What’s-his-face?

There’s a debate raging. Who does Alec look like?

Person A

Person B

Person C

Person D

A new member of the family

About three days after Alec was born, people started asking us if/when we’d make him a big brother. Depending on the day, we responded with either death stares or very eloquent phrasings like, “Umm… Well, uhh…” Lately though, we’ve been treading gently into ‘maybe’ turf.

And it’s a good thing, because our little fam just grew by one.

This is my brother from another mother.

We arrived in Budapest two days ago. Waiting for us at my parents’ house, among many other things, was a little guy named Abdou. (Full name: Abdoulaye Ndiaye)

Mimi, have you met Abdou?

We plopped Alec on the bed to see what his reaction would be. He first picked up a giraffe rattle and shook it a bit, but then his eyes fell on Abdou. He froze for a second, then LUNGED for him with a huge grin! He was beyond thrilled with Abdou. It was hysterical to watch them get acquainted.

Shhh… Naptime.

You may be surprised to know that Abdou is actually from Sweden, a little village called Ikea.

Playtime with GrandGlenn

Abdou, you need to learn to sit up on your own so you can play better.

Big hug!

A day in LiZzzzbon

I now understand why people can’t sleep on planes. They aren’t tired enough. Trust me. After spending seven hours in the Dakar airport, pacing with Alec, you’re tired enough to sleep in any seat you collapse into at 5am – plane seats included.

Alec passed out near the bar in the Teranga Lounge

At 1am when they announced our flight would leave at 4:30am (inshAllah implied), we sought refuge in the $10/head Teranga Lounge. Let me paint you a picture. Orange sofas, faded since their prime in 1970, line the walls of a smokey room equipped with a partially stocked barand air conditioners that produce more sound than cool air. But tucked in the back is a clean ladies’ room. (No toilet seat, but there is handsoap.)

When we finally arrived in Lisbon, we were greeted at the information desk by a long line of Senegalese people talking animatedly with their hands and in loud, angry voices while the French huffed and grumped about the situation with shrugged shoulders and exasperated sighs.

So what did the American couple do? Wave their baby around and get bumped to the front of the line. Alec thanked his fellow stranded travelers with big, toothy grins and general shenanigans. Worked like a charm. We think he may have a future in bomb-diffusion.

He wanted a terrace café.I wanted Starbucks. But rain showers chased us into a McCafé.

The airline reps in Lisbon were much more helpful than those in Dakar. (Your flight got delayed to dawn? Here. Have a bottle of water.) within an hour we’d been taxied to and checked in to a rather nice hotel, given meal vouchers and lots of kind smiles. Most of those were directed at Alec, but whatever. Still such a nice change.

Obviously I would rather be at my parents’ house right now, especially since Cheikh seems to be coming down with something. But there are far worse places to be than a friendly European city with sun bursting through rain-heavy clouds, and Alec and Cheikh napping as I settle in for a Downton Abbey marathon. And we’ll get to my second home tomorrow, so it’s all good.

Beautiful rain clouds, how I’ve missed you!

PS. We got caught in rain showers on our walk earlier. (Hunting coffee, of course.) It felt wonderful. Oddly enough, no one else seemed entranced by the water falling from the sky.

Take Me To See My Dad at Work Day

My arrival at the medical complex. The view was nice, but apparently they forgot to roll out my red carpet.

Right this way…

Here we go…

Yes, I’m here to see my Dad. His name is right there…

What do you think it is, Dad? Will I ever play the violin again?

Not every patient gets tickles…

Or zerberts!

What do you mean you have ‘real patients to see now?! What am I? Chopped liver?

Oh, that reminds me… My liver’s been acting up. Guess you’ll have to make a house call, Dad!

It’s all about the amenities, baby.

Until yesterday, I had no idea our apartment building had a gym out back.

I did, however, know about the laundry facilities.

And, of course, the view out front.

And out back.

Mother’s Day fairy dust

Alec et moi

I’m not sure what I expected on my first Mother’s Day as an honoree. Gold fairy dust falling on me when I woke up? Alec taking extra-long naps? To be honest, I guess I thought the day would kind of, sort of be all about me – and I was looking forward to that part! But in reality, it’s been more about the one who made me a mom and thinking about the one who mom-ed me.

Beautiful flowers from the bébé’s daddy

At church this morning I joined the mom-forces in the back. This is where we moms, and the occasional dad, congregate with our wee ones, bouncing and pacing, ready to dart out the door as soon as our little one decides to start squawking at full volume.

As I stood there bouncing Alec, I looked at my friend’s face and saw my own emotions reflected in it. “Isn’t today supposed to be easier than this? Aren’t the babies supposed to be calm and happy? Aren’t we supposed to be relaxed and feel beautiful and rested? Today of all days, aren’t I supposed to feel like a super-mom and not a pooped-mom?”

I remember when I was about eight years old asking my dad why there wasn’t a ‘Kid’s Day’. He answered that Kid’s Day was every day of the year. I thought he was taking some liberties there. But I know now that he wasn’t.

