Sorry, John

Well, today I learned that what I have been referring to in the past as the family goat is actually some kind of African sheep. The sheep (to which I’ve given the name John Waller) isn’t exactly wooly. It looks a lot like a goat with horns that curl outward, and also it has a penchant for wandering into the house when someone accidentally leaves the back door open. I was typing at my laptop today when the sheep came into my room and just stared at me for a few seconds before giving a hearty “BAAAHHHHH” noise. My brain sort of melted just at the whole situation, but I had to kind of push the thing out of my room. When the only two things a mammal that size does all day is poop is eat, it’s not something you want in your living quarters. As I’ve stated, there are all sorts of goats and sheep wandering around the streets, and the other day one the volunteers (Delaney from Portland) somehow instigated a confrontation with a goat. She claims it to be a random act of violence toward her, but come on, it’s a goat. She said she was just walking down the street when a group of goats passed and one faced her and started making noises and shoving its horns into her. She wasn’t hurt at all and the whole time she was just laughing at the situation.

I’ve become more used to the food here, and I’m starting to eat more. My first two weeks here, I lost some weight. I’m down to the last notch on my belt, and I’ve poked a notch beyond what the belt designer deemed as “the skinniest that the wearer of this belt should be”. I don’t really know what that means. At first I was worried, but everyone here is skinny because the people here don’t eat very much food, so it makes sense that someone who is used to an American diet would lose weight when coming here. At some point I’m assuming I will plateau into a comfortable weight.

This weekend, the other volunteers and I decided to rent mopeds for the day. One of the great things about Senegal is how cheap leisure activities are. An entire day’s rental of a moped is less than 10 dollars. We decided to go down to a nearby town so we headed out of St. Louis, each atop a moped and had a blast driving around the roads in the backcountry. The mopeds weren’t incredibly fast (they had a 50cc engine which is I believe the equivalent to a weedwacker). We did see some flamingos off in the distance and some monkeys crossing the road. The previous weekend we went to a nature reserve which had a variety of gazelles and tortoises. Pics are here.

The other volunteers are mostly from Europe, so for most of them English is a second language. Although they are fluent, there are occasions where obscure words are confusing or unfamiliar. We had to explain to Cecilia (from Norway) the difference between the words “constellation” and “constipation”. Her confusion with the two was evident when she peered out of the taxi window and said, “Look at all the constipations!”