At the beginning of April, I switched from French study (hallelujah!) and started studying Tamasheq, the language of the Tuareg people. A lot of the words in this language bounce around your mouth and I either find them super fun to say or can barely pronounce them, but I will conquer!
Often, while working at the Grain Distribution Center each Wednesday morning, I'll pull out my Tamasheq notebook during slow periods and sit and practice with my Tuareg friend, Miriama who works with me. We're the cashiers of the program.
One particularly slow day, we'd practiced, chatted and then I was sitting there listening as another one of our team was teaching a few men about how to prevent diarrhea through hand washing. He was doing the teaching in Tamasheq, so I was carefully listening, trying to pick out any words that I knew, and I kept hearing one word over and over that entertained me. So I turned to Miriama and asked her, "What does 'esheboukou' mean?" She smirked and told me, "Poo." I couldn't help myself--I burst into a full belly laugh! Of all the words that had to stand out to me! She joined me in my hysterical laughter and soon everyone wanted to know what we found so funny! So we explained and everyone roared with laughter.
Happy Youssef is the guard at the grain distribution center and is the father of several of my friends. He helps out every Wednesday morning. He doesn't speak any French, and pushes us all to use our Tamasheq. He found this particularly funny and for the rest of the morning he'd randomly call out to me, "Hey, Rebecca, what's 'esheboukou?'"
And lucky me, the word spread. Other friends have heard the story and now 'esheboukou' jokes are tossed around frequently. So I think it's safe to say, potty humour transcends culture!
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