Spaghetti with my Hands

So I would have never thought possible. Instead of rice for dinner a few days back we had spaghetti! So exciting, except there was no sauce, just oil and noodles with meat, probably goat. They gave me the only fork in the house but I have a bit of trouble with a fork and my right hand so I gave that up shortly after losing a few noodles onto my feet. Just had to let you know that this brought eating with your hands to a whole new level… spaghetti! My dad used to make Kris and I eat our French fries and tater tots with forks! Loving it here! No complaints on food. And what is also nice and has taken some time to get used to, it is perfectly acceptable to insult the cook. If I don’t like something, I can say that and either they will give me their rice without the yucky sauce or make me something else. The honesty is brutal, but it’s better than suffering by eating supakanja, in my opinion.

So Ramadan is finished! Korite is the big celebration that caused us to cancel class on Saturday and we were to spend the day with the family. I totally lucked out by the way. Everyone wears traditional Senegalese clothing and all the trainees needed to go and get it made. I, on the other hand, got not one but 2 dresses made for me. My mom is one of the best tailors in town and my namesake is also a tailor. SWEET! I look good! Pictures coming soon. So today was the first time that I got to eat a very good meal with my family during the day, without the use of a flashlight! Since otherwise we had to eat after sunset and dinners have been after 9 usually. It is going to be interesting to see how everything changes since people have been fasting in the past 4 weeks that we’ve been here and they haven’t been the most enthusiastic during the heat of the afternoons. Overall, the holiday of Korite was rather uneventful. I was expecting a huge celebration filling the streets but people just got real dressed up to head to the mosque and then the night life was supposed to be amazing since my sisters said they went out until 3 last night. I was going to go but got the feeling I would feel out of place since it was about 6 late teenagers asking if I could pay for the taxi. Not thanks! I got over 10 hours of sleep last night instead and LOVED it.

Everything is going wonderfully with my family. They were extremely worried about me since I didn’t break the fast the other night. I was so tired and needed to just lay down with my door shut and I could hear them talking about me for most of the evening. It is quite a challenge to sleep around here. They are noisy! But life is good and I am going to take today as a day to relax since I feel a fall cold coming on… I guess it doesn’t need to be cold out to get one!