How to get a mini-me

Dear Aissatou Sadio Diallo,
Welcome to the world!
Love, your tokora

As I've mentioned throughout my blog, Senegalese people are named after family members or close family friends.  While this keeps the variety of names to an unheard of low level, it's pretty exciting to have a baby named after you.  All of the kid in my compound are named after sisters or brothers of my baaba or neene, except Yaya, who is named after his paternal grandfather, and the newest addition to our family, Aissatou Saio, who is named after me!

Oumou with Moutarou and Aissatou

Let me give full disclosure here:  I was dying for this baby to be a girl, and I was dying for it to be named after me.  I'm named after my baaba's neene, who died about six months before I got site. My CBT tokora and I were absolute besties- both of us felt like we owned the other one a little bit.  It's something that I really loved about Senegal during my training and it's something I've really missed since tainin ended.  I've just been floating along, tokara-less, owning no one and no one owning me.


UNTIL NOW.

In an utterly shameless fashion, I've been dropping hints that this baby (who was always a girl in my mind) should be named after me.  "Oumou, I saw this kilo of bananas in the market and just thought of you!"  "Omar, here's some extra tea, you've been working SO hard!" "After the baby is born, I'll carry her on my back all the time!" "Neene, tell them to name her after me."

Finesse is overrated.

Me and my tokora at her denabo

Aissatou was born February 23, 2014  to Omar Diallo and Oumou Keita.  She has an older brother, Moutarou, age three, who doesn't really like her since she stole his mom.  she's beautiful, if small.
When any baby is born, the parents sit around and dream about the little weird-looking pile of skin's future.  As a part-owner of Aissatou, I've been thinking about her future a lot.  Will I see her learn to walk and talk?  Will she go to school? For how long? When will she get married?  Will she have a choice in the matter?  What can I do to make sure this little girl has everything that should be available actually available to her?  What kind of role can I take in her life when I come home, or will she just forget me?

I don't have a lot of answers.  The way things are run right now, I think she will go to school.  For how long, I don't know.  Neither of her parents learned for very long, and her mother got married at 15.  I want to believe things will have changed so much in fifteen years that that will not be an expectation for the precious Aissatou, and I have a new motivation to create these discussions.