The further exploits of a Jola Dog

Vacation

Summer time is fun time at Tante Tina's place. Wednesdays are fun times anyways at our house but during vacation it's extra fun. This week Marcel's kids came over, Ish was there, Djeleck and Marietou who is here all the time now. We just hung out, cooked, made tea, watched a movie and played on the internet. It was big time fun. I love my life and the people that I get to share it with.

Got Gas?

I was in Ziguinchor last Thursday to pay the phone bill. I was in a taxi headed towards the big market. I thought perhaps I would buy a hot plate so at least we could reheat leftovers without starting up the grill. I see this donkey cart going down the road with gas canisters. I yell out the window, "is there gas?" he said yes........now rumor has it that there is no gas in all of Senegal. Let alone available for everyone here in Ziguinchor. So we go a little bit further and I see another donkey cart full of gas canisters. So I start asking my driver where there is gas. Then he keeps responding in Wolof. I kept saying to him, "don't you speak French........?????" "No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Arghghghghgh So we stopped the car and I asked another guy..........where is there gas...............he said.........."try this place, it's a depot.........there isn't any gas in Senegal but you can try it".

I got out of the car with the Wolof speaker on impulse. I got another taxi and asked him to take me to this depot of gas. We get there and it's total chaos. Everyone is standing in the mud waiting for gas to be unloaded from this giant truck. There are donkey carts everywhere. The gas is falling off the donkey carts. There is a traffic jam and people are fighting for the gas. The guy tells me I need an empty bottle. I said I am from Oussouye I don't have one..........my taxi driver says, don't worry we will go and get one.........so we head across town and we see all these donkey carts headed this direction. I am like oh no we'll never make it in time. I have to buy an empty canister for $20 but we get back and we are the last person in the door when it closed behind us and they said no more gas. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WAS THE LAST PERSON IN LINE TO GET MY GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANKS GOD

BBC Today

Scrabble ace barred for age fraud

A young Scrabble champion from Senegal has been stripped of his title at the Francophone World Championships for lying about his age, local media say.

Mamadou Youck had been named winner of the "blitz" competition for 14-15 year-olds before officials discovered he was 16, Senegal's APS news agency reports.

Scrabble, a board game in which players form words from single letter tiles, has become highly popular in Senegal.

In the "blitz" category, players have just one minute to complete each move.

The 37th Francophone Scrabble World Championships are taking place this week in Senegal's capital, Dakar.

The country's Sports Ministry, which accords Scrabble the same importance as football, has declared the competition a national priority.

About 600 competitors from 21 countries are participating.

Despite having a literacy rate of just 40%, Senegal's holds nine world titles in Scrabble.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7523220.stm

Published: 2008/07/24 10:51:11 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Rain Rain Rain. It's not raining men in Oussouye it's just raining

Offie and I discussing the possibilities for the Islands

Prayer on the Beach in Kabrousse

village hump sign

Moving our own Dirt

When the high school in Oussouye was built all the extra dirt was bull dozed off the property. Then when we built our house, for lack of another bull dozer our wall was built around this giant hill of dirt making it unusable land.

Working Together

I thought this was interesting. Saturday on our way to Caronate we saw many people from the village carrying sand on their heads and loading it into canoes. We asked what was going on and apparently the rain that was falling was filling up one area of the rizzere but the water was not reaching another area. So they were portaging the dirt in the canoe to divert the water to different rice patties.

3 and a half feet of cobra

This year we have an extraordinarily large number of snakes around the house. In three weeks we have killed or seen six snakes. The neighbors and people passing by have seen more. The snakes are not all big but when you add them up together..........you have a whole lotta snake.

Cat Fish for Che bu dien

Erin's been taking cooking lessons since she arrived here. She cooks Yassa like a pro, but yesterday she cooked the most complicated Senegalese Dish. Che bu dien. The process takes four hours, including the market visit to buy all the fresh ingredients. These days good fish in Oussouye are hard to come by but meat is even more expensive and difficult to find. The cat fish was a new skill Erin learned last week at cooking class. The cat fish doesn't have scales the same as other fish.

The Che bu dien cooking turned into even more of an adventure the dog stole the fish when we weren't looking, the gas got finished during the cooking, then the coal got finished during cooking and finally we finished cooking the rice over a wood fire.

It was an adventure but the food was fantastic.

Prayer Walk

This week we decided to walk to Caronoute, Siganar, and Niablang. This particular prayer walk takes us about four hours. In Siganar there are tons of fetishes. One fetish that the Christians are in prayer for was just started again, it involves unmarried women having relationships with married men in town. The Oussouye church has been working towards a church plant in Niablang for many years. They have a strong church there now that meets every other Sunday. I will post pictures of the fetish sites as well as the rice fields. In one photo you will you see the rice but on the other side is a village called Efouke. There are maybe two or three Christians there. The village is a several hour walk from Siganar and will have to wait for another day. The stop sign is amusing simple because it's in English, in a French speaking country.

Termites

This is a fourth of July I will never forget. It appears that the termites in Oussouye are very independent. Last night there were clouds of termites attracted to the light on the house. We are the only house in the area with electricity so they seemed to come from everywhere. I made the mistake of turning my light on to put my mosquito net up and it took only a minute for the room to be a swirling mess of flying termites. I grabbed my blanket and ran to the living room. The kitchen was equally as crawling and flying as my room but since the light in the living room was off they were only swarming to the light of the computer. It was horrible. I laid down and cried. I can handle most everything here in West Africa. But to have my house become a haven for thousands of traveling termites who are now making their home around the house and then not being able to escape and have them crawling all over me in my hair and under my shirt, that was too much for me. Today we cleaned up the aftermath now face the question of what to do next. Here in the Cassamance everyone has a piece of advice for you. The internet has thousands of pieces of advice. So far I have heard that they are coming from the forest towards the light. They will stop after the first few weeks of the rains, and a thousand other tidbits about killing them. Arghhhhhhhhhh! I hate bugs!