Two tetes are better than one?

Where it all begins -- in French

Last night, I arrived on the evening flight from Paris eager to get my Dakar on. Sara had taken the enviable nonstop from DC, but I was glad I had layover since I had never been to Paris. After 5 hours of walking along the Seine, with a traveler's pack on my back and a camera around my neck [I know, I wanted to kick my own ass], I was ready for our African adventure to begin.  I did, however, learn an important lesson while in France. French is a difficult language to understand. Particularly if you're the kind of person, like me, who took French in high school and for one year in college, and you couldn't understand a damn thing back then either. French is hard, and in Senegal, people speak French.

It is exhausting being in a foreign country, trying to understand a foreign language by yourself. But after a full day in Dakar with Sara, when neither of us speak French, I'm not sure if two (mono-lingual) heads are actually better than one. We left our hotel at 1pm for a day of exploration. But when traveling in a country where you don't speak the language, exploration is limited to generic places at the discretion of the taxi driver. "Ou voulez-vous aller?" "Uh, the le bank." "Quelle banque." "Le bank qui n'est pas ici."

In fact, it is quite difficult to recount what we did today, because I don't think I actually understand many of the things that happened.  Here are a few conversations based on our understanding of both the French and English languages (in order of absurdity):

Julienne: So, do you want to reconsider taking French lessons only 10 hours per week?
Sara: Yes. It needs to be a minimum of 40 hours, if not more. I think we should become the investment bankers of French school.

Julienne, writing a blog in Wolof

Julienne: Did you go out to the clubs last night?
Taxi Driver: Oh, my shirt? It's the Senegalese National team.
Julienne: Soccer?
Sara: Women's Basketball?

Julienne: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Taxi Driver: It's a mosque.

Julienne: This ATM doesn't work, is there another bank nearby?
Random man waiting for ATM: Quelle banque?
Julienne: Do you live here?
Random man previously waiting behind us at the ATM who is now walking us to another bank: Yes, at the place with two faces.

Sara: My French is way worse than I thought, and your French is way better than I thought.
Julienne: Quoi?!?