-“Megan-like”, as described by my sister-in-theory
I find myself acting on e-mails with instructions to call strangers that will get me invited over to their houses to eat their food and nap in their beds. Between this, a love of eating that no amount of food poisoning will ever stamp out, and the bedbug incident, I am seriously thinking that I could re-invent the Bed and Breakfast travel industry.
Training for Senegal while stationed at DLI. Once described as a very “un-Megan-like” portrait, its prescience can only now be recognized.
Armed at last with a cell phone, I made contact with the family of my DLI (Defense Language Institute) teacher who live here in Dakar. These are the fine people who hosted me last July for ten days of “cultural immersion”. During that trip- my first foray into Africa- I will tell you that we didn’t spend a single day sightseeing or trinket shopping. Instead, it was one long string of communal eating and sleeping rituals that was punctuated by mild food poisoning and catnaps on a straw mat par terre. Pretty fitting introduction for a foreigner, if you ask me.
Turns out I never eat rice…unless I’m in Senegal.
So I called them up and moseyed back on over there for further ingratiation. It was like I hadn’t been gone a single day, and the familiarity of the same bed and bathroom (which I got to know quite well last time) immediately put me at ease. We sat, talked, ate, and then sat some more. After a sufficient yet undetermined amount of time I made my way back into town, and back to my little isolated temporary residence. An unremarkable report? Sure. Something that Megan does all the time? Absolutely not. Do I plan on doing it again? Well…
This trip to the Diop residence was conducted almost in tandem with another social visit- but this time I went out to see a family that I had never even met. I made the initial cold call under the advisement of a trusted friend, and again I did something completely un-Megan-like (namely, talked to strangers of any kind, in any country). I was chauffeured to and from their house where I spent the better part of 11 hours eating, talking politics and taking a petite sieste in someone else’s bed after making a half-joking comment that I could totally nap after some eating such good food. Oh I napped, and then I got up, sat around some more, then ate again before I rolled on home with a full stomach.
I’m doing a lot of stuff that I’d never do otherwise here. And judging by the encouragement that I am getting from all aspects of society, I’m totally going to get fat.
