Day 34: Thoughts while on Site Visit

My landlord is seriously annoying! Well, I can tell he is trying to take care of me, but my individualistic-American ideas still haven't faded all together. At least I am moving from Hari Banda into Goundam ville and won't have to deal with him once installed. This morning he was in my courtyard when I woke up. He had been there since sunrise. "Are you really tired? Was yesterday rough?" He asks. "The day is passing!" (My least favorite Sonrai phrase "jaari koron" or "the day is hot" meaning "get a moving or we'll all be scorched!"). This was at 7am! I tried to explain I didn't have to be at my tutor's until 9am. He asked if I had a watch. He even wen tinto my house while I was on the roof eating breakfast and turned off the fan. He left for work finally and I continued to slurp my fattening porridge.
C'est bizarre ça: M. Badou never is there when we saqy we will be there. But we get time with the family whcih is always good. I already love is octogenarian of a mother. And little Fatim, a niece I believe, is such a flirt. At age 4. The T2 folk came so we drove around showing them Goundam. My house is coming along. The façade is finished and they were mixing cement for the flooring as we left. I also met my guardian or sorts, a griot. All his children are much too curious and may proove to be a handful. We went over to market street and chatted with some men (a few in my homologue's family). Kadija, my homologue, was en brousse doing vaccinations. They want me to marry Kadija's brother. When I refused, he asked, "Is it because I have black skin?" To quote Friends: "Can open...worms...everywhere!"

In the evening we went to M. Badou's again where we found him sitting out front his house with a child in his lap. Always. Very fatherly. Then as we were playing cards, "chollo" or a dust storm kicked up. Well, more approached like a big orange menacing wall of sand and grit. We went inside of course, but my skin was still covered in a fine layer of dust. Then the rain came. The streets filled, as would have the family's courtyard if Vieux hadn't dug a trench out through the front rooms and to the street. Kids were playing in the muddy street water and "showered" in the fountains spewing from gutters. The weather calmed and we were able to watch TV out on M. Badou's roof. We saw a strange show from Burkina where a man with an acoustic guitar played 50 cent singing "Come on shorty, it's your birthday. We're gonna party like, it's your birthday. Drink..." Yeah. All that was lacking was a campfire. Dinner was meat. And takula. And green beans! Of course I was given another bowl of fattening porridge as I left, but as we were walking back to Hari Banda (lit. "behind the water") the bowl slipped. The porridge spilled everywhere **tear** It was pretty awesome seeing M. Badou walk swinging his silver cane like a pimp. The big Peulh hat completed the look. A girl leaning against a wall near my house was so shocked over seeing a few white people she actually tipped over. Wow.