MORE NOTES TO SELF:

1. La Case is not like home, ALWAYS use caution before sitting on the toilet seat.

2. You can love spicy all you want, but it ain’t ever gonna love you! In order to avoid further toilet drama, stay away from the neighborhood restaurant that only seems to know only one way to cook food, extremely hot!

3. To deal with the bombardment of male solicitations: “lovely gazelle, what is your name!”, “Charmante, where are you from?”, MEMORIZE the phrase “AM NAA JEKERE…” I have a husband!

4. Children screaming “FOTO, FOTO” doesn’t necessarily mean they just want to be in a picture, but rather that they will expect compensation. tug, tug: “200 Francs Madame! 100 Francs!” tug, tug “Bonbons?!”

5. Furthermore, just learn to accept and ignore kids running around you. “toubab, toubab, toubab, toubab…” As if they were calling a pet over to play.

6. Regularly look over Wolof book. You will not learn the language through osmosis. Mastering a few small phrases will help you out in sticky situations.

7. Though you are now far away from the Parisian poohp side-walk obstacle course, do not lose vigilance! Careless steps here could land you in to a big pile of horse or mule dung!

8. Reconsider buying vegetables somewhere other than the big downtown market where the old ladies selling you their produce will ALWAYS give you double (or triple) what you ask for. The buyer has absolutely no power over these aggressive 80-year old grandmas.

“I’ll take a lb of spinach”
“ah, beautiful spinach!” (old lady precipitously stuffs a bag to overflowing)
“no, no… I only need ONE lb”
“here you are, 3 lbs!”
“but!”
“ah, I give you an incredible price! What else, carrots? tomatoes… here 10 tomatoes”.
“no, no, thank you but I don’t need any tomatoes! ”
“o.k., here 5 tomatoes, don’t worry, not expensive at all”.