Lists

If you were to go on a scavenger hunt in Dakar you would have no problem finding any of the following:

• Animals-mostly sheep, goats, cats, and dogs but sometimes chickens as well and...
• Horses pulling carts-the Senegalese equivilant of a pickup truck
• Garbage absoultely everywhere-sometimes it's being burned in huge piles which helps with finding...
• Smells of all sorts: perfume, meat, fish, smoke, incense, rot, animal, and many which I still cannot identify
• Men wanting your phone number and offering you their hand in marriage (if you're a white female) I already have about 4 Senegalese husbands and counting. It's flattering until you realize you're just a status symbol (for the most part) and baffling because a short, squat, awkward, bug-bitten whitey is nothing next to the beautiful African goddesses who also call this place home
• People selling all sorts of delicious goods such as crack peanuts (sugar-coated peanuts), fruit (so fresh and tasty), cafe touba, and bizarre sandwiches consisting of a combination of fries, mayo, msg buillon (that they use in everything), catsup, spagetti, and a fried egg(who thought of this? would you like some carbs and grease with your other carbs and grease?) or a mush of beans and spices or just spread with chocopan (Senegal's peanut equivilant of nutella)
• Track suits-when people here exercise, they take their attire seriously. Actually, they take all attire seriously and another common sighting is...
• Boubous in stunning patternes and colors, often with matching headscarves (more stylish than religious at this point)

Here are a few of my favorite wolof words/phrases-they're written phonetically so you get an idea of how much fun they are to say:

• Boogana-I want/like. The Wolof language is direct and the verb boog just makes sense: when you like something you usually want it and vise versa. This phrase can be used as a pickup line.
• Jyfunday(noun)-This word describes a plump figure, especifically a woman's rear end. It's a very good thing here. It stems from the word funday which is similar to rice pudding and the prefix of jy means someone who sells. So the jyfunday lady would eat all of her leftovers and get a little curvy and the men would love it.
• Psyy-psyy(adj)-This word is tricky because it means different things to different people(sometimes good sometimes bad). Some definitions include: player, sketchster, sneeky, bandit, spunky, confident....etc.
• Alihumdelilay-Thanks be to God. I say this everyday when crossing the busy street on the way home.

Too much to write. Too much to say. We've also been super busy with a minimum of 5hrs of class a day and planned weekend trips. Blogging is a pain especially with crappy keyboards, but I'll keep trying to keep you guys informed. Also, no spell check=your problem. Excuses excuses but, in the end, I love you all!