part of a big neighborhood cleanup... hopefully I'll get more pictures up soon.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Yesterday I finally broke down and bought myself insecticide spray. This isn't the stuff you spray on yourself to gently ward off insects. No. This is the stuff you spray around when you have the intention of actually causing their untimely death.
My room had become a breeding ground for flies, and I couldn't even sit for one minute inside without feeling like I was being molested every five seconds by a hairy, brainless, six-legged creature. So I went to our closest corner store right before lunch, and just before sitting down to the bowl with my family, I sprayed it in my room: all around the window, the edges of my bed, and around the door, closing it behind me. Half an hour later, full of delicious rice and fish, I opened up the door to my room to count twenty - that's right, twenty - dead flies on my floor. I had to go get a broom to sweep them all out, a few of them still twitching. Ooh. I know some people believe all life is sacred, but I just don't know what purpose in life flies serve, except to annoy human beings and other animals. And perhaps I'm killing some of my own brain cells with this anti-fly toxin, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to be able to have some peace of mine, which is so precious to me here.
So you may rightfully now ask, what have I been doing the last six weeks here at site that I need peace of mind?
Just the usual stuff: getting out into the community seven days a week, trying to get a feel for what my job is, getting to know my city and the people in it.
Things are getting easier, bit by bit, and more and more people are starting to know me. The routes I traverse every day are becoming friendlier. But every day that I walk down a new street, I still feel as if I were a dancing bear who escaped from the circus. Some kids run towards the bear with gleeful smiles and yells, because they think that it's neat that the bear can dance. Many people expect the bear to do other tricks, but the bear doesn't know any of the ones they like. Some little children are afraid of the bear and run away, because they've never seen one in real life. Other older people look at the bear with scorn, as if it were in bad taste for the bear to go out in public, especially unaccompanied by its trainers. So it happens that by the end of many days, the bear just wishes it could go back to the circus, because at least there it felt accepted and praised for what it was.
But since the circus is far away and the bear knows that being here now is more important, it tries to find ways to blend in, to walk on all fours, to change its ways to make itself more acceptable and not so bizarre. Maybe one day, if the bear works hard enough, people will stop pointing it out as odd, and maybe the bear will even earn a few real friends before it goes back to the circus. But for now, at the end of the day, no matter what it does, few people can get past the fact that the bear is still a bear.
My room had become a breeding ground for flies, and I couldn't even sit for one minute inside without feeling like I was being molested every five seconds by a hairy, brainless, six-legged creature. So I went to our closest corner store right before lunch, and just before sitting down to the bowl with my family, I sprayed it in my room: all around the window, the edges of my bed, and around the door, closing it behind me. Half an hour later, full of delicious rice and fish, I opened up the door to my room to count twenty - that's right, twenty - dead flies on my floor. I had to go get a broom to sweep them all out, a few of them still twitching. Ooh. I know some people believe all life is sacred, but I just don't know what purpose in life flies serve, except to annoy human beings and other animals. And perhaps I'm killing some of my own brain cells with this anti-fly toxin, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to be able to have some peace of mine, which is so precious to me here.
So you may rightfully now ask, what have I been doing the last six weeks here at site that I need peace of mind?
Just the usual stuff: getting out into the community seven days a week, trying to get a feel for what my job is, getting to know my city and the people in it.
Things are getting easier, bit by bit, and more and more people are starting to know me. The routes I traverse every day are becoming friendlier. But every day that I walk down a new street, I still feel as if I were a dancing bear who escaped from the circus. Some kids run towards the bear with gleeful smiles and yells, because they think that it's neat that the bear can dance. Many people expect the bear to do other tricks, but the bear doesn't know any of the ones they like. Some little children are afraid of the bear and run away, because they've never seen one in real life. Other older people look at the bear with scorn, as if it were in bad taste for the bear to go out in public, especially unaccompanied by its trainers. So it happens that by the end of many days, the bear just wishes it could go back to the circus, because at least there it felt accepted and praised for what it was.
But since the circus is far away and the bear knows that being here now is more important, it tries to find ways to blend in, to walk on all fours, to change its ways to make itself more acceptable and not so bizarre. Maybe one day, if the bear works hard enough, people will stop pointing it out as odd, and maybe the bear will even earn a few real friends before it goes back to the circus. But for now, at the end of the day, no matter what it does, few people can get past the fact that the bear is still a bear.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
3 buckets, 1 bar of soap, and a load of vindication
To start, it needs to be mentioned that my Senegalese family is very well off by this country’s standards, and coming here from my village outside of Thiès it felt a little like I transitioned from country mouse to city mouse. Here I live in a small family (6 people), with one daughter going to school full-time and another part-time, and a well-to-do father who can afford to pay for a housegirl to come to clean, wash, and cook every morning to afternoon, except Sundays. So when I approached the topic of washing my clothes about a month ago, my host mother asked me if I could wash clothes, and I said, “well, yes,” but she didn’t really believe me. So she told me I could give my clothes to A., our housegirl, and she would wash them once a week or once every other week, for 1500 cfa each time (about 4 dollars US). I agreed to this, because 1. I had seen how much work it seemed to be to wash clothes here by hand, 2. I had heard of other volunteers who also paid someone in their family to do their wash, and 3. I was also sure that A. could do a quicker and more efficient job than I.
Since this agreement, I have given my clothes to A. twice, both times getting them back pressed and dirt-free, but smelling like what we had for dinner the night before. The other day I figured out that the reason the clothes smell like cooking is because the charcoal A. uses to heat the iron she uses for pressing is the same charcoal she uses to grill fish for our lunch. But besides the smell (I’m used to washed clothes smelling like soap, not fish), it was really starting to wear on me that no one around here thinks I can do anything a woman should be able to do, by Senegalese standards. And they not only think that, they constantly point it out. Again, and again. And again.
So the other day after lunch, I bought some bar soap at the boutique and set myself up around the back of the house, with my two buckets and my clothes, ready to prove that I really am useful and can do something for myself. I filled up the one bucket with water from the faucet at the back of the house, and had barely started to scrub the first piece of clothing when my very critical father poked his head out of the kitchen door, saying just “Men nga foot?”
(meaning “Can you wash?”)
To which I replied, already tired of this line of questioning, “Waaw, men naa.”
(Yes, I can.)
He said something to the effect of “hmm,” left, and I started to scrub the wet clothes with the soap when the younger of my two sisters, S., came around back. Looking at my work with a discerning but kind eye, she took the soap from me and rubbed it across a wet skirt, squinching and squelching the cloth with the necessary sound that seems to be an essential criteria for cleanliness in this country.
“Defal kom bi,” she said, (Do it like this), and then went about her business.
Ok, ok, I thought, but really I can do this myself.
I kept at it, but soon after, A. came back behind the house to feed our local inmates on Death Row - four chickens and a very noisy sheep. Since it looked to me like she was confused about what I appeared to be doing, I said that I was washing my clothes, that I thought she had enough work to do, and that I had time - have time - to do it myself. After this short speech, she told me I should “bay ko” (leave it) until the next day, and she would do it. But I said “no, no,” and insisted that I wanted to do it, that I had the time to do it, and that I would do it. At that point she decided that if I was going to do it, I should do it right, so she also proceeded to take the soap from me, unsatisfied with my scrubbed and squelching, showing me, just as S. had, how to soap and squish and wring out my clothes.
“Defal kom bi,” she said, looking at me and laughing a little, like she does when I’m sure she thinks I’m a little crazy, or stupid, or both.
So I kept going, and going, as A. went back and forth in her chores, periodically checking on my progress, and later showing me the “best” way to then hang my clothes on the line. “Do you want them to dry?” she asked me, and I said “Waaw,” (Yes), wishing there was a Wolof equivalent for “duh.” She replied to this by silently pointing me to the clothespins, and rearranging all the clothes I had already put on the line.
At one point my brother even came around back and gave my work an approving smile, and it seemed everyone had checked in on me when finally I was putting the last of the clothes on the line. A. came back just then to put the chickens away and sweep the yard before going home for the day. After she shooed the chickens back into their pen, she took a look at the line, inspecting my work. I followed her eyes as they looked critically at the clothes I had worked so hard on to prove that I can, at least, do one thing that as a woman I am supposed to be able to do. After a moment of decision, she said simply, in a tone of voice that could have been either a question or a statement of surprise,
“Men nga foot?”
(which depending on context can mean either “Can you wash?” or “You can wash”)
And since I wasn’t sure which it was, I said to her, “Men naa foot?”
(Can I wash?)
To which she replied, turning to me with words that never sounded so sweet,
“Waaw. Set na.”
(Yes. It’s clean.)
Since this agreement, I have given my clothes to A. twice, both times getting them back pressed and dirt-free, but smelling like what we had for dinner the night before. The other day I figured out that the reason the clothes smell like cooking is because the charcoal A. uses to heat the iron she uses for pressing is the same charcoal she uses to grill fish for our lunch. But besides the smell (I’m used to washed clothes smelling like soap, not fish), it was really starting to wear on me that no one around here thinks I can do anything a woman should be able to do, by Senegalese standards. And they not only think that, they constantly point it out. Again, and again. And again.
So the other day after lunch, I bought some bar soap at the boutique and set myself up around the back of the house, with my two buckets and my clothes, ready to prove that I really am useful and can do something for myself. I filled up the one bucket with water from the faucet at the back of the house, and had barely started to scrub the first piece of clothing when my very critical father poked his head out of the kitchen door, saying just “Men nga foot?”
(meaning “Can you wash?”)
To which I replied, already tired of this line of questioning, “Waaw, men naa.”
(Yes, I can.)
He said something to the effect of “hmm,” left, and I started to scrub the wet clothes with the soap when the younger of my two sisters, S., came around back. Looking at my work with a discerning but kind eye, she took the soap from me and rubbed it across a wet skirt, squinching and squelching the cloth with the necessary sound that seems to be an essential criteria for cleanliness in this country.
“Defal kom bi,” she said, (Do it like this), and then went about her business.
Ok, ok, I thought, but really I can do this myself.
I kept at it, but soon after, A. came back behind the house to feed our local inmates on Death Row - four chickens and a very noisy sheep. Since it looked to me like she was confused about what I appeared to be doing, I said that I was washing my clothes, that I thought she had enough work to do, and that I had time - have time - to do it myself. After this short speech, she told me I should “bay ko” (leave it) until the next day, and she would do it. But I said “no, no,” and insisted that I wanted to do it, that I had the time to do it, and that I would do it. At that point she decided that if I was going to do it, I should do it right, so she also proceeded to take the soap from me, unsatisfied with my scrubbed and squelching, showing me, just as S. had, how to soap and squish and wring out my clothes.
“Defal kom bi,” she said, looking at me and laughing a little, like she does when I’m sure she thinks I’m a little crazy, or stupid, or both.
So I kept going, and going, as A. went back and forth in her chores, periodically checking on my progress, and later showing me the “best” way to then hang my clothes on the line. “Do you want them to dry?” she asked me, and I said “Waaw,” (Yes), wishing there was a Wolof equivalent for “duh.” She replied to this by silently pointing me to the clothespins, and rearranging all the clothes I had already put on the line.
At one point my brother even came around back and gave my work an approving smile, and it seemed everyone had checked in on me when finally I was putting the last of the clothes on the line. A. came back just then to put the chickens away and sweep the yard before going home for the day. After she shooed the chickens back into their pen, she took a look at the line, inspecting my work. I followed her eyes as they looked critically at the clothes I had worked so hard on to prove that I can, at least, do one thing that as a woman I am supposed to be able to do. After a moment of decision, she said simply, in a tone of voice that could have been either a question or a statement of surprise,
“Men nga foot?”
(which depending on context can mean either “Can you wash?” or “You can wash”)
And since I wasn’t sure which it was, I said to her, “Men naa foot?”
(Can I wash?)
To which she replied, turning to me with words that never sounded so sweet,
“Waaw. Set na.”
(Yes. It’s clean.)
june 18.
I’ve been in Senegal for three months now, and I’m starting to feel like I actually live here: like this is normal, and this is familiar. I’m not saying that all the novelty has worn off, but I think at this point the initial period of shock and rapid adjustment is over. The beginning is the hardest, many volunteers say - I guess I can’t know yet, but the way it’s going now I would tend to agree. I’m starting to feel like I’m actually part of this community - a newcomer for sure, but in many ways I’m an active citizen, and people are starting not only to recognize me, but to respect me, and to know why I’m here.
This past weekend I left my site to go to a regional welcome party/meeting, and then spent two days in Dakar, visiting with other volunteers. It was great to spend time with my friends in country, share our trials and tribulations since we’d last seen each other, and just relax, but when Tuesday morning came and I had to go back to site, I felt hesitation. By the time I had made it to the garage, though, and was seated in a sept-place, all I wanted to do was get back. The traffic leaving Dakar took us an hour to get through (which I hear is about average), but an hour and a half later we pulled into town, and when I walked into my house and my host mother was there to greet me, it felt like home.
More to come in a bit. Just wanted to put this out there.
This past weekend I left my site to go to a regional welcome party/meeting, and then spent two days in Dakar, visiting with other volunteers. It was great to spend time with my friends in country, share our trials and tribulations since we’d last seen each other, and just relax, but when Tuesday morning came and I had to go back to site, I felt hesitation. By the time I had made it to the garage, though, and was seated in a sept-place, all I wanted to do was get back. The traffic leaving Dakar took us an hour to get through (which I hear is about average), but an hour and a half later we pulled into town, and when I walked into my house and my host mother was there to greet me, it felt like home.
More to come in a bit. Just wanted to put this out there.
Friday, June 6, 2008
the right words to communicate
Technically I’m supposed to be at another meeting right now, but as no one would give me a straight answer as to why I was supposed to be there, I took that as a sign that that it was not actually mandatory for me. That, and the fact that when I called my counterpart, his wife answered the phone, saying that he had gone to a different meeting. But lest you think that I take every opportunity to slack off from work, I did spend the last two full days at a seminar on the problems of youth in the city, and participated in brainstorming sessions about what we, as various representatives of the services offered to young people, can do about those problems. I got the chance to meet many important and relevant people to my job as an environmental education volunteer, and got a brainful of Wolof and a lot of very rapid French. Then this morning I showed up for a meeting at the mayor’s office, but unbeknownst to me, the hour had been pushed back so far that 10 minutes after I arrived, the meeting was over. I was able to profit from my presence anyway by using the wireless internet there at City Hall - that is, until the power went out again an hour later.
My last post took 3 days to put up on the blog because we’ve been having long periods of electricity outages here in town, which are apparently region-wide, not just across the city. It’s something else to live in a village, where you’re used to not having electricity, but when you’ve come to take it for granted, and then it’s not there, well…
I do apologize and tip my hat to my friends and all Senegalese who live every day without power.
Unfortunately for us here, the plumbing system that runs the faucets is linked to the power generator, so when there’s no power, there’s also no water. We have a little well in our backyard area, for backup, but our neighbors on the island don’t have wells, so they have to come over the bridge to the mainland when the power cuts out, to fetch water to take back to the island to wash, cook, clean and flush. Makes “island life” sound a little less romantic, doesn’t it.
Speaking of romance, I continue to be grilled about my lack of husband, and more recently, lack of children. Yesterday, I was talking to a colleague of my counterpart, an older man who I had up until yesterday seen a few times but never spoken to, as he didn’t seem to be interested in talking to me. I was waiting outside my counterpart’s office at the elementary school when one little child who had been playing in the schoolyard came up to me with a dear look on his face, not saying a word, but just staring. I started to talk to him in Wolof, asking him his name, if he was having fun, and so on, and this colleague of my counterpart’s asked me (in Wolof as well) if I wanted to keep him - the boy. I laughed, saying no, of course. He asked me then if I had any children, and I said no, again with a smile, because children are one of the furthest things from my mind while I myself feel like a child much of the time in this foreign country.
“Don’t you want children?” he then continued, and I said, “Maybe, one day.” And then he asked if I would carry my children on my back, like women do here, and I said “yes, or maybe in front,” but he thought that was a bad idea, and insisted that in back was better. Then - and this is where I was almost laughing out loud, because 1. The question would be considered very personal in the U.S. and 2. I understood it quite plainly in Wolof - he asked if I would breast-feed my children, when I have them. And I told him, with a smile on my face because I could hardly believe that I was having this conversation in Wolof with a near stranger, that if I have children I will certainly breast-feed them, because it’s good for the health of the child. He approved of that, saying that mother’s milk is better than cow’s or even goat’s milk. I learned later from my counterpart that this particular guy is a “griot,” a member of Senegal’s traditional caste of storytellers and singers, and he is invited to events because he (and I quote my counterpart) “knows exactly what words to use to communicate.”
So I apologize to anyone out there who may have just been given too much information, but I wanted to share some insight into the forward-ness, as well as the priorities of some people here, and my personal triumph that I was able to communicate so much. There is still so much I don’t understand, but I’m feeling a little bit more involved in what’s going on around me, and as noted, increasingly holding my own against the constant barrage of gender-based questions. Wish me luck on keeping it up.
My last post took 3 days to put up on the blog because we’ve been having long periods of electricity outages here in town, which are apparently region-wide, not just across the city. It’s something else to live in a village, where you’re used to not having electricity, but when you’ve come to take it for granted, and then it’s not there, well…
I do apologize and tip my hat to my friends and all Senegalese who live every day without power.
Unfortunately for us here, the plumbing system that runs the faucets is linked to the power generator, so when there’s no power, there’s also no water. We have a little well in our backyard area, for backup, but our neighbors on the island don’t have wells, so they have to come over the bridge to the mainland when the power cuts out, to fetch water to take back to the island to wash, cook, clean and flush. Makes “island life” sound a little less romantic, doesn’t it.
Speaking of romance, I continue to be grilled about my lack of husband, and more recently, lack of children. Yesterday, I was talking to a colleague of my counterpart, an older man who I had up until yesterday seen a few times but never spoken to, as he didn’t seem to be interested in talking to me. I was waiting outside my counterpart’s office at the elementary school when one little child who had been playing in the schoolyard came up to me with a dear look on his face, not saying a word, but just staring. I started to talk to him in Wolof, asking him his name, if he was having fun, and so on, and this colleague of my counterpart’s asked me (in Wolof as well) if I wanted to keep him - the boy. I laughed, saying no, of course. He asked me then if I had any children, and I said no, again with a smile, because children are one of the furthest things from my mind while I myself feel like a child much of the time in this foreign country.
“Don’t you want children?” he then continued, and I said, “Maybe, one day.” And then he asked if I would carry my children on my back, like women do here, and I said “yes, or maybe in front,” but he thought that was a bad idea, and insisted that in back was better. Then - and this is where I was almost laughing out loud, because 1. The question would be considered very personal in the U.S. and 2. I understood it quite plainly in Wolof - he asked if I would breast-feed my children, when I have them. And I told him, with a smile on my face because I could hardly believe that I was having this conversation in Wolof with a near stranger, that if I have children I will certainly breast-feed them, because it’s good for the health of the child. He approved of that, saying that mother’s milk is better than cow’s or even goat’s milk. I learned later from my counterpart that this particular guy is a “griot,” a member of Senegal’s traditional caste of storytellers and singers, and he is invited to events because he (and I quote my counterpart) “knows exactly what words to use to communicate.”
So I apologize to anyone out there who may have just been given too much information, but I wanted to share some insight into the forward-ness, as well as the priorities of some people here, and my personal triumph that I was able to communicate so much. There is still so much I don’t understand, but I’m feeling a little bit more involved in what’s going on around me, and as noted, increasingly holding my own against the constant barrage of gender-based questions. Wish me luck on keeping it up.
the electricity is out again…
Every day I’m here I feel like I’m being tested in different ways, and I’ve slowly come to realize that I need to develop coping strategies now, early on, before the incessant pressure builds to a breaking point. Patience and flexibility are two of my biggest challenges here, and I can feel that I am changing, gradually, but noticeably, because of my constant efforts towards a greater capacity for both.
I don’t think I’ve written about the “toubab” issue yet, but it is probably the toughest obstacle I feel like I’m facing in the process of integration into my community. A “toubab”, as I may have mentioned in previous posts, is the Senegalese word for foreigner, but more specifically it refers to “white person”. My site is a small city, and as such it unfortunately makes it impossible for me to stop and greet every small child who yells “Toubab!” at me as I pass. This wasn’t an issue in the village I lived in during training, because it was small enough that everyone very soon knew my name. Here though, the situation is different. I often walk to get where I’m going, but I also ride my Peace Corps-issue bike, including regulation helmet, and that provokes just as much public attention, though I can get out of earshot faster on bike than on foot.
