Had an interesting day yesterday. I spent a lot of my time studying Wolof, again.
A distinguished gentleman stopped by a few days ago and we struck up a conversation, him with his limited English and me with my limited Wolof. Come to find out, he is a local businessman and actually knows the man who wrote our Wolof book.
Well, yesterday he stopped and sat down on the porch with me and asked to see my Wolof book. Peggy went and got my book, and I guess for an hour or more he and I had Wolof/English class. He was quite good as a teacher, very patient and would repeat the words until I understood them. People were walking by and would speak to him and he would smile and respond like we are doing a good thing here. One gentleman who spoke broken English told me,,"You want to learn Wolof, you come and talk to people in their homes" which is very true, practice, practice, practice.
Then, if that wasn't enough, last night after Peggy and I got back from our evening walk, our Senegalese electrician walked by and I motioned for him to stop. I had seen him earlier in the day because we were still having electrical problems and Bryan called and had him come by. It is so funny, we were outside when he walked up and when I explained the electricity would go off then on, off then on, he was as serious as could be and asked "why?". Well Peggy burst out laughing and told him "That was why we called you", and I think he understood.
Anyway, he stopped and sat down and we tried to have a conversation. I got my Wolof book and he and I had another class for an hour. He would speak English and then slip into Wolof and I told him, no, he has to speak English and I would speak Wolof. It was a very enjoyable experience and when he left he said "Sama Xarit", my friend..We shared a cup of coffee and cake and I think he was happy.
We had a few street boys stop by earlier in the day and we gave them "Tampico", a fruit drink and I guess they were famished because they guzzled it down. We like to keep drinks on hand to give to them, but a lot of time we just give them water, which they really need. One little boy came up after we had given all the drinks we had and I had to tell him no, we had no more. But Peggy and I have noticed they always share what they have with those who don't have. More times than not, we will see them eating out of a can or bowl on the street and another will come up with nothing, and they always share what they have. I told Peggy, they are all in the same condition and I think they look out for each other that way. So the 2 boys we had given the drink to, squeezed out about a mouthful into the other boy's empty cup.
We walked down to the river at dusk to enjoy the cool breeze and sunset. We saw several of our neighborhood boys fishing in the river and one of them showed off his catch. Everyone fished with just a line and a hook and weights and throw it in the river. When they feel a nibble, they jerk the line and hopefully snag a fish. Peggy asked me would they keep the fish because it was so little and I told her a lot of little fish make a big meal...
Peggy has her devotional tonight at church so pray she does well..
See you all at end of July,
Ken and Peggy
Gentleman teacher
Little fisherman
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