Second to Last - Bon Sabbat!

For my second to last week at church, I can’t believe how much I’ve settled in. I have my Sabbath school class which I understand some of the times (more than before lol) and move on to divine service.

Singing in French has officially become easier for me once I have the ‘Hymnes et Louanges’ to sing from (Singing words sound different than how you would say them sometimes to get the singsongy effect).

I got the sermon down pat – I think since I was referring to my English bible. We were talking about the whole rich entering heaven = camel going through eye of needle. I really forgot that the sermon was in French sometimes ;)

Niassa and me - A ton of ppl at church think we look alike. What say you?

After church, we were all just socialising a bit – and of course we lined up and everyone greeted everyone else in order of how we filed out of church.

Me, Lloyd and Niassa after church - Lloyd is the one who insists that I sing on the choir lol

For lunctime, I went to chez Lucas but was fasting for Ramadan. Yes, I am an Adventist Christian but I was trying something new to respect my host family – plus I have my own prayers in mind for my fasting too. Malcolm and Lucas thought it fit to tease me while they ate their food – but I stayed strong and drank – my fasting is with drink, Dakar is too hot for me to take chances to go without.

We went back to church in the afternoon – but it was a really rainy afternoon unfortunately – and that brings out all the bugs!

I ended up going to Amira’s house to hang out for the evening with her, her family and Malcolm (who happens to be a good friend of the family – irony of ironies when I found out). What I looked forward to was breaking my fast – the first day of Ramadan and I was with a Muslim family to break the fast. 

Amira's mom (left), Coumba - my host sister (middle) and Amira (right)

Ye ye old picture but I kinda forgot my camera in my handbag the whole evening while at their house

Traditionally, they have dates to break the fast – not sure why, but the demand for dates have definitely gone up in the streets and the supermarkets! I think I now have a thing for dates, especially after fasting.

Let’s just say all the good food made up for it. We drank a lot of Kenkeliba which was really good ( a tea we loaded up with sugar and milk) with bread and had curry goat and rice. Unlike at my host family’s the curry was on the meat and the rice was white instead of it being one dish of curried rice with meat inside. Maybe that's the American influence? Dunno. I ATE for three.

We made plans for Sunday for Lac Rose which were a bit iffy – in my upcoming Sunday post we’ll see how that went!

I also made a feeble attempt at playing COD at Amira’s before I left to go home – Cannot play to save my life. And that’s how the story ends…