A little bit of random stuff on my town

I found a nice place in town where I can watch football(soccer) matches; like the English Premiership, the MLS, and the Champions League. I was walking down the main street of Sotouboua when I saw a sign with a bunch of different matches written on it. Then, at the bottom of the sign, there was an arrow pointing in the direction down a little ally between some boutiques. So I went to where the arrow pointed and on the other side of the ally there was a little building where I could hear a TV playing and what sounded like what I hoped were French announcers talking about football. I went inside and it was a single room with about ten benches, a table with a decent sized TV that was showing Liverpool vs Birmingham, and a bunch of guys watching the game.  I paid 100CF(about 20 cents… I think) and enjoyed the game. At half time I made my way over to the nearby marche and picked up a fan milk and a orange, and headed back to watched the game and enjoy my snack. This place is a nice find.

I’ve started cooking more for myself. This means that I have to head over to the marche often to pick up food. This place is made up mostly of stalls filled with women selling food and a few people selling clothes (Sidenote: They sell Obama underwear here…Yes, I bought a pair). There is a grand marche every Friday which is awesome, because people come from all the surrounding villages to buy and sell stuff and socialize. Now a lot of these people are starting to recognize me, which is nice. There is one lady who every time she sees me, she quizzes me on the local language Kabiye. She will start off with a basic hello like ‘Nynah-danah’ and will continue with a bunch of salutations until I get stumped. At least this way I can see I’m improving, because I get a little further and further each time.

Speaking of languages, there is a ridiculous amount of them here in Sotouboua. I decided to start learning Kabiye because that is the major ethnicity and language here. But there is also a ton of Kotikoli here. I found out that my neighborhood is mostly Kotikoli, so a lot of people don’t understand me when I say things in Kaybie. Also, the people who run the bar/restaurant across the street from me speak Lamba, so they don’t understand me either when I speak Kabyie. And there are still a few other ethnicities here with their own languages too. Luckily I’m in a town where everyone knows French, and can use this as a kinda universal language for communication.