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well here I am, back in Dakar and getting ready to leave Senegal! weird. But before I go I've got classes to finish up and over twenty pages to write in the next couple days (how delightful). I may be procrastinating.
I realize that I haven't actually written anything yet about my internship in Kaolack. It was definately a good experience and I learned a ton. The first day I arrived in Kaolack, we had left really early in the morning and driven for hours in this pea green van to get there. On road trips, especially hot, dusty rides through the brush, I love to just look out the window and turn my brain off. What I didn't know is that I would in fact start work that afternoon. So, after arriving in Kaolack and eating a hearty fish-and-rice lunch, I sat down at the computer with my new manager, Nene, and started transferring the records of transactions from the receipts to an annual journal on the computer. I am sure that I did not smile or do anything quickly, and I was prob'ly as ridiculously wide-eyed as a tarsier monkey - I was dirty and tired and my brain had been shut down for the day. What's more, I had no experience with accounting or what all goes on in a bank, so I had no idea what was going on, really, comprehending neither the terminology nor the concepts, and of all the holes in my french (besides the subjunctive tense), being able to quickly translate numbers was one of my biggest. Everything was completely different, even the way they write numbers - they couldn't decipher my writing so I had to change that too. It looked like a first-grader's writing at first. But all in all it was a good first day, although everyone prob'ly got the impression that I was slow and unfriendly and couldn't speak french.
After mastering the journal and getting a bit of an overview of how the office worked, I moved to the window with Coumba and Aissatou. Clients would come in to make a withdrawal or deposit, and we recorded the transaction in their records and ours, and filled out a receipt, and handled the money. I was surprised quickly they had me doing these things myself, although not unsupervised. After that, I spent some time with the loan officer, Leonie, learning how to create files for new loan demands, and update records of loan payments, and calculate interest and things like that.
The most interesting part was when I helped with (well, mostly just sat in on) the financement meetings with groups of women requesting a loan. The loan officer and another authority from the mutual would go to the village and explain the terms of the loan, and when it had to be repaid and all that, and give them the money. Sometimes I would get distracted though. For example, at the financement at the village of NGathie, about half an hour's drive from Kaolack, Leonie was explaining how much the group would have to pay back each month, and I was wishing I'd devoted just a little more time studying numbers in Wolof, and thinking how much easier it would be if I didn't have to translate all the numbers and then quickly multiply by five in my head (because 5 francs CFA, or one derem, is the smallest usable piece of currency so they divide all sums by five) and wondering if someone was butchering a goat behind the fence close to me or what was that sound? and groups of kids were shouting "toubab!" (white person), and then I was watching as a grasshopper the size of my little brother made its whirling descent into the group of women, who were seated on mats on the sandy road, until it made an inevitable landing on an elderly woman's face and her eyes registered her surprise at it's weight and audacity, and each woman came up one by one to put her mark on the contract (very few were literate) and someone was refilling my glass with pineapple soda and a ball of sweat was rolling a path down my leg to my dirt-encrusted feet and it felt like a bug, and then I had to sneeze but I wasn't sure what the protocol was about sneezes, and I was up there in front of everyone so I just blocked it, although I hear that's unhealthy, and then Leonie pulled a gigantic wad of colorful bills out of her purse, and they were dispersed among the women, and it was time to go and I sluffed back to the Land Rover as best I could, my heels sinking at least three inches into the sand.
I love Kaolack and was sad to leave.
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anonymous
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I'm glad you had fun in Kaolack! I miss ya lots and am super excited to see you on Saturday! I hope you have fun with your last few days in Senegal! Much love, your suitemate, ~Michelle~