Laundry Detergent...or Soap?

Usmane (pronounced 'oos-mon') is a man who has claimed me as his friend. He comes by the house occasionally looking for work or hand-outs or selling something that he has carved out of wood. Our former housekeeper called him 'presque fou' which means 'nearly crazy'. One day last week he stopped by, this time asking for soap to wash his clothes. Never wanting to prevent a man from wearing clean clothes, I went in and got a small bag of Omo for him. 'Omo' is the laundry detergent we use here in Dakar. It is a well known brand, but not necessarily as a laundry detergent. It comes in small, 'one load' bags as well as large bags (pictured).

When I handed it to him, he said, "What's this for?" I replied that it is soap. He said, "That's not soap for clothes, that's for cars. I want a brick of soap."

Indeed, Omo is very commonly used to wash cars, whereas most people still use bars of soap for laundry. So when I told Usmane that we don't use that kind of soap, he looked at me in the same "you're crazy" way that he looked at me once before when I told him that we don't eat rice everyday. Crazy Americans!