Happy Birthday, Spies!!

Here's a shout-out to my man Spies - happy birthday to you!  Hope you have a great day.

Nothing exciting to report here.  Had my second Thanksgiving party on Saturday, and I decided to make my mom's famous artichoke dip.  To do this in Dakar means trekking to the fancy grocery store (aka the Toubab Market) - a one hour walk each way, in the sun, if you are saving your cash (for a concert I thought was on Sunday, and therefore before I would be able to go to the bank - but turns out it's Tuesday instead - oh well) and feeling masochistic.  It means being flexible with things like cheese variety - the dip calls for parmesan cheese, but here pretty much all you can find is Emmanthal.  For those of you who aren't familiar, it's kind of like swiss cheese, flavor-wise.  NOT parmesany at all!  I was able to find some super-expensive dried/powdery parmesan, but it's not the same as grated.  So I mixed Emmanthal and dried powdered parmesan.  So the dip is:  artichoke hearts, mayonnaise, garlic, and (in theory) parmesan cheese.  Normally, this wouldn't cost too much.  But here?  $22.  That's right.  I paid $22 to make my damn artichoke dip.  And you know what?  It was WORTH EVERY PENNY.  It was SO good!  Emmanthal notwithstanding.  It was the hit of the party, and I'm sure my mom is not surprised.  So, thanks, Mom!

So I had the good fortune to have MASHED POTATOES two times in one week - for those of you who know me, you know that mashed potatoes are like manna from heaven for me...  If stranded on a desert island, my food of choice would be mashed potatoes; if on death row my last meal would be mashed potatoes, etc.  Kate, another Fulbrighter, made apple pie, brownies, stuffing, and chicken -some roasted, some fried.  Again, I must emphasize the effort /expense involved in making American food here - so it makes it all the more special.  Cameron, the archaeologist, made carrots and roasted squash, AND served me my first baobab coctail.  MM!  Baobab juice (called "bouie") mixed with rum.  Mighty tasty!  Too bad baobab fruit isn't readily available back home...  I would love to mix some for you!  I wonder if there's somewhere in the states where you can buy it?  I've never seen it canned or boxed here - it's always made fresh.  You boil down the fruit and then strain it and add milk and sugar.  So, anyway, after gorging on artichoke dip and mashed potatoes and the like, I waddled home (cabbed, then waddled the rest of the way) and collapsed. 

Today I had my second Wolof lesson, this time with my mate Karima.  It's fun having a classmate.  Her Wolof is way better than mine, though, because she lives with a family that mostly doesn't speak French. 

So, here's an important lesson I learned today:

The word for "ear" and the word for "love" sound almost exactly the same.  So if you're not careful, you can say "I ear you", or I guess if you have an ear ache you might accidentally say your love hurts.  I figure if I need to refer to my ear I'll just point to it to be on the safe side.

I have to ask my Wolof teacher what the word for "heart" is.  This is to contribute to my friend Ben's philosphy about countries' attitudes about love.  It goes like this:  In French, heart (coeur) rhymes with flower (fleur).  In German, heart (herz) rhymes with pain (schmerz).  In English, however, heart rhymes with???  Fart.  Yep.  He calls it his Heart-Fart theory.  So, I'd like to know what "heart" is in Wolof and what it rhymes with.  It might just illuminate some mysteries about this country for me.