Wolof bi neexul

Since there has been some distress about the fact that I haven't blogged in a week, I decided that I would.   We went to a women's retreat this past weekend and I seriously thought that I had been transported out of this country.  Crazy pretty.  Then, Monday morning, back to the grind of language study.  I thought I would share with you some pictures and some excerpts from my language notebook to give you a sense of how much we LOVE learning this language.. :)

Most normal people will drink coffee for breakfast.  Well, I'm neither most people nor normal so for my little pick-me-up before language starts too early for my comfort:  Mtn Dew!

This is the absolute BANE of my existence.  If you can, please zoom in.  This is a chart of about 1.746 billion pronouns that Wolof uses. 

And the ever-so-handy flashcards of pronouns that litter our bedroom walls to help us learn.

Can you tell how much we love Wolof?  :)

One of the first days with our language teacher she called me crazy.  This t-shirt literally translates "big crazy"

And here is just a taste of what a daily lesson looks like:

 

Sometimes, this language just does not make any sense.  Here are some excerpts from my notebook:

• "Di" is sometimes seen as "y".....  [OK....  so why is "di" even there?]
• Throw a "y" on the end of it if it seems crazy.  [If you see someone doing something crazy, throw a "y" on the end of the question word... ex..  Loo= not crazy, Looy= crazy]
• There are no adjectives in Wolof.  [They are just called something else]
• Magget means old person
• Daily, our teacher says: "Yalla, dimbali ma ak Mariama" = Lord, help me with Mariama

To break up the lesson a bit, we instituted "pause time" two hours in where we typically eat snacks.  The last thirty minutes of class are reserved daily for walking to a boutique and buying a coke (to practice language, of course!)

As daunting as four hours of language a day is, we are grateful for it.  We know other organizations do not devote near as much time to language learning as we've been granted!  I should go study right now... but probably not! :)