Jaay fonde

Literally 'to sell porridge.' The Senegalese saying is that you can't lose when you sell porridge; either you earn a lot of money selling it, or you get a big butt eating it. Either outcome is highly desirable. Thus, to the never-ending amusement of us students, 'jaay fonde' can also be approximately translated as: 'big booty.'

Each day during Ramadan, Fatou Faye, a young Seereer woman, comes around to the Elton corner, dressed in a sheer brown boubou and carrying a large plastic bucket on her head. It's contents: chere, a Senegalese couscous made into porridge - fonde. Fatou is our official 'jaaykatu fonde.' The men at the corner generally buy one small packet each, and eat it eagerly from plastic cups with warm milk made up from powder.

Fatou is sharp and mischeivous. She has a wry, defiant smile and stands confidently with narrowed eyes and a cocked hip. Her voice is loud and has a nasal edge that dares your eardrums to oppose her. She jokes fiercely with the guards, exchanging gossip, harsh personal critiques, and lewd jokes.

It was last night while sitting around with the usual attaya folk that I haltingly made my first forey into the expansive realm of inappropriate Wolof jokes. I've only caught on to a few as they've flown by me on the street, but my joke seemed to be in approximately the same vein.

The joke struck me as Fatou and I were performing the normal ritual of exchanging greetings, she scolding me for not having printed the photo attached to this post. "Naka jaay fonde bi?" I'd started the sentence before I realized how it would end, and as I approached the finish I began to giggle at the absurdity of the joke and akwardness of my execution. The sentence finished, after a brief pause, everyone else broke into laughter as well.

The literal meaning of the sentence works as a polite inquiery: 'How's the porridge business going?' But colloquially it's pure smut: 'How's the big booty?'