Holly Howell
I'm studying abroad in Dakar, Senegal this semester. Read about my adventures by clicking below. You can choose to start with the first entry or skip to the latest.Holly
Travel Blog Posts
November 25th 2005
I certainly didn’t miss out on Thanksgiving; I actually went to two. The first was for all the CIEE students and was hosted by our program director, Serigne. The other was in my neighborhood, Sacre-Coeur III, organized by the students. Thanksgiving at Serigne’s house was actually on Thanksgiving. He lives pretty close to us, so a group of us walked over at around 7:30. Unfortunately, we forgot the map. Our attempts to remember it weren’t very successful, and we ended up wandering around for a while. We remembered that the directions mentioned a pile of bricks, but there were an awful lot of piles of bricks. Eventually we ran into some other toubabs headed that way. We followed them all the way up the roof of the three story building. There were chairs set up along ... read more
November 19th 2005
Millet Millet is a native plant to Senegal. It’s a staple crop across a huge chunk of Africa. In Senegal, a lot of farmers that used to grow millet now grow peanuts, but there are still a lot of millet fields. Millet is good for dry, hot places like Senegal. Mbamb has both millet and peanut fields. Before you can eat millet, you have to process it. First the women put a pile of it into a wooden mortar. Then they pound it forever. This removes the usable grain from the hard husk. Then they pound it some more. Then they separate the edible part from the inedible part using the wind. The woman dumps the pounded millet from one bowl at waist height to another on the ground. The wind blows away the inedible part, ... read more
November 18th 2005
After lunch, we were sitting around under a shade tree with all the women we’d spent our visit with. We began asking about sex and marriage, and although they laughed at us a lot, they answered most of our questions. I was surprised to find that most of them belonged to polygamous marriages. Since 92% of this country is Muslim, so I should probably mention Islam’s position on polygamy. Prophet Mohammed said that a man can have up to four wives as long as he treats them equally. This makes sense, because the Quran was written in the context of war, when there was a shortage of young men. The Prophet later admonished his followers, saying they were incapable of treating their wives fairly. Feminists take this to mean men should only take one wife. Traditionalists ... read more
November 17th 2005
Since they didn’t have much of a program planned for our time in Mbamb, we asked to visit the elementary school. It’s located in the outskirts of the village. When we got to the school, the kids were about to go on break. The principal invited us three Americans, as well as Absa and Mirama, into his office. We sat down on the only five chairs in the school, while the teachers stood in the doorway. The principal asked us to introduce ourselves and to tell him what we were interested in hearing about. After we responded, he told us some about the school. There are 260 kids, and almost half are girls. This is way better than the national average. The principal explained the both the teachers and the village women’s organizations have campaigned hard ... read more
November 16th 2005
The well In the morning, Miriama (our host) and Absa took us to the well to see the women draw water. Women surround the well from dawn till noon then again after lunch until dark. The work is shared by women of all ages. Two or three women pull on one rope at the same time with impressive coordination. They are so fast! We got to take a turn, but we had to have help—the wet rope and jug of water were really heavy. When I tried to draw water, I nearly went into the well. I was looking down into it when they dropped the bucket. I was also standing on the rope, which jerked me off balance when it came out from under me. It was probably the most frightening moment of my Senegal ... read more
November 15th 2005
Part of the CIEE program in Senegal is a week in a rural village. We went in small groups to various areas outside of Dakar. Each group worked with an NGO. I decided to work with Aprofes, the organization I’d visited with my gender class. Libby, Elizabeth, and I left Dakar in a sept-place early Tuesday morning. When we got to Kaolack, we took a taxi to the Aprofes office. A woman named Absa welcomed us. Over lunch, she explained that we would be going back to Mbamb, the village we’d visited during our class fieldtrip. When we got back to Aprofes, we met with another woman. We had been instructed to give her an envelope from our director in Dakar. She opened it in front of us and we saw it had almost $400 inside. ... read more
November 4th 2005
I’m really luck to have spent Ramadan in an Islamic country. For those of you who don’t know, Ramadan is a holy month during which Muslims don’t eat, drink, have sex, or smoke during daytime. Fasting is supposed to redirect the heart away from daily matters and to bring the heart closer to God. Children, the sick, the elderly, and pregnant women don’t fast. Women don’t fast during their periods but have to make up that week before or after the official month of Ramadan. Everyone wakes up before sunrise to eat. Some families just have bread and fruit, while some eat a full meal. Then no one eats or drinks again until sundown. I should add that this year, Ramadan fell during October, the hottest month of the year. I did not fast, a decision ... read more
October 28th 2005
Around 2pm on Thursday afternoon, my Gender and Development class left Dakar in two minivans. We were headed for Kaolack, a poor city even by Senegalese standards, in west-central Senegal (check out the Senegal map on the bottom right of this webpage). It used to be a successful peanut growing region, but then the peanut market plummeted in the 70s and 80s, leaving the region with limited means of survival. Consequently, it’s a hotspot of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a good place for a fieldtrip. Since the traffic was so congested, it took 4 hours to get to our rooms in Kaolack. We stayed on the upper story of a nice new building. A collection of woman’s organizations pooled resources to buy it, because they needed space for conferences and meetings. They turned the upstairs into ... read more
October 22nd 2005
When I woke up on Saturday morning, Luke was in the living room chatting to my parents (who, of course, adore him). We had a quick breakfast then headed off to Ile de la Madeleine. I had already been there, but I wanted to show Luke before he left that night. When we got to the departure area, which is on the coast near central Dakar, there was no one to be seen. We ended up knocking on this random lady’s hut. She went searching for the boat people, whom she had to rouse from bed. One of the boat guys found us some chairs and said there was a little problem but it would only take 10 minutes. So, 10 minutes go by, then 30. After an hour and half, during which the guy refused ... read more
October 21st 2005
We took a sept-place most of the way to the Sine Saloum delta. Me, Luke, and a Senegalese man were shoved into the back row, where the windows don’t open. The men in front of us didn’t open theirs, so there was no airflow. About an hour into the trip we started noticing a really strong exhaust smell, and it felt like hot air was blowing onto us. We asked the middle-row men to open their windows, and we were able to breathe a little better. For the next hour or so, we leaned forward and tried to sit as close to the windows as possible. About half-way to our stopping point, the driver pulled off the road into the Senegalese version of a car repair shop. These shops are all outdoors and consist of piles ... read more
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