This is how we franglais in Senegal

That title pretty much sums up my day- I woke up early to faire le jogging with Margaret (who invented and regularly promotes franglais-ing) and it was a lovely little run. Then I walked to the Sonatel to buy a cell phone and I franglais-ed with the man there, because together his english and my french were enough to understand each other. then I went home for lunch and franglais-ed with the maid, who wants to learn english. she is my very favorite because she takes such good care of us and has finally agreed to start letting us help her as she is constantly being called by maman to do one chore or another.

Actually, let's talk about this for a minute. Maids are very much a part of the culture in Senegal- having (a) maid/maids is encouraged because it employs peopel who would otherwise be in financial trouble. But the maids literally work from dawn until dusk. They wake up before everyone else to set out breakfast and one of them has to get my little sister Aminata up, bathed, dressed, and ready for school before 7:30 EVERY DAY. Then while they wait for everyone else in the house to trickle into the kitchen and eat they begin making lunch, make peoples beds and get started on the laundry, which they do daily. After breakfast they mop all the floors while keeping an eye on lunch, which is made fresh every single day and usually involves whole chickens or large chunks of meat, and pounds upon pounds of rice! Meals must always be large because they are often put in separate containers to send to family members or neighbors who do not have time to make lunch, who are alone, etc. Then they serve lunch, clean various other parts of the house, finish other chores, and begin preparing dinner. All this while answering the phone or the door, and responding to any intermediate requests from Maman, Lala, Matou and Aminata (my sisters) or Teyrou (my brother) or anyone else with higher "rank" than them. Repeat meal preparation and cleanup for dinner, with the frequent visiting of multiple family members (who were not expected and never call, a la Senegalese culture) who all squeeze onto the mat around the bowl. After dinner, the maids hang around until EVERYONE ELSE is in bed just in case they are needed. So they go to sleep last and wake up before everyone and still manage to put a smile on their faces.

In short, I love our maids (who are 20 and 22- my age!) and Erica and I have made allies of them. We always stop in the kitchen to say hello when we get home and we commiserate with them when Maman keeps them running around. We found out that Raymonde's birthday is in May so we're going to take her out to dinner and make a cake!

This post is getting long for today, so tomorrow I'll put up a Wolof lesson so you can see what I'm learning!