The fat man at the post office, the one who makes me cry, was animated this morning as he took a '75% tax payment' for my birthday present. He was nattering away to a young pretty woman standing behind him at Counter No. 8.

"Did you hear that Moustapha took a second wife?" he said in Wolof, eyes popping out of his fat head.

"Ah bon?" proclaimed the woman. She looked at me and laughed when she realised I understood what they were talking about.

"Yesterday they got married," he said. "Oh yes. That's what I want now, a second wife."

The woman looked once more at me and laughed. We both were thinking the same thing. You'll never find a woman stupid enough to be your second wife. But then, with so many tax payments in his desk drawer, it's quite possible he will.