FINALLY: MAIL!!!

So for those of you who have been wondering what’s up with the mail situation:  I FINALLY GOT SOME MAIL!!!  Thank you SO MUCH to Mom and Dad, Kendra, Spieser, and El Jefe!!  Yesterday I hit the jackpot with 4 letters / cards.  This is because, as it turns out, my mail had been sitting there on a shelf in the mail room this whole time, languishing for who knows how long (but over a week for sure, according to the mailman), because he didn’t know who I was and therefore that my mail was supposed to go to the Public Affairs office (different building) in the Fulbright mail slot.  Instead of inquiring about this he figured that at some point this century, this Reiser lady would probably show up looking for her mail anyway, so meanwhile he’d just leave it on a random shelf to collect dust.  ARGHHH!  So I can’t tell any of you with any accuracy how long it actually took for stuff to get here.  However, the card with the latest postmark was mailed Nov 15, and it was yesterday (Nov 30) that I got everything.  So, I suppose that at it’s fastest it might have taken even less than 2 weeks.  Who knows.  So, now that I’m all tight with the mailman, I should be good to go and you can keep sending the snail-mail love to me without it taking so long for me to get it from now on.  So:  SEND ME THE MAIL LOVE!  SEND ME THE MAIL LOVE!  MAIL LOVE!!  MAIL LOVE!!

Last night I went to hear Tony Allen, the legendary drummer from Fela Kuti's band.  Unfortunately for him, Fela still reigns supreme as the "President" of Afrobeat, even postmortem (this because, besides the fact that he ROCKED,  back in the ‘70s he actually declared himself president of his own country, which consisted of his family compound; the police didn't like this and raided the place.  His mother died from injuries sustained when the police threw her out of a window of the compound during the raid).  So, all of the posters around town have advertised "Tony Allen:  The Vice President of Afrobeat!"  I mean, I suppose this is still a great honor, and there's no question that he is a fabulous drummer and a true Afrobeat legend.  But still, it must be annoying sometimes to always be referred to as the No. 2 guy.  But, maybe he doesn't mind.

So of course the concert was fabulous and the horn section ROCKED and it really made me want to play in an Afrobeat band.  I loved all of their tight section lines, and the solos were great.  The bassist, MAN – also super amazing.  All of them were, really.  And of course Tony Allen was superb.  Oh, and the saxophonist was the spitting image of Isaac Hayes, I swear.  Very cool.  All in all a great concert.  I went with Thomas, my French next-door neighbor, and a friend of his from his same university in Rouen.  We also met another friend of his there, a Korean guy doing volunteer work here who just so happens to have gotten his bachelor's degree from UW-Madison!  So we slipped into English which was quite refreshing. 

Today I had what I learned was to be my last Wolof lesson with Moustapha!  WAH!  But it's good news for him:  he has been offered a government job teaching English in a village in Toubakouta, which is quite far from Dakar.  It is a good post, and will be a better position for him than what he has had here up until now.  So, Karima and I are quite happy for him, but sad to lose our teacher.  He referred us to another teacher, Moutarou, though, whom I met up with earlier this afternoon to discuss arrangements for continuing our lessons next week.

So, for those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats for the Wolof contribution to the Heart-Fart Theory, here are your options:

Heart = xol (khol)

Rhymes with...

bol = flour

col (“chol”) = clothes

koll = a big stomach / belly (i.e., a pooch)

lol = very

sol = to put on or to put in

wol = to grind

My personal preference is "koll," because food clearly is a sign of love here.  "Lekkal!  Lekkal!" = "Eat! Eat!"  But I'll leave you to form your own theory...

What other things can I tell you?  Oh, yes, that my husband's name in Wolof means "bedbug."  HAH!

Some other useful words / phrases:

Yoo yi = mosquitoes

Fi bari ay yoo = there are a lot of mosquitoes here!

Yaa ngi lekk sa xales?  = this means "are you having fun?" but literally it means, "Are you eating your money?"  the reasoning being that if you have money to blow you must be having a good time.

If you aren't having any fun, or to be sarcastic, or if you really are broke, you can respond, "xales amul" (I don't have any money) or "xales jeex na" (my money is finished; i.e., I'm broke).

Some greetings among young people:

Numu démé:  how's it going

Nice na:  "nice!"  (i.e., fine)  ALL the young people say “Nice” here.  It’s used kind of like “cool,” or “fine.”  Or “Très nice!” which contains no Wolof, just French (“very”) and English.  This is Dakar-Wolof, and for the young – not what you’d hear in the village or among older people.

To greet elders politely:

As salaamu alekkum:  (Arabic for "Peace be with you")

(Response = Maalekum salam = "and also with you)

Ana waa kër gi?  (how's your family, but literally "where are the people of the house?")

Ñu ngi fi.  (fine, but literally, they're all here.)

So, that’s your Wolof lesson for the day!

 Ba baneen yoon ('til next time)...