How’s my English?
On a recent trip to Kenya, a former British colony, I was eager to get a break from French. I arrived by small plane to a dirt airstrip in the middle of the savannah, then careened up the rocky road by jeep to the top of an escarpment overlooking the Mara River. The Mara Siria Camp is very simple- tents in the bush. Warm showers are available , but have to be commander-ed a little in advance, as someone needs to carry hot water by wheelbarrow from a not-so-nearby lodge. Jaqueline asked me if I would like to take a warm shower now, before dinner. I replied heartily, “Yes, I would love that, thank you”. To which she responded, “As you wish, then, maybe tomorrow.” After dinner that night, I was escorted back to my tent by a spear-carrying morani, his lamplight, and Jaqueline’s sister. I asked her, “Does it get cold here at night?”. She replied, “Oh no, you won’t have to worry about mosquitoes at all”. I zipped the tent up tight, tucked myself in with an extra blanket, and dreamt of the conversations I might have with the animals, all of whom understand me quite well, thank you.

Two Mommies
Allison is busy at school forging and dissolving friendships daily. I ask her to describe Darian, her friend du jour for a few days in a row now. “Darian has two mommies… and one daddy”, she described. Polygamy is alive here, forcing Heather to stand aside as an example of an alternative family. How many brothers and sisters does Darian have? I’ve seen at least three so far. It’s typical to have many, many more. Both Abdoullai and Mohammed have over twenty each. The husband is obliged to maintain a separate household for each wife and her children. He then spends a night at each house one by one, being treated to an enormous meal at each. This all saves our little family some trouble, as most people just refer to each other as brother or sister, without needing to be too specific about parentage. On the playground, Allison having two mommies can slip by without too much notice.

Les Oiseaux
The birds have come back, those little bright yellow ones that prepared a colony of tightly woven hanging nests in the tangle of palm out back. These cute little guys couldn’t be responsible for any avian flu, could they? I brought up the subject of Avian Flu to Mohammed in French class in response to the query of what to do about congestion in and around big cities. Trop de circulation?....” Too much traffic?” is the Jeapardy response to the answer “Avian Flu”. Of course, I expected Mohammed to roll with it. Instead, he stared blankly. Connaissez-vous la maladie avec les oiseaux? No response. In the news, dans la nouvelle, chickens dying in China, il y a beaucoup des poulets qui sont mort. Nothing. He reads the papers, he listens to the radio, occasionally watche sTV, but avian flu just wasn’t ringing a bell with Mohammed. So I began to discuss what I’d heard of avian flu. The predictions by some experts of the ensuing pandemic that would occur if the flu virus should mutate and cross to the human population. His eyes narrowed with concentration. Ou est l’abri? “Where is the shelter” he asked. Ca c’est la problem. Il n’y a pas de l’abri. “That’s just it, there isn’t a shelter” He came to understand my description, but still didn’t understand. What he didn’t understand was the fear. Africa is so burdened with death on a large scale that this little malady must seem pathetic. With drought, flooding, AIDs, TB, malaria…. Avian flu has just not hit the front page here. We both began to smile as I described our president being able to whip up fear out of nothing. He began to howl as I recalled the similar flurry of excitement over Y2K. We mocked the horror of the possibility of people not being able to open their garage doors, starving while huge trucks full of food languished on the highways after the gas station computers went down and wouldn’t allow gas to pump. Hordes of refugees from the cities, trudging on foot to the countryside, where they would raid farms in desperation. Women unable to give birth because the hospital electricity was down. What are we ‘mercains going to fear next? Hello little yellow bird.

En construction
When we were choosing a Dakar neighborhood sight unseen Les Almadies was described as being a neighborhood “under construction”. The description otherwise sounded nice. Near work. Near Allison’s school. Near the beach. Outside of the pollution of downtown. We were concerned about the constant din from big construction machines and vehicles. I imagined blasting, deep foundation pits, tall cranes, welding torches, big trucks piled high with building supplies, guys in hard hats taking over the sidewalks, leering over their ham sandwiches on white bread, quarter slots all around. We imagined cheap construction materials, uninspired architecture, prefab everything.
There is an enormous amount of construction going on in the neighborhood. The quiet is only disturbed by the gentle clip clop of small horse carts bringing cement sacs or steel drums full of water or lengths of rebar. Cinderblocks are generally made on site, as needed. Rebar is quietly trimmed and bent to fit in a terrain vague next to the building site. Each week, there are fewer and fewer of these vacant lots. More and more fancy villas grow, each one its own architectural reve come true.
Each time we pass, the workers smile broadly, wave to Allison, and “ca va?” in earnest. Most work in their flip flops, some barefoot. Most have bare heads, some, usually the chef, port chapeaus, usually stocking caps of some kind or another. Digging, mixing cement with sand, praying are all done in concert. La construction vive ici.

