Its been a month since I got in Senegal. I live with a host family of 8 in
a small town called Khombole. When we moved in with our host families we
all got a senegales name and I don’t know why that is but I am called
Mamdaba Fall Ndiaye. I am named after my host grandma which is really cool.
People here mainly speak French and so many other tribal languages. It’s
been wonderful learning Wolof but I am really bad at it so you can imagine
how the communications happen here with nobody speaking English in your
town. I have been to a local wedding and birthdays and I was really
surprised that all these things happen at night. You see more people
walking in the evening or night because it’s too hot in the daytime. The
eating schedule is very very different from home. We eat breakfast around
9am, lunch at 3:30 pm and dinner at around 9:30pm. My favorite Senegales
food is Ceebujen which is rice and fish. And the most fascinating thing is
that the whole family eats from the same big bowl. Every morning I like
going to the market with my host sister to get fish and veggies for lunch
and it’s normal that I will hear people say toubab which means the
foreigner or Chinua haha because I am not Chinese😂.
30 days in Senegal
About Nisha Gharti Magar
Nisha is passionate about learning different languages and helping people. She grew up in Kopila Valley Childrens Home in Nepal so she has been involved with helping kids in her school and helping those affected by flood and earthquake in her hometown. Her goals for the year are to be fluent in Spanish and learn more about Ecuadorian cultures. My legal guardian/mother who raised me since I was seven years old is the one who inspires me because she came to Nepal when she was 17 from New Jersey while she was on a gap year to India and opened a Childrens Home in Nepal where I was her first daughter. She teaches people to love, to be kind and to share and she believes that we all can make this world a better place.