Saturday, October 16, 2010

Things I have learned over the past two months

So I realized that even though I have only been here for two months I have already learned so much. While I was thinking of how to sun all of it up my girlfriend wrote a great blog posting and I felt that it summed up my experience thus far so well that I was going to copy it and post it.

Here is what I learned:

1) Senegalese Terranga - There is always room for you at the dinner bowl, and your visit to anyone's home if treated with the upmost hospitality
2) Time is relationships not money.Make sure to take the time to say hello
3) I can now take a bucket bath by using only 3/4ths of a standard bucket filled with water!!
4) A lime squeezed onto any dish makes the meal taste so much nicer.
5) How to successfully turn down marriage proposals (saying that you have 4 husbands in the states, or that I will need four houses minimum usually gets the point across!!)
6) Sitting under a mango tree makes any weather 10 degrees cooler
7) When using a Turkish toilet ala latrine, women should use it facing backwards. It's much easier to hit the target
8) Ramadan - a month of reflection, personal growth, and abstinence from our natural attachment to possessions that are meaningless in the grand scheme of life - pretty good idea
9) Communication is 97% nonverbal. The heart speals louder than words
10) Any business can be handled over three cups of tea - the more foam the better

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Alex,
Hurray! You're back at your blog!! Congratulations on being an official PC volunteer! We were missing you and couldn't wait to hear the latest from Senegal. It sounds like you're hanging in there and doing pretty good.
The bride at the wedding was beautiful! Was there some kind of ceremony besides dancing? And where did they hide the groom and all the other men? Were kids invited? Where's a picture of you at the wedding? (BTW, your host mom looks tiny and pretty young!)
We can't wait to hear the updates from your new city. Will all the American kids in the picture at the restaurant be going to the same place as you?
Using 3/4 of a bucket to bathe used to be called a sponge bath. With my large family and our well water, we used to have to take a lot of those when I was growing up! The list of things learned was pretty insightful.
We'll be watching for more. Keep smiling!..Love, Mary Lynn