All these years, I think I’ve been giving my mom the wrong gifts on the one day a year set aside to honor her. I mean sure, painted-rock paperweights are the gifts that keep on giving and you can’t ever have too many candleholders made by sticking one’s thumb in a lump of clay.

If I could go back, I would also give Mom the gift of time to herself. An afternoon nap. An undisturbed bath. A good book.

I would give her the gift of touch. Hugs. A shoulder massage. Kisses. Holding her hand when we walk.

I would give her ‘action verb’ gifts. Doing the dishes. Folding the laundry. Making dinner.

I would give her the gift of words. Thank you. I love you. You are an amazing Mom.

Along with these, I would still give her those awesome paperweights and candleholders. But I if I could go back, I would give her these gifts all year long, not just on Mother’s Day. Because all year long, every day, she is my Mom. And she totally deserves some gold fairy dust.

 

It’s a pig… it’s a donkey… no, it’s a rhinoceros!

Apparently my Wolof translation skills are about on par with Alec’s reading skills. That is to say, super-sarcastically, advanced.

I went through a couple of Alec’s books with our Senegalese house-helper and together we translated them and I scribbled in the Wolof text in Sharpie. It was a good language exercise, but also pretty funny. She’s flipped through these books with Alec before, but since she doesn’t read English she didn’t know what they were about. And let me tell you, she was none too impressed by the great storyline of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. “Really? That’s what this book is about??”

One major challenge in Wolof translashun is that there isn’t a set spelling since it wasn’t a written language until 1971. And it’s all funnetic and very subjective. So, for example, there was one word that when she said it, I would have spelled it ‘yex’ but she would spell it ‘heqh’. And the dictionary said ‘yiix’.

The other challenge is that some vocabulary just doesn’t exist, especially for things that are not originally from Senegal. (The same is true in English. What would you call an object used for cleaning teeth that doesn’t have bristles and is carved from a piece of wood about 8 inches long?)

So when we got to a picture of a pig, she said, “Mbaam”. But then she explained that a mbaam can also be that animal that’s like a horse and pulls carts – a donkey. Then a few pages later we get to picture of a rhinoceros. She paused, then said, “Mbaam aala,” which means an mbaam that lives out in the bush or the wilderness!

Moo, baa, la la la!
By Sandra Boynton. Translated by Khady and Dorothée.

Benn nak mungi wax MOO.
Benn haar mungi wax BAA.
Netti mbaam ñungi wooy LA LA LA!
“Déedéet, déedéet,” yangi wax. “Du noonu.”
“Netti mbaam ñungi wax OINK bëcëg bi ak guddi bi.”
Mbaam aala SNORT ak SNUFF
Ak xaj ji nungi def coow RUFF RUFF RUFF!
Yeneen xaj defnanu BOW WOW WOW!
Ak muus ak doomam ñungi wax MEOW!
QUACK! mungi wax kanaara.
Benn fas mungi wax NEIGH.
Amatul coow leegi. Looy waxati?

Opposites
By Sandra Boynton. Translated by Khady and Dorothée.

Bu mag ak bu ndaw
Bu gatt ak bu njool
Kaw ak suuf
Gaaw ak yiix
Diis ak oyof
Bëcëg ak guddi
Ci biir ak ci biti
Wax ndank ak yuxu
Bu amul doolée ak bu am doolée
Bu baax, bu bonn
Tang ak sedd
Ndaw ak mag
Bu tooy ak bu woo
Salam malecum, bë beneen yoon

As much as I would like to… there are some books that I will not be translating. For example, anything dealing with the following topics:

Polar bears

Walruses and zookeepers

Autumn

Winter

Cowboys and Indians

View of Dakar from N’gor Island

Sometimes learning another language lends itself to some really fantastic conversations. I was just in the kitchen speaking in Wolof(ish) to our house-helper about our weekend.

Me: See my arm that is pink? I forgot to do sun cream. Now, I have burn.
Her: Does it hurt a lot?
Me: No. Not a serious burn.
Her: What about Alec?
Me: No problem. I did his sun cream. And Cheikh… Cheikh, he… He…

(pause while I choose my route)

Me: Do you know indiens?
Her: Indiens?
Me: Yes. Indien ethnic group. They are lighter than you, darker than me. Like Lebanese.
Her: Indiens… Oh! Like the Chinese. Yes, I know them.
Me: Well, there are Indiens from America also. Have you looked at a film of Cowboys and Indians?
Her: Yes. Oh yes, those Indians.
Me: Okay. Cheikh, his grandfather’s mother was Indian. So his skin is darker skin than my own.
Her: Cheikh is métisse? He’s mixed-race?
Me: Yes, he’s métisse, a little. His skin is dark so the sun doesn’t hurt him.
Her: And he’s métisse with the Indians from the cowboy movies?
Me: Umm, yes… That’s correct.

Going over to N’gor Island – Alec’s first boat ride!

And then our house-helper began to giggle and laugh in a way that made me completely unsure as to whether the way I’d said it was wrong, or whether she was amazed at this information, or whether she was picturing him shooting a bow and arrow while robbing toubabs in covered wagons.

Senegalese dug-out canoe, called ‘gaal’.

