The weekend of March 5-7, my program went on a fieldtrip to Toubacouta, Senegal.
Dakar is located at the westernmost point of Senegal. Toubacouta is farther south along the coast but a little inland, almost near the Gambia.
The weekend was filled with lots of dancing and Senegalese food, but the highlight was spending the day and night in a Senegalese village. Keur Moussa Siny is the birthplace of one of our program directors and that is where we spent the night. The purpose of the visit was to experience life in a Senegalese village. As a female, I was to spend a day in the life of a Senegalese woman living in a village. I cooked, took care of children, carried water, had my hair braided, and danced. It was an amazing twenty four hours, the villagers are so content to live their lives and share their culture. It was a really pleasant and rewarding experience in every way possible. Some pictures of my Senegalese domesticity:
This was the baby of my host mom in the village. I was holding another child when she strapped this one on my back. It was amazingly comfortable. The Senegalese women do everything with the baby tied to their backs, including cooking, cleaning, dancing...everything.
My host mom with the dish we prepared, Yassa Ginaar. The preparation included chasing and catching two chickens, ringing their necks, boiling them, plucking their feathers, cutting up the meat and rubbing it with salt, cooking the chicken over fire, boiling rice, cutting up and cooking vegetables, and pounding spices and garlic to make the onion sauce. We then distributed the rice, chicken, and sauce into many bowls to feed the entire compound.
One of the ladies in the compound asked to braid my hair. This is near the end...when she was pulling at my scalp and my neck was very sore.
Along with my host sisters, we made about six trips between the well and the house to refill the water containers. I was given a small bucket to carry and managed to get most of it to where it was supposed to be.
When I returned to the house after carrying a water bucket, one of my male American friends was hanging around. He had been watching wrestling on the television while the women were carrying water. A perfect example of the role of women in Senegalese society...
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