Long Week

This week has been full of challenges.  I'm glad today is Friday.  Here's some good stuff:

Youssou, my host brother, came up to me on Tuesday and said "I know you're mad at me because I've been spending all my time with Meredith and Christine.  Tonight I'm hanging out with you and we're making tea."  We hung out and made tea Tuesday and Wednesday, and then last night we played cards.  I taught him and his friends my favorite game (called Palace, Castle, Idiot, or Swedish Meatballs, depending on the person) in French, and we had a lot of fun.  Today he gave me 5 meters of fabric that I can take to the tailor soon to make into clothing.  I asked Mama about going to the tailor, and she said that her soeur (sister) is a tailor and has 6 shops around town.  Or something like that.  So either she or Youssou will take me later on this weekend.

I'm worried that I might have caused some host family drama.  Elizabeth's host mom asked me where I live, and when I told her, she said "Oh. Watch out for Youssou."  Youssou was telling me about how Theresa's and Elizabeth's families (who are related) dislike him.  I mentioned that Liz's mom had warned me about him.  He told his mom.  Mama called me over and said "What happened with your friend's mom?!"  And then she told me all about how Africans have too much time and cause problems but people shouldn't be mean like that and so on.  The whole time I just stood there saying, "Yes, I understand.  I agree.  Yes." And that was it.

At the beginning of the week one of the girls on our program got very ill, and we were all really worried about what would happen to her.  She's doing a lot better now, but the chances of her getting ill again are way too high for my comfort.  We'll see what happens there, I guess.

I talked to Caleb and things are good.  Nothing like talking about pressing but depressing subject to make you forget that things were awkward.

Mama wants to cook with me!  She asked me what I know how to cook, so I pulled out Mom's cookbook and we went through it together. It was fun trying to translate things that I have no idea how to say in French.  Like sour cream.  "It's like creme fraiche, only it's not fresh..."  Maybe by the time my family comes to visit, I'll be able to cook some local foods.  Youssou offered to be a tour guide for us, find my family a villa to live in, come up with trips for us, etc.  Seems like it would be really fun, so we'll see how that all unfolds.

I'm getting slightly frustrated with the fact that all our classes are two hours long, and we have anywhere from 2 to 4 of them per day.  We end up spending most of the daylight hours in the Baobab Center rather than in the city.

So, overall, things are going really well.