My Rant about French

So today there were elections for the National Assembly, or so I was led to believe. Turns out people were only interested in kicking out President Wade in the presidential elections earlier this year and hardly anyone was there to vote in today's elections.

Candidate list from the 24 parties.

Of course, I didn't get to do any voting, but accompanied my host mom. Her she shows off her pink pinky.

For the rest of the day, we literally did house calls to visit friends at family of my host mom. My host mom has too many friends, I swear. 

Here we are in a friend's garden - It was so pretty and with all the sand in Dakar it must take a lot to maintain such a garden! My host sister, Coller (left) Me (right)

Anyway, all these visits had me thinking about French and Wolof and my inability to speak either - more so, in the case of Wolof. Thought I'd add my little rantings that I had written sometime before about language here:

When you’ve taken French classes for a couple years, you are often tricked into believing that you have achieved are certain competency in the language. Well, I shall speak for myself, I really don’t know about you. But I’ve never felt so unable to understand French in my life. The immersion experience is the best right? Well, half the time I am so lost when people start talking to me I wonder why I even bothered. However, that is not the attitude to have -____- Chantelle.

My host mother and others around me have said that my French is getting better – perhaps I am understanding their accents better and am comfortable to respond to them quickly. Or perhaps I am actually getting better. Who knows?

But the thing with French in Senegal is that it is the language of the educated. There are others who know some French, but French is taught in the schools to the more privileged (Example: My family's maid speaks fluent Wolof but here French is so-so altho French is the official language of Senegal). Hence, what do the other Senegalese people speak? In Dakar, Wolof is the most widely spoken Ethnic language but there are many other languages spoken in Dakar based on the ethnic groups that people have come from.

I hear Wolof all the time, on the streets, on the bus, at the orphanage and at home. I am taking a few hours of Wolof classes, so I am making an effort to understand… but one language at a time.

Wolof is often used interchangeably with French, so it really is an interesting dynamic here. Either way, I feel very lucky when I find an Anglophone – not to mention, my host mother speaks English and teaches English at private classes – and I get a chance to speak English. Maybe I am cheating my immersion experience a bit. I have only 4 weeks left tho – so we’ll see how much I improve. Oh French, why can I not speak fluently as yet?