Soccer madness

During my 2 minute walk to work, I never know what I'll run in to. Horses, chickens, goats... I find this funny since we are nowhere near the country side. It definitely changes things up from Paris. My trained ears became oblivious to the motors and honks of the city. Now they are adjusting to the loud clamour of birds and the goats baaahhhhhing outside my window, and errrrhhhhh the painful blarring of Islamic prayers coming out of the bull-horn style speakers next door. First call to prayer, 5 am!




Big day in Senegal… their soccer team has made it to Semi-Finals ! They’ll be playing Egypt at 5 pm this evening. Since we have a big t.v. at La Case, the house will be packed. The superbowl of soccer is on Friday.

Last night, I watched Fahtou prepare dinner. During the process she washed and rinsed probably 50 lbs worth of mill. Women here are very agile and strong workers. They bend way down, legs completely straight for long periods of time… they cook, sweep nonstop, wash dishes all in this same posture. I’ll try to get a picture of it to share.

After observing Fahtou in admiration, I was once again invited to have dinner with the family. This was the first time I sat with them inside their one room home. The sports channel was on, of course, showing the highlights of this week’s matches. Fahtou comes in with the dinner… mill, water, salt cooked up into a big pile of grey moosh served with milk (consistency of yogurt) that has been mixed with some sort of juice and loads of sugar. I was impressed that dinner, just about as unappetizing as a dish could possibly look, was enthusiastically gobbled up by little Mor. And ironically, to me at least, today when I made myself french bread pizzas for lunch (with my European sauce and European cheese) and decided to make an extra one for Mor, he looked at it strangely and hesitated before taking it. His mother even had to prompt him to say thank you. I got such a kick out of this.

Anyway, back to last night… after finishing dinner (btw, I ended up eating left over rice since foreigners are strongly advised against eating non pasteurized dairy products… phew. ) Mady says “Oh no! I ate too much!” (I think to myself, is eating too much possible around these parts?) He explains, “When my belly is too full, I am not able to dream. I wanted to find out who will win the big match!”. I laugh. His friend, in all seriousness replies, “It’s o.k., I remembered, I’ll come by and tell you tomorrow morning”. Fahtou, methodically pulls out her wallet and hands him a few coins to close the deal. As I was leaving for work this morning I ask Mady “so, what did your friend report?”. “Ah, Senegal 1-0!” then a pause and a troubled air “but it will be a very tough game, very hard match”. So there you have it… I’m posting the score an hour before the game begins.