LESSONS LEARNED (AN INCOMPLETE LIST)

The group's "lessons learned in Senegal" brainstorm

Greetings from our gorgeous, beach-side transference location in Toubab Dialaw!

In these final days of the program, we are slowing things down to reflect and soak our last days together as a group and in Senegal. This morning, we sat together to brainstorm a list of the many things that we have learned during our semester. It’s surely an incomplete list, but a start at describing the many aspects of how we were able to learn and grow from this time.

With care,

The Senegal Spring Semester

 

Lessons Learned in Senegal (an incomplete list)

  • Don’t take things for granted (such as daily amenities that we have in the US)

  • Live in the moment

  • Be hospitable and kind

  • Generosity

  • Hospitality/Terranga

  • “Damn, I’m a badass” – confidence in how much we are capable of

  • Human interaction matters so much – the importance of building relationships

  • How little is needed to form a caring and loving relationship with someone

  • Taking the time to get to know people – forming a genuine connection

  • Independence

  • How far smiles and laughter can carry you

  • Lots about Islam and brotherhoods in Senegal

  • Navigation skills

  • “Don’t worry, be happy”

  • Taking emotional inventory

  • Feminism across borders – what that looks like in different countries

  • Initiation ceremonies and FGC (and the importance of the blacksmith caste)

  • The melody to the Aida commercial

  • National pride as evidenced in the World Cup qualifying soccer match

  • Health

  • The unimportance of differences (the importance of similarities is more than differences)

  • Traditional health

  • The effects of globalization and colonization

  • Senegalese politics and how the government is structured

  • Agriculture (including from the Minister of Agriculture himself!)

  • Travel off the beaten path

  • Climate change

  • The power of attention

  • Religion

  • Decentralization

  • Talibes

  • How to roll with the punches

  • Pulaar, Wolof, French!

  • How to bargain

  • Ataaya, bissap, bouilli, maad, Pressea, beignets, Biskrem

  • Where money goes matters

  • The many uses of baobabs

  • Wax fabrics – their history and uses

  • Fashion/drip

  • The privilege of foreigners

  • How to identify a sai sai – and how to deflect them

  • How to reuse

  • Waste

  • How to play the djembe

  • Awareness of lots of kinds of West African music (ie kora)

  • “One peace, one love, one Africa”

  • Importance of family

  • Polygamy

  • Community organization

  • Migration (from the words of someone who had attempted to migrate to Europe twice)

  • Art, including glass painting and its revolutionary history

  • Joking cousins

  • Many ethnic groups (which last names are which)

  • How to make tapa lapa

  • Making ceeb u dien, akara, mafe, yassa, latchiri jambo, etc….

  • Water pollution

  • Mangroves – their importance and planting them

  • Ghost stories (Ramatou Laye)

  • International development

  • Peace Corps

  • Dialects and migration

  • Ramadan

  • History of Goree Island

  • How to navigate Senegalese cities (including getting taxis and going to the garage)

  • How much things from the boutique should cost

  • Generational and oral knowledge (griots)

  • The youth center in Kolda

  • What happens to second-hand clothing in Africa

  • Child rights

  • The Koran

  • Touba and all its traditions

  • Cultural norms in Senegal – what you’re wearing and how you act matters

  • “You don’t need to bring your culture to other places”

  • Showing respect to elders

  • Influence of religion in politics (and daily life, social structures…)

  • Daily rhythms of life in Senegalese families (in both urban and rural, Christian and Muslim majority communities)

  • Ecosystem diversity in Senegal – and how various ecosystems are threatened by climate change

  • Community gardening

  • Animism and the Bedick people

  • The blending of animist and Muslim beliefs

  • Symbiotic relationship of people in Senegal – community matters!

  • Sharing – how do people take care of each other

  • Wedding customs

  • Women’s groupements

  • Waste and trash removal, including donkey trash carts (using traditional means to address a modern problem)

  • Commerce within Senegal

  • Threats to Lompoul Desert – how a zircon mining contract could close down an entire community, taking away crops and jobs

  • Education

  • Traditional versus contemporary Senegalese music

  • Midwifery

  • Senegalese caste system and social classes

  • The difference between village and city life (including being near the resources you’re using, how childhoods might be lived differently)

  • How to use a well

  • Bucket showers, taking the plunge, and doing laundry by hand

  • Traditional gold mining

  • Navigating family life in a family that’s not your own

  • Dance, rhythms, and polyrhythms

  • History of photography in Senegal

  • People in power and who have aid to give – how they choose to give it

  • How to be laughed at

  • How to make jokes in another language

  • The names of cooking implements in Wolof and Pulaar

  • Markets – how to navigate them

  • Words that just don’t exist in English (including the process of using a stick to get a mango out of a tree and also the process of creating foam for tea)

  • The Konkourang

  • The importance of hydration

  • The maximum number of cups of ataaya one can have in a night (it’s endless) and the value behind taking time to drink tea with your loved ones plus waxtan

  • Roles in the family

  • The times when it’s appropriate to consume peanut butter

  • Ngalax – the special dish prepared by Christians at Easter and shared with Muslim neighborhors

  • Peanut worms

  • How to make coffee the right way

  • Baye Falls and Lamp Fall, and Cheikh Amadou Bamba

OYOF COHORT