Final days of PST

PST is almost over!  In three day’s I’ll be on my way to Saint-Louis to spend a couple days getting ready to move into my new home. So, I’m experiencing this whole amalgam of excitement and fear all over again.  But, theoretically for the last time like this… for a couple years anyway. 

Unfortunately, I’m sick.  It’s not digestive, for which I’m very grateful. Just a sinus infection with a slight fever.  I’ve been resting a lot these past couple days but did have to take my final language test in this condition.  Still got a passing score though. 

What to say?  There are occasions now where I can actually converse in Wolof, which is Way exciting. There are, however, also situations where I try to converse with people and that language wall is right there… Over the next two months I’ll have to spend a lot of time just hanging out with people to build my vocabulary and get more familiar with the grammar of this pronoun-based language. 

On a linguistic vocab note:  I just realized last night that I took it for granted that Wolof, like English and other Romantic languages I’m slightly familiar with, has six categories for pronouns:  Me, You, He/She/It, Us, Y’all, and Them.  Do all people divide the world in this way? It seems universal, but I’d love to hear about an example that Doesn’t.  The thing in this system that is different in Wolof is that there isn’t any gender differentiation at the pronoun level.  The word for he, she, and it is moom, unless moom is present, in which case you can substitute kii.  This is obviously a differentiation we do not have in English, and I’m curious what purpose it serves/served in this culture. I love these random kinds of thoughts, and would love to share more, but my over-heated brain can’t think of anything else right now.  I need to start carrying a notebook to write these things down. 

What else… leaving my family was hard.  Crying is awkward in this country, and hugs even more so. The night before I left I was crying right outside of the bathroom which our maid Ngone was cleaning.  She’s amazing, and just essentially part of the family there. I told her I didn’t want to leave them, and she told me not to.  There’s a gesture here that means “I refuse.” I couldn’t entirely tell what she was saying until she made this gesture.  It was amazing.  Made me crack up laughing, which is often all you need when you’re crying…. Lovely.

Will write again when I get to Saint-Louis.

For now, I just wanna say, it takes so long to upload pictures on the internet here that for now I’m just doing pictures of facebook.  Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but its waaaay easier for me.

Thanks for the comments!! Love you all J