Tubaab Bi

Here is the truth.

It makes me feel so, so happy to come home from work and start cooking a really good dinner before my husband gets home, and have him come home from work to find a home full of nice smells, and then for him to lurk around the kitchen asking if he can help me cook, and then to set the table and have dinner together, and have cooked it myself, and have it be delicious.

Another truth: sometimes I worry that makes me an unempowered woman, or something.

Does liking to cook good food for my husband make me an anti-feminist??  I sometimes have this crisis.

Wednesday

Today we have the day off of work because public transport is supposed to be on strike.  They are striking because gas prices are at around $7 a gallon - true, down from the $8 a gallon they were recently, but still.  When the government lowered the price from $8, the raised the price of cooking gas by about $1 a liter - meaning by about $3 a gallon.  Thanks, Abdoulaye Wade!

It’s nice to be sitting in my living room drinking hot tea and wearing socks and a sweater instead of freezing in a dress in front of a room full of grumpy children, but I just can’t get excited about the fact that I have a day off because life is so absurdly expensive that the average person simply cannot survive.  Despite this, I think there was some mistake in the timing, because the city busses are definitely circulating.  Olivier says the strike is supposed to start tomorrow.  On Friday the constitutional commission will declare whether or not Wade can constitutionally run for a third term - which he cannot, but they will say that he can, and then he will cheat and win.  Who knows if we will work tomorrow, but I sincerely hope we do not work on Friday - not because I want the day off, but because I am 99% sure that it will not be safe to move around the city, transport strike or not.

Everything is just a big rumor.  Nobody knows when this strike is going to happen, the constitutional commission’s decision date keeps getting switched, and there is nowhere certain to find the information.  Senegalese news websites are 1/8 news and 7/8 useless articles about premarital sex scandals, and international news does not cover this stuff.

Olivier still had to go to work today, so I got up and made him breakfast and now here I am.  It’s nice to get to relax instead of being at work, but as I told my students, I hope everyone who has today off (for no real reason, in the end) is spending some time thinking about why they have the day off.

!!!!!!

Mom has been whisked away to Saint Louis with Olivier’s parents, and I got my nails done today which took a million hours because they put on fake nails and did all sorts of insane things to make them look real.  They DO look real!  They are also really long and I will have to get used to this.  They do, though, make a satisfying clicking sound against the keyboard as I type.

My sister gets here tonight, on the same flight as Olivier’s oldest sister!  Tomorrow is the rehersal at church!

I just want to be married already!

T minus five days

until I become Mrs. Mbaya, which will pretty much be the coolest thing ever.  Five days, though, feels SO LONG.

Mom arrived last night, we went to church with the Mbayas and then rested a bit before going to their house for an organizational meeting with everyone, thenate eggs and sausage for dinner and went to sleep.  I gave mom my fan and got eaten alive by mosquitos - when I covered my whole body with sheets, they bit my face.

Today I have to get my wedding dress taken in, take it to the dry cleaners, get bobby pins, get a bouquet, order the wedding cake…and I am sure I am forgetting something.  On Wednesday I am getting my nails done.  Who knows what I will have to do tomorrow and Thursday, but I’m sure it will be something.  All I want to go is be alone with my Olivier and snuggle up and tell each other funny stories and giggle and help each other to relieve all this stress, because we are good at that together, but I’m pretty sure that that just won’t happen until after December 17.

Nonetheless, I am constantly blown away by how helpful and supportive everyone here is, especially his family.

I cannot wait for the day just JUST ARRIVE!!!

Robbers

Olivier and I brought out wedding rings home two days ago.  Yvonne, the day before yesterday, told me to be careful because Ouakam is known for robberies.  I said okay, that I would give her the rings on Saturday when we see each other so she can keep them for me.

Yesterday, on my way home from picking up the printed invitations, Olivier called me, asking if I had passed by the aparment during the day.  I said no, and he informed me that he had just gotten home to find the door unlocked and the computer gone.  Not to mention my rent money gone.  Not to mention our wedding rings gone.  The door had not been forced or anything - either someone had a key or picked the lock.  The thief left the guitar, easily the most valuablel thing in the aparment but too big to steal unnoticed, and also stole my backpack, clearly to carry the computer.  He thought it out - he took the computer and the charger, and the two were in separate rooms.

This is someone who watches us, and knows when we get home.  This person took their time.

The computer and the money, fine.  But OUR WEDDING RINGS?  Those rings are engraved with our initials and the date of our wedding.  It makes me feel violated to know that somewhere, what was supposed to go on my finger to represent my love is being put on someone else’s finger, with the date of my wedding engraved inside.

Olivier is ordering new ones today, but we should not have to order new wedding rings.  This makes me so ANGRY.  This fills me with this horrible, burning rage towards everyone I see, and I hate it.

The other day a taxi driver tried to steal my friend’s bag as she got out of his taxi, in broad daylight, after she had paid him.  Everyone says that there are more robberies before Tabaski, but REALLY, people.  This is ridiculous.

I need to get rid off all of this anger.

Khaware

There’s a house in my neighborhood that sells the coldest beers on earth.  Just someone’s house - you walk in, sit down in their courtyard, and tell a child to get their parents, who then bring you the coldest beer on earth for one dollar.  Last night these people organized a big party which Olivier didn’t want to go to, but too bad for him!

I had the best time.  We drank one dollar beers and danced to every kind of music and laughed and I had a heart-to-heart with Clément and danced some more and then came home and made the most sandwiches and fell asleep on the floor in the livingroom while the boys laughed more.

Oh, how I needed a night of dancing and laughing!