Dans la congelateur, s’il te plait
This morning the change was confirmed. The wind had shifted. The air is now tinged not with the sands of the Sahara, but with the brine of the Atlantic. Spring is here. Yesterday, I finished off the last of the mouton. I think the onset of Easter time led me to dig out the leg from the congelateur. Last Korite, Astou had arrived saying that she had brought some mouton for our family from hers. Tu est tres gentile, grand merci, I said, imagining a nice little Tupperware of her grilled lamb leftovers. C’est dans la sac ici. Inside the black plastic sac reading “Senegal, Senegal, Senegal” was the jambe entier vraiment crue. I ceremoniously found a spot in the freezer, saving the task of thinking about how to cook an entire leg of Dakar sheep for another day. The day came, out came the leg, out came the Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Concerned about the results, I hadn’t invited a soul over for dinner. Just Allison, me, and the leg. I was shocked at how well it turned out, not just good, but heavenly. Can we make this an annual rite of Spring?

SFB (pardon my French)
Truly, we all try to be culturally sensitive here. Of course there are the numerous local customs- shake with your right hand, don’t walk between a prayer mat and mecca, never ever skip the long exchange of salutations. And within the expat community, with the myriads of mixed race and mixed nationality families, best to not make any assumptions or step on anybody’s allegiances. The one cultural group that has escaped the diplomatic world’s courtesy is the “Skinny French Bitch”. Pardonez-moi, but it’s vrai. You hear it all the time in conversation in even the uppermost diplomatic circles. As in….” Then, that Skinny French Bitch rammed her grocery cart over my ankles”. It’s the French who gave us the word clique. It’s the French moms at Allison’s school who clique together in the mornings after dropping off the little ones, assuming that the Americain moms couldn’t speak a mot of their language. It’s a wonder the French can manage to sell anything. That SFB running the Grain d’Or has nothing on the soup nazi. “Yes,” I plead, “would it be OK if I purchased a loaf of bread here at your boulangerie, or maybe that’s too weird of a request?” Books have been written about why the French women stay skinny. But, I ask, why so bitchy? Is it related? Is it that fueille that you allowed yourself to eat from the millefeuille ? Was it not enough? Please, I beg, have seconds.

Bon Appetit
Sure, Arid Extra Dry, Mitchum, Secret. When we first arrived here in Dakar, we would put ourselves to sleep by trying to recall every brand of deodorant we could think of. Instead of visions of sugarplums, what danced through our heads were visions of wide shiny aisles, one lined high with cereal, one with pet food, one with cushy bread, one with paper products. It wasn’t so much that we missed all that, there was just something familiar and cozy about all those deodorants. Most people here in the American community speak longingly of their wild, uncontrollable and unsatisfied food cravings. Dare to say the words “double stuff” and face the glares and hissing in return. Many succumb to ordering this and other “traditional American foods” online and having them shipped through the diplomatic pouch. We’ve been doing OK without. I think of it as the kind of challenge they give to students at the C.I.A. Here are seven random food items to work with. Make dinner for six. Listen, there’s a lot you can do with an eggplant, an onion, a cabbage, a tomato, a banana, an apple, and an egg. Every trip to l’epicerie promises to not provide something basic-what, no coffee today? No bread the next time. No eggs the third time, but Aha! buy every can of coffee on the shelf today. Our placard is still plein with foodstuffs that I sent here from our friendly little Costco in Alexandria. Two thousand US Dollars goes a long way at Costco, and the very next time I move to Africa, I’ll be sure to shop there again. Some of the things I bought turned out to be very useful- fourty pounds of dry milk, twelve gallons of Chlorox, a case of Gatorade. Some not so useful-a case of cilantro walnut pesto. Some are waiting for just the right occasion-a gallon jug of artichoke hearts, a two pound can of chickpeas. And now …. The truth….
What started all this food thinking was the disappointing sight in our cupboard tonight of the penultimate box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Good eating.