So anyway… we went to N’gor Island yesterday with friends from our church. It was perfect – one of those rare days where everything goes well. (Minus the sunburn, but that was my own fault.) The ride over was smooth, the restaurant location was great, the service quick, the food amazing, the bill small… Then the afternoon was just relaxing and playing on the beach.

Gaal ‘ferry’ dropping people off on the island

Good to know:

• The ride over can be wet, so put cameras and phone in Ziploc bags and wear shoes/pants that can get wet.
• If you eat at one of the two big restaurants, they will come pick you up/take you back in their boats. Just let the guy selling tickets that you want to go to the restaurant and he’ll set you up.
• The new seafood restaurant (where we ate) is much cheaper than restos in Dakar.
• There are two beach areas, so check them both out before deciding where you want to park for the day.
• You can rent an umbrella/mat for 1,000cfa/day.
• You can also rent paddle boards.
• It’s still the cleanest place I’ve been in Senegal.
• The vendors still didn’t hassle us.

The restaurant where we ate lunch

Table for 16, the name is Toubab.

My lunch for: yassa with fish

Very fresh fish!

The Atlantic, from the back side of the island

You’re going to be seeing a lot of these guys over the years. Because we get to see a lot of these guys!

N’gor village in Dakar… and THE statue, of course.

Alec making the rounds

Winding walkways through the island

Beach n°2, by the restaurant

Ouch!

Michelle paddle-boarding out into the ocean

I love these.

Clear, cold water

Alec taking it in from his favorite seat

Open cacti flower

We lost Aaron. Oh no, wait! There he is. Phew.

Beachfront restaurant with cold bissap for 200cfa (about 30 cents)

Mama Bineta, the owner and chef

Relaxing on the pier

Scenegal: Been there, done that… or so we thought.

Today we went to the westernmost tip of Africa, again for the the first time.

The very, very westernmost tip of Africa. On a dust storm day.

So if this is the African continent…

…here we are.

Let me explain. Many, many times we have been to a restaurant called Le Récife, which we thought was on the westernmost tip of Africa. We’ve posed for pictures by the rocks and waved to America from the sandy edge.

But apparently that was just the westernmost point that was open to the public. As we learned yesterday, the actual westernmost tip is on the property belonging to the former Club Med resort and, believe it or not, we weren’t members so had never been.

Windblown hair is over-rated. But here we are! Looking very western, eh?

That property is now owned by another hotel (and looks very promising as an in-town get-away, btw). And if you walk up to the security gate and ask to be let in to take a look, they let you. Or at least they did for our crew of four + two babies on our walk through Les Almadies neighborhood yesterday afternoon.

So, visit the westernmost tip of Africa… re-check that one off the list.

Thrilled to be along for the ride(s).

Now we are faced with a bit of a challenge. ‘Go for a long a walk through Les Almadies’ was on our list of possible things to do on Tuesday, which is a holiday here. (Labor Day, in case you were wondering.) Actually, it was the only item on our list of things we could do that day. Since we bumped that rip-roaring activity up a few days, now we are left with a wide open day tomorrow and nothing particularly interesting to fill it.

Any suggestions, Dakar buddies? We haven’t done much on the Petite Corniche side of downtown. Any places we should go discover or you know, discover again for the first time?

Surfer’s corner of Les Almadies

Our adventure buddies

Pape wanted to try after watching this guy.

Surfer’s corner of Les Almadies

Hair of the dog

I’ve found that the best cure for culture shock is a bit of that which bit you.

I remember a few years ago in the midst of a deep, deep culture shock crisis, I decided to lock myself in my room with comforts from the US: snacks, magazines, DVDs and Dr Pepper. My plan was to stay there until I’d had 12 straight hours without having to deal with life in Africa.

Kiddos in the village stopping by for water, Band-Aids, just to say hi…

After three full days, I’d managed only one six-hour stretch without some sort of power cut, kids knocking at the door, someone wanting to sell me peanuts, hot water heater not working, etc… So I gave up and gave in. I went to go hang out in a friend’s courtyard, surrounded by Africa. (As they say in Wolof, “Nit mooy garabu nit”. People are people’s best medicine.) And it worked. In just a few hours, I was back to enjoying and appreciating life here.

So I had a bit of the hair of the dog after my ‘ticket day‘ earlier this week. It wasn’t my choice, but it worked.

Last night at about 7pm, Cheikh asked, “Are those generators I hear?” Click, click. Yup – power’s off. The whole neighborhood was humming and buzzing as people cranked up their generators.

I call it ‘Cooking Dinner During Power Cut’.

Our apartment building doesn’t have a generator, so I just turned up the speed on making dinner before it got too dark to see. Cheikh busted out the rechargeable lights and candles, I put Pape down to bed, we ate dinner. Then I sat in the living room with a cup of chai and the candle flickering. I could have used a rechargeable light to do something productive or worked on my laptop, but it was nice to just sit.

And this one is, ‘Husband During Power Cut’.

If the power had been on, I would have found plenty of things that ‘needed’ to be done. Instead I let Africa slow me down to its rhythm. Hair of the dog. Works every time.