I sit and read for a little while and chat with friends over WhatsApp. There are 90 other Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal. We keep up with each other in various group chats. Some of us are planning a trip up to the historic city of San Louis in May and today, we are looking at a few hotel options.
2:00 PM
My husband comes home from his work at the mayor's office and we walk over to our host family’s house together for lunch. It’s a two-minute walk there, even though we can see the wall of their courtyard right across the street from us. Because they have a large compound that takes up the whole block, it takes some time to get there. We greet everyone we see as we enter the compound, going around and shaking hands with the people we see every day and some people we’ve never met before. Because our host father is the mayor, he has a lot of guests over for lunch when they come into town for meetings. Today our dad has some guests from a Senegalese NGO in town. They are delighted when we speak to them in their native language, Pulaar, instead of French.
3:00 PM
Lunch is ready. The girls who live in our house take turns cooking lunch. Today it's Seynabou’s turn, and she has prepared some Thiebou Tew, or rice and meat. My host mom calls me to gather around a bowl with my husband, my host father and the visiting guests. There are three other bowls in the compound. One is for the girls, 10 people, one is for the boys and men who live in our compound, about seven people, and the last is for the four other volunteers who live in my town and work at a local garden. My mom sometimes joins the bowl we eat at, but today, she has her own.
