Senegal
Sabi Mouless, Senegal, 1999
Village Life
“It will be slightly less than six weeks when we depart for the start of our adventure—and that’s how I really see this trip—an adventure that none of us would be going on were it not for your being there. An adventure with an opportunity that we would have bypassed. An adventure to what in some ways sounds like the armpit of the universe, but from which I suspect we will all come back with new perspectives and visions of how ‘others’ live...” – Dad, January, 1999
And an adventure it was for my family. Senegal is a place of contrast. Dakar, the Senegalese capital, tends to be overwhelming for the first-time visitor. But the village where I lived, Sabi Mouless, puts a novice traveler at ease.
Villagers are welcoming and generous, and the children are excited and interesting to watch. It was wonderful to observe as my family experienced everyday village life. Simple things such as pulling water from the well, pounding grain for meals or, as the woman in the photo is doing, using the wind to blow away unwanted residue from her peanuts, are very foreign to Americans. As volunteers, these “everyday” experiences become routine and it is easy to forget how we first felt when arriving in the village.
I had forgotten how foreign village life was in the beginning of my two years until my family came to visit. Everything is different; the environment—hot and unforgiving, the work—sporadic and slowgoing, the culture—invasive and personal. As my father said, we all returned home humbled with new perspectives and visions of how others live.
