Watch it sailor!

Before I came to Burkina it could have been said that I could have been known to let a cuss word slip here or there. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t have the cleanest mouth in the world. Fast forward 8 months, add to that this crazy heat, the slew of stressors we deal with here, AND the fact that no one knows English (or if they do, they certainly don’t know slang or the cuss words) and you have the perfect recipe for yours truly walking around with (I hate to admit it) the mouth of a sailor. I’m not proud of it. And I’m not trying to make excuses. It’s a stress reliever for me. I don’t know why, but it relieves tension to say “What the f@*%!” sometimes…or daily. Well, it has caught up with me. Oh man, in the funniest way.
I teach English to this adorable 20-yr old soccer player named Issouf. He is originally from Burkina but grew up in Ivory Coast. His dad died before he was born and his mom died when he was 2. Safi sort of adopted him when she lived in Ivory Coast and brought him back here when she came here - she pays for his housing and food and basically plays the role of family in his life. Issouf speaks Moore (a local African language), French and Arabic, but is only literate in Arabic. I’ve been working with him since February. We meet every night at 8pm to review what I have already given him and then add a little more. He is so intelligent and he works really hard. Everyday he tells me how excited he is to speak the good English. So a few nights ago we’re going through some vocab words, and he is getting them right one after the other. It’s so exciting to watch someone learn what you teach them. I was giving him the French word and he was giving me the English word. It went like this:

Me: pomme
Issouf: apple
Me: marcher
Issouf: to walk
Me: good job! chapeau
Issouf: hat
Me: jeudi
Issouf: thursday
Me: very good! croire
Issouf: to believe
Me: vouloir
Issouf: (after thinking for a few seconds) f*ck

I literally fell out of my chair laughing. I couldn’t help myself. He said it with the straightest face. I was crying! And he had NO CLUE what I found so funny. He was so confused. So I composed myself and asked him again, and after thinking for a few seconds he said it again!! Oh my gosh! I almost didn’t recover after that one. We had to move on to the next word, and of course after that I had the giggles for the rest of the night. Oh man. I gotta watch my mouth…and try to undo the damage I’ve done! Freaking Nanette!


On to another topic…I had my first meeting for my girls’ club yesterday. I requested 10 and 26 showed up – aged 12-24. I’m thinking of making 2 clubs – one for the young ones and one for the older ones. The issues facing each age group are different enough to have 2 groups. And smaller groups are more manageable anyways. One aspect of West African culture that drives me crazy is the lack of importance placed upon doing anything “on time.” I’m not even sure that phrase exists in this place. It is common to have people showing up to a 3pm meeting at 4:30pm. It makes me wonder how anything gets accomplished. It is maddening to someone from a society that is driven by time. So I explained the importance of being “on time” to my club and told them that anyone who shows up a minute after 3pm won’t be allowed to stay in the club. We’ll see how this little trial works. It will probably blow up in my face and I’ll have no one in the club. I’ll let you know how it goes;)