I just spent the last week in Mont Rolland, a Senegalese village in the countryside about 2 hours from Dakar! Mont Rolland is my program director’s home, and we all stayed at his house together for the trip. Our 6-day excursion consisted of several trips to local businesses, so much delicious food, and many discussions with local Senegalese students. The whole week was spent in the presence of the nine other students in my program and without WiFi and with very little downtime. It was one amazing experience after another, and while I definitely needed some rest on Sunday, I don’t think I’ve had a better week in Senegal!
Monday, day 1:
We left Dakar at 9am and took a minibus ride for about two hