Sharing
I have noticed that the Senegalese are really good at sharing. Everything they have is everyone else's too. It's really cool to see and also very convicting for me. I find myself claiming things as MINE so often and not wanting anyone else to use them. Of course I share some things, but not everything.
One small example of their generosity was last night when I gave Lamine a chocolate bar for his 29th birthday. (Lamine is this really funny guy who lives in my house. He isn't technically related to anyone in the family but they still consider him one of them. Amy and I call him the crazy tea guy because all we ever see him doing is making ataaya, a tea that everyone drinks here.) But when I gave him the small amount of chocolate, he opened it and before taking any for himself, passed the chocolate bar around the room and insisted that each of the 6 other people eat some. This kind of behaviour is almost expected here. It's so great. I hope after being around people who are so willing to share what thay have that I can learn to be more generous myself.
Ridgley and Janelle, thanks for the mail! I got the letters a couple days ago. It's so awesome to see mail in my mailbox at school. You really have no idea how excited everyone gets when they get something.
posted by Jamie Paxton @ 6:52 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Jamie, your and Amy's adventures to Senegal reminded me of something I read long ago. Only instead of the woods, you went to Dakar. You can figure out who wrote this, I bet.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
What I Lived For, pg. 101
Jamie, my best friend Robin made me join a game with her. Do you want to play? If you say yes, your in it for life. and I can't give you much more information before you decide. its worth it. Let me know.
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