Yesterday, we had our first culture lesson. We learned about the importance of greetings here. It is, according to our teachers, rude to even pass someone on the street without greeting them. Greetings are not simply "hello." Greetings are, "Hello. How are you? How did you sleep? How is your family? How is your health? I hope everything is good." And so on.

People don't really greet us. We get a lot of stares. We get a lot of "tubab," which isn't a greeting at all. "Tubab" basically means "white person." I feel like most of the children say tubab like I used to say "punch buggy." It's automatic, almost without meaning.

I am hesitant to greet the men we see, but have cautiously replied when approached by men who use real greetings. "Hey lady" and hissing do not qualify as real greetings. Liza, who has been here before, told me today to stop encouraging them. I would be more comfortable talking to women, I think, but they are hard to find. The women are largely behind the scenes making things work, and we don't encounter them much during our jaunts around town. The women we do see are usually busy, and I am intimidated by the idea of bothering them. I am just some tourist. They are working hard. I am a nuisance, unless I have something to offer. I want to make myself helpful.

I hate being useless.

I am working pretty hard on learning Mandinka. We only have 2 weeks with official language classes, and I want to get as much under my belt as possible. If I'm going to immerse myself in Gambian culture, I want to be able to talk. I am trying to cram my head full of vocabulary. Our teacher will fill in the grammar, hopefully. I know how to say "I don't understand," which is perhaps the most important thing to admit in a strange place. (It's "M mang a moyi," if you were curious.)

In other news, I had a very strange dream last night. I blame the Lariam. I almost never dream about people I know, but Paul was in my dream last night. He had ditched his facial hair. I guess my dreaming mind couldn't figure out what he would look like without it, so he closely resembled Ferris Beuler. Weird. (Oh. Paul. Give me 10.)