Holiday fun

Book: The Ecstasy and the Agony By Irving Stone. (Great book if you want to go to Italy or have been.)
Song: The Other Side By Josh Ritter
Quote: “My best interest can only be my best work.” Irving Stone “The Ecstasy and the Agony”

So it was a bi day in Senegal yesterday. It was the last of the big holidays until Ramadan in August. It was Tamkharite, the New Year. So naturally I have no clue what is going on. I just know that we eat a lot of millet and the whole family gets together to celebrate. I wake up just like any other day and get ready to go out for the day. I decided I want to read a little and do a tour of town to see if I can maybe discover a few new things. So I walk past the market, find a nice spot along the river, read a few pages, or closer to 50 and get ready to go on home. (Don’t worry mom, they caught the terrorist in Guinea-Bissau so it is safe to be back on the river.) So I head home and eat the usual for lunch, fish and rice. Then my cousin tells me I am going to help prepare lunch. By help she means I will sit and watch her cook. Every time over the next few hours I would try to get up she would say Foo Dem? Where go? Then she would yell at me to sit. So I got to watch her cook, by the way I must of eaten at least 5 handfuls of salt last night for dinner. For the fete you eat a lot of millet with beef, vegetables, and a tomato oil based sauce. So we sit down for dinner and eating a meal like that with your hands is not easy. You can only take food with your right hand so when you dig into the bowl to take meat, the person next to you help by grabbing the other end and pulling it apart. So it was a fun and messy experience. For dessert we they cleaned the beef and vegetables out of the bowl and added milk. So we ate a millet, tomato, milk mix. It wasn’t the best thing in the world, but I do recommend it, without the tomato paste. It is called Lakk, Millet balls with milk. All milk here is powdered with sugar added, even though we have a lot of cows. So I figure at this point it is time to relax and take a load off. I’m minding my own business reading a little of my novel when I get called into my brothers room. Here put this on, UHHHHH. Apparently it is tradition for men to dress like women and the opposite. So I put on this dress made to fit a tiny human being. My brother and our friend do the same and we went around the house dancing. You can check out the pictures online. I made a pretty girl, and I wore the dress with confidence. Or as they tell me, Tu ne parles pas Francais et Wolof, mais tu intergres tres bien. So I can’t speak but am well integrated into society. Half of the battle is has been won. Hopefully this formation in Thies will help me with solving the second half of the equation for me. Any who, until next time.