Just kidding, I didn't go to the garden today. I woke up to rain, and the women don't really go to the garden when it's raining. Not only is it somewhat unpleasant to work outside in the rain, it's also a bit silly. The majority of the work that the women do is watering, and you don't exactly need to water your crops when the sky is doing it for you.

And thus, I went straight to Sanneh Kunda this morning. I helped Tida to cook Supakana, which is a very meaty green goo. It's served with rice, of course. Everything is served with rice. I was writing down the ingredients of supakana and Tida got really excited about telling me what everything was called in Mandinka. I got the names of almost every cooking implement, lots of stuff around the kitchen and the compound, and then a whole bunch of random phrases she thought I should know. I need to look over all of it tonight or else I won't remember a thing.

I wanted to put together a sort of family tree of Sanneh Kunda, but I don't think Tida completely understood what I meant. She just started listing off the names of people who live in the compound. It's quite a list. I brought my camera with me today to take pictures of everyone in the compound. I didn't get everyone, but I got almost all of the kids and a fair few of the women. The kids got a little too excited about my taking pictures of people and started waking up women who were having their afternoon naps. Tida decided that this was unacceptable, and that the best thing to do with me would be to take me for a walk on the beach. We ran into her friend Lamin on the way and he came with us. They talked about her boyfriend a lot, turning to me and switching to English every now and then. I was mostly left to enjoy the view. The beach was lovely. You know you belong at St Mary's when water feels like home.

From the beach, I walked home. It's at least a 30 minute walk. I greeted a whole bunch of people on the way, which was pretty exciting. I said "nim bara" to women I saw working and "salaamalekum" to most other people. Almost everyone was very happy to talk to me, complimenting my Mandinka and asking all about me, America, my studies, etc. A few people even made some jokes. Even better, I understood the jokes! You know you're making progress in a language when you start to understand the humor. Everything's great.

I feel like this post is very scattered. My apologies. I walked very far today, I saw a lot of sun, and I am beat.