September was a hectic month full of Senegalese culture and a lot of rain!
We flew out to Dakar on the 12th, where we were met by our country rep, Mr T. Dakar is crazy, I swear no one ever sleeps! I can remember being completely overwhelmed by the amount of people, noise and humidity. On the first day we attended a youth debate called Voix de Jeunes which made me panic because it was essentially 4 hours of French going over my head but it’s become so much easier to understand after a month of hearing the langauge. We saw the President’s palace and were treated to our first Senegalese dish: poulet yassa.
Josie and I left Dakar for Joal, where we met our host family. Amadou is our host dad, Aicha our host mum and then there’s our host siblings, Mohamed (14), Marrieme (7) and Kadija (just turned 2). They’ve all been really welcoming and, although we’re not living in their house, it’s been great to spend time with them.
After two days in Joal, we left for Thies to visit Aicha’s extended family and to attend our first Senegalese wedding. We borrowed some boubous from a neighbour and then jumped in a taxi to the wedding. It was so lively! Everyone was up dancing and then, of course, the toubabs got dragged into the dance circle. Nothing can prepare you for how well the Senegalese can dance, or how stupid you’ll feel next to them.
We went to Dakar for Tabaski to see Amadou’s side of the family. We were sipping our morning coffe when a sheep was dragged into the courtyard and killed, a few meters away from our chocopain! The man of each family has to kill a sheep during tabaski and, because there were a lot of families gathered together, we had two on the first day and then another two the following day. It was all over pretty quickly, it was done in the most humane way possible and nothing was wasted (we had four meals every day.)
On the second evening of Tabaski, everyone got into their boubous and walked around in the street. The kids went round to neighbours’ houses, dressed in their best clothes, asking for money or sweets and then later in the evening, the adults went around to relatives houses and asked them for forgiveness.
While we were in Dakar, we went to the market with Aicha and some other ladies because they needed to buy make-up for another wedding but got caught in a rain storm. When the rain started, I presumed that we’d run into the nearest taxi and call it a day but these ladies were the most determinded shoppers I had ever come across. We ran into the closest shop, wearing plastic bags over our heads but the shop was piled high with nappies and baby products – not exactly what they were needing. The rain was so heavy that a small river was building up through the market, so they ordered a man to wade through the water to find them things, kind of like a personal shopper. Word caught on that they were keen shoppers so people arrived at the shop, pitching their products to us. Beats shopping in Britain any day.
No one here can pronounce our names very well, someone thought that Josie was called Jay Z, so we now have Senegalese names (I’m Amina and Josie is Fatima.)
The schools start a lot later here, so the past month or so has been a great opportunity to experience Senegalese culture and tradition and to get to know our host family. I can’t wait to spend year in this country!
Photos from our roof in Joal:
Emma in Senegal 