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To my last reviewer-- I checked out your blog but I don't understand French-- is there any English page I could read? or Russian? or even maybe Spanish?

Tea, baobob juice, and eating with your hands

Nadja Wolfe
2006-04-25 15:18:58

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To my last reviewer-- I checked out your blog but I don't understand French-- is there any English page I could read? or Russian? or even maybe Spanish?

To anyone who doesn't know-- apparently you can subscribe to this to get emails when I update.

Also, hi to Mom and Poppy-- love you!

Today I had my first lessons in Wolof. I can now have the most basic of conversations in Wolof. I shall share this knowledge at the end of the post.

We also had our homestay orientation today. Tomorrow I will be moving in with the family. Senegalese family relationships are really the most important part of Senegalese life. If this is what 'tribalism' constitutes, we in the west may wish to regress. Basically, in the words of a Wolof proverb: 'Nit, nitay garabam'-- A person is another person's remedy/medicine. As Aby, a woman who talked with and guided my small group said, Senegalese have a view in which people need people, no one is left alone. She believes this is why Senegal has low rates of depression, suicide and divorce, because there are so many people always looking out for others. Good friends are considered family. When someone is dear to you, you would give them an appellation that reflects this closeness, thus many cousins and friends are called brother or sister although they are not of direct blood relationship.

The Senegalese have a sene of responsibility to other people. Learning more and more about it, it seems very odd that this is called 'clannish' or 'tribalism,' although I know there are more extreme cases of it in some parts. One looks out for neighbors, who will always know where someone is and how they are, if you see children you know on the street misbehaving, you could tell them to stop and they'll do it because you know their parents/elders and so are in their family group. It will be really interesting to see how these family ties work firsthand in family ...