Dreams

Anehnya mimpi. At times you can rule it being the gist of your thought from sunrise. At times it can involve one or two elements from real life which are set in a different entourage; when other times it seems to string from no thought at all.

I rarely dream. And when I do, it's never quite straight forward. From witnessing Spiderman saving Mary-Jane; Antonio Banderas' attempt to assassinate my family (no kidding...); to the more implicit walking beside a 5 year old me and my incapability of piercing a safety pin to mom's flesh. A great variety, hein?

For probable fateful purposes, God has kindly made my implicit-dream memory immune to time. Yep, in one case it took years before I found myself in the exact frame like that of my dream (no, I never got casted to be a figurant in Spiderman^^). Deja-vu, perhaps?

First thing I notice is that I dream a lot about people. And yes, they have faces, which means I have a certain level of bond with them in real life. Secondly, setting is never obvious. And thirdly, I'm hardly ever the principle actor. Hence to put that into perspective for you-- people, more than where or how I knew them, are more precious to me. But on stage, you're most likely to find me on the other side of the curtain.

Bien, merci!

Let me see, so usually the pattern of a "familiar" greeting would go:
"Bonjour, ca va?"
"Ca va bien, merci, et toi?"
"bien, merci."

Yes yes yes, classically that would be translated into the infamous:
"Good morning, how are you?"
"Fine, thank you, and you?"
"Fine, thank you."

Well, at least that's what they taught me.

Well here, in Senegal, the greeting has 4 basic lines (sometimes more, but inserted in Wollof; the country's social language; but because I know very little of, let's put it aside this time):
"Bonjour, ca va?"
"Ca va." And here's the catch, they prolong by asking:
"Ca va bien?"
"Bien, merci."

Note that the person who greets first is not being asked how he/she is doing. It's not important, because here, we assume that because they ask, they're well enough to bother with you ^^; )
Anyhow, back to the 4 basic lines of greeting. That, my friend, can be awkwardly confusing. Let's take an example where a grand director happens to find a small -oh-totally-lost-and-humble- asian trainee (note: I'm in Africa, so that kinda makes me.. ehm.. stand out?) walking up and down the corridor. The conversation starts with something like this:

"Bonjour, vous commencez aujourd'hui? Bien, bien.. ca va? Tout se passe bien?"
"Oui... ca va, merci. Et vous Madame, vous allez bien?"
... and there, I thought the greeting was over with a "oui" or a "bien, merci." But she continued...
"Ca va BIEN?" worse yet, in a tone of disbelief.
*Mia's lost, and with a tone degraded confidence manages to mumble*
"Oui, uhm.. oui, je vais.. uhm.. bien? uhm merci."

The same thing happened when I went to the trainees' cafeteria (if you could even call it so...), I greeted the guy at the entrance with a simple bonjour and he goes:
"Bonjour, ca va?"
Ok, so I have to answer, and to keep it short, I went:
"Oui, merci." The guy was approached by his colleague, and to put this occasion to use and cut short the greeting, I turned right, targeting food.

I was already quite far from him, when he shouted:
"Ca va BIEN?"

Yup, it was me he was addressing to.

And when I finally got that it was albeit something Senegalese do (and therefore considered impolite not to finish the 4 lines of greeting). So, I shouted back:
"BIEN MERCI!"