2011-12-12
Before Senegal I didn’t know I could get an appetite from looking at a live animal. Then after I witnessed the sacrifice and preparation of a sheep my first time I realized this wasn’t so impossible. After all, it’s nice to know where exactly your food is coming from and prepare it from field to...
Read More
2011-12-12
Let me rant just a little. The Senegalese school system often seems broken. Alright, I’m done. What brought this rant about? It all started with a little involvement on my part in the studies of my 12 year old cousin. He told me his homework was hard that night. “Mettina, Fanta! Mettina torop!” which literally...
Read More2011-12-12
Silhouetted against a crackling fire, the children chant. To me, the words are a song of dynamic gibberish, though I know them to be beautiful verses of the Koran. The recited text is passed around the circle of restless brothers, sisters, and cousins, one child reading at a time while the rest provide a fervent...
Read More
2011-12-12
I had forgotten how far I had progressed in Wolof. I was stressing over the little things, the fact that I could understand about 20% of the words in a sentence but couldn’t string them together to make any kind of sense. All conversations that I observed during work at the Poste de Sante or...
Read More
2011-12-11
How does one talk about family planning and reproductive rights in a country where it’s taboo to acknowledge that a woman is pregnant? Loudly and enthusiastically, as it turns out, with lots of important people for an audience and plenty of media coverage to help spread the word. This uncharacteristic openness was but one of...
Read More2011-12-11
Three things about names in Senegal: #1. Senegal has weird names. The most common name for women is Fatou, which is also the Wolof word for “death”. I haven’t deciphered the meaning. Some men are called Magget, the Wolof word for old person”. Why someone would call a baby “Old Person” is beyond me
Read More
2011-12-10
(The fact that this is from Halloween is a testament to my adaptation into Ecuadorian culture) Witches, tarantulas, haunted houses. Yes, all perfectly scary, but this Halloween nothing is scarier than “BIG PROBLEMS”. A month ago, another fellow and I had a conversation about how Global Citizen Year’s motto should be this phrase because each...
Read More