What identity?

So for those of you who may have forgotten or never known, my name is Mary Margaret. This is a name that for the last 24 years I have used exclusively on official documents. To the rest of the world I am Maggie. The Peace Corps, being an United States government program, requires a few pieces of paperwork and subsequently, I suddenly became Mary to the other people in my training group who didn't know me as anything else. I still forget to respond to Mary sometimes like the first day of class when they take roll and this girl doesn't say 'here'.
And as I started to get used to this new phenomenon that is my name, I was given a Senegalese name: Jenaba Balde. For several weeks this name was the only thing I could recognize coming out of my host family's mouth (that has since gotten much better)!
In just a few days I will go to my site and receive my permanent Senegalese name.
All this I can handle and even laugh at, but yesterday I was mistaken for a buillion cube. Yes, my American name of preference, Maggie, is coincidently similar to the seasoning of preference in Senegal, Maggi cubes. The Maggi brand of buillion cubes is easily the most recognizable brand in Senegal - not even Adidas has a leg up on this one. Their yellow and red logo is plastered everywhere and they use the seasoning in almost every meal they make. It is more than a staple of Senegalese cooking, it is a symbol of modern living for this culture.
So yesterday, a man visiting from a small village walked up to me during training while I had on a name tag and asked me - in Pulaar - if I liked Maggi. And in perfect Pulaar, having abandoned all semblance of self, I made my first real joke in another language: A linguistic break through and personal realization that in a third world country it doesn't matter what they call you and sharing a name with a sodium-heavy seasoning may just be the break I have been looking for.