Tubabu

Tubabu. This is what I get called every day. It means white person. When Rachel and I walk down the street, children yell, "Tubabu, Tubabu!", in a kind of chanty, sing songy way. Once when someone was trying to come to our house, they found our street but couldn't find the house. They asked where the tubabu's lived and people took them right to it. Yesterday Rachel, Assaita, and I were in the market and as were leaving, I knocked over a fish stand with my purse (gross). I turned around to pick up the fish and when I looked up, they were gone. This market was crazy like a maze and there was no way I could have gottan out by myself. I said, "Tubabu be me?" Which means, where's the white person? A little girl took me right to Rachel. Clearly being the only white person has it's advantages. Assaita told us that she felt famous with us because we drew so much attention.
Good news of the week, not only can I count successfully to ten, I can count to a hundred!! Once you get the first ten down, the rest is pretty easy, but whatever. Just getting to ten was an accomplishment. But, you would think that once I could count, I could barter at the market without pulling out my cell phone to show the numbers. Not the case. Unlike America, Where the number 100 also works for $100, numbers that you count things with and money numbers are different. You have to measure everything in 5's. Like 10 CFA's, is 2 5's. For 1000 CFA's you say 2 500's. So, you have to first do math, then figure out how to say it. I think I'm going to stick to my cell phone. The only thing my number skills has been useful for is Uno and Phase 10, which we taught the girls we are living with to play.

This picture is of a peanut butter machine. We brought them a huge bowl of peanuts, and then grind them up and it comes out peanut butter. They call peanut butter "tigadigi." They don't really eat peanut butter except for making sauces, and they think putting it on bread is weird. I told them it's because they need to put some sugar in it, like Jif does. They have peanut butter, bread, and jelly, but they think it's weird to put that we eat the three together. I told them I was raised on it. But, they do something amazing with peanut butter that we don't do. It's called "tigadigina." Peanut butter sauce. YUM! They made it for us yesterday and served it over rice, AMAZING! My favorite African food by far. We can teach them about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they can teach us about peanut butter sauce. Fair trade.

Saturday is our last day living with our family and I'm really going to miss them. They are so much fun and such a great family. Good thing they live close by, I can visit them whenever I want! Lucky them, haha! Next week we are going to the village with a One Story team and we'll stay a week. I'm really excited, it will be my first time to go out to a village. Please continue to pray for my language skills, it's getting better everyday, but it just seems so slow. But, I am able to use more words and fewer hand gestures. so that's exciting. Also, pray for the village we are going to. The one story girls have been working there for a while so pray that God will continue to do a great work there.