I have come to terms with the fact that although the children on my street now know my name, most of the city children will continue to call “Toubab, toubab, toubab, toubab, toubab!” whenever I pass, on foot or on bike, every day of every month for the rest of the two years that I am here. I am therefore determined not to hear each mocking, accusatory call of “Toubab!” but will pretend instead to hear “Lexie!” as if each child were greeting me by my most real name. Hopefully this will ease my frustration at the accumulation of deriding exclamations. I’ll let you know how it goes.
As for flexibility, I’m learning that here more than anywhere else I’ve been it pays to go with the flow, and have a plan B. Perhaps you were planning on going to the internet café and just as you were ready to leave the electricity cut out again all over town. Or maybe you thought your whole day was going to be devoted to working on a school project but all the schools are on strike and no one is around to participate. Yesterday I had no plans for the afternoon at all, and when I asked my sister in the morning why she wasn’t at school and she answered that there was a “physical education day,” I decided to go see what that was about, feeling sorry that I had missed the previous week’s race at her middle school.
So after lunch we walked over to the fields (a.k.a. big sandy expanses) behind the lycée (the high school), and there I discovered all of the girls in troisième (9th grade) from all three of the local middle schools gathered to do their end-of-year P.E. tests. These consisted of shot put, 100-meter dash, high jump, and something they termed “roulade” - which was kind of a short gymnastic/balance routine, including tumbling and cartwheels. From 3:30 until after 7pm I watched, cheered, and laughed along with the girls, as each took her turn, and all encouraged the rest.
I could have left at any time, but I stayed along with my sister until the last jump had been attempted, and all the scores reported. It took me back to my days of middle school gym class, running “in-and-out” laps, and made me laugh to remember who I was over 10 years ago. So I may not have started out my day planning to stand in the sun for four hours watching teenage strangers try to jump a 4-foot-high rope… but it was honestly one of the best afternoons I’ve spent here so far.
I don’t think I’ve written about the “toubab” issue yet, but it is probably the toughest obstacle I feel like I’m facing in the process of integration into my community. A “toubab”, as I may have mentioned in previous posts, is the Senegalese word for foreigner, but more specifically it refers to “white person”. My site is a small city, and as such it unfortunately makes it impossible for me to stop and greet every small child who yells “Toubab!” at me as I pass. This wasn’t an issue in the village I lived in during training, because it was small enough that everyone very soon knew my name. Here though, the situation is different. I often walk to get where I’m going, but I also ride my Peace Corps-issue bike, including regulation helmet, and that provokes just as much public attention, though I can get out of earshot faster on bike than on foot.
I have come to terms with the fact that although the children on my street now know my name, most of the city children will continue to call “Toubab, toubab, toubab, toubab, toubab!” whenever I pass, on foot or on bike, every day of every month for the rest of the two years that I am here. I am therefore determined not to hear each mocking, accusatory call of “Toubab!” but will pretend instead to hear “Lexie!” as if each child were greeting me by my most real name. Hopefully this will ease my frustration at the accumulation of deriding exclamations. I’ll let you know how it goes.
As for flexibility, I’m learning that here more than anywhere else I’ve been it pays to go with the flow, and have a plan B. Perhaps you were planning on going to the internet café and just as you were ready to leave the electricity cut out again all over town. Or maybe you thought your whole day was going to be devoted to working on a school project but all the schools are on strike and no one is around to participate. Yesterday I had no plans for the afternoon at all, and when I asked my sister in the morning why she wasn’t at school and she answered that there was a “physical education day,” I decided to go see what that was about, feeling sorry that I had missed the previous week’s race at her middle school.
So after lunch we walked over to the fields (a.k.a. big sandy expanses) behind the lycée (the high school), and there I discovered all of the girls in troisième (9th grade) from all three of the local middle schools gathered to do their end-of-year P.E. tests. These consisted of shot put, 100-meter dash, high jump, and something they termed “roulade” - which was kind of a short gymnastic/balance routine, including tumbling and cartwheels. From 3:30 until after 7pm I watched, cheered, and laughed along with the girls, as each took her turn, and all encouraged the rest.
I could have left at any time, but I stayed along with my sister until the last jump had been attempted, and all the scores reported. It took me back to my days of middle school gym class, running “in-and-out” laps, and made me laugh to remember who I was over 10 years ago. So I may not have started out my day planning to stand in the sun for four hours watching teenage strangers try to jump a 4-foot-high rope… but it was honestly one of the best afternoons I’ve spent here so far.
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