I went to my friend Bocar's in Doumga Wouro Alpha, a village about 20 miles from Ourossogui, for the weekend. We didn't do much by American standards, just really sat around, talked, ate, and drank tea Senegalese style. The first big storm came when I was there. The wind started kicking up, the horizon was brown with sand, and we moved to get out of the path of the storm. Still, at the beginning we stood outside as the sand cloud came over us. Check it out:
After a small sand storm, it opened up, and started pouring. It is ridiculously messy here when it rains. Many roads end up flooded, with trash floating around, and mud everywhere else. Also, after the rains a lot of frogs come out. This triggered a couple interesting and funny conversations. First of all, most Senegalese are terrified of frogs. I don't know if most people think they're gross or if they're actually scared, but when I picked one up people around me ran away. My friend Bocar said there's a huge frog that hangs out near their house that tried to attack him one night. They swear frogs bite, but I haven't ever seen a rabid frog.
Even if they're scared of them, they use frogs for traditional medicine. No, they don't make them into a stew or anything; they think the French are weird for eating frog legs, and assumed it was just "the Chinese" who did that. But sometimes when they have headaches they put a frog on their forehead, because that way the headache will go into the frog. My friend, albeit scared of the amphibians, showed some compassion here. He said, "I don't like to do that because then the frog will have a headache, and frogs can't go to the health post and get medicine." Touching, and hilarious....
