would end up with a burn (as I also did). With the first pour I burned myself. I preceeded to pour, clench my teeth with a forced smile, and burn myself the sixty of so times it took to prepare the froth for each glass. However, the satisfaction of making fairly good attaye eclipsed the pain of my thumb. It was very, very cool.

I also got to play basketball today. I thought the guys that I played with near my house were good but this was a different level of play. I was the shortest person on the court by an easy five inches. I felt like Daffy Duck in Space Jam. It was a three on three tournament and when I entered our team was already up. With a great amount of effort I think I held my own. They told me to come back tomorrow. We’ll see if my body is ready. The experience was cool though. The entire thing was video taped by two cameras. There were probably around a hundred people there. The court was made of mismatched and uneven bricks which gave the ball an unpredictable bounce and the hoops were only about fifty feet away from each other which increased the pace and intensity of the game. I would like to think that one day, somewhere on utube, there will be a video of me getting one of the many shots I attempted blocked by a seven foot Senegalese man.