Du thé senegalaise

First, you run across the street to your nearest boutique/buvette (couldn't be more than 100 yards away) and buy a small box of chinese gunpowder tea. Use half the box with 8 oz of vanilla sugar manufactured just for this purpose. Light the propane stove and wait for the water to boil while you watch Mexican soap operas dubbed in French. 20 minutes later, you will be drinking 2 ounces of the sweetest, darkest, strangest 'tea' you've ever had. It's hot green sugar water, and it's yummy. That is Senegalaise tea. My 18 year old host brother, Petit Papa (I don't understand this name), drinks it 4, 5 times a day, each preparation a ceremony.

Yesterday I walked to the beach closest to my house. North through Ouakam, I passed some of the largest houses I've seen in Senegal, huge mansions by any standard. Spanish tile, walled-in yards and courtyards, perfectly manicured grass and bouganvilla... but the streets right outside the fences are gravel, littered with dead cats and dogs, even saw a goat hoof. Directly adjecent to a 15 bedroom home, we saw a hut made out of tarps and cardboard where a gentlemen sells Nescafe for his income. No zoning, no code...

On my way home around 7:30, I heard a screaming noise that reminded me of a bird. I couldn't figure out what it was. Soon, a baby goat ran in front of me, crying for its mother. It was no more than a foot tall, bright white. Scared, running around the streets in all directions and screaming. No one else paid it any mind. I wanted to to catch it, but it was afraid of me. A Senegalaise woman laughed and me and then told me not to touch it. I'm not sure about their urban farming standards....

One of the girls today said she saw someone killing a horse in their backyard. Cut its head right off.
Even our professor was surprised by her story, "Horses are very respected here. It must have been sick."
"Wow," she said, surprised.
But wow means "yes" in Wolof, so our professor didn't notice that she was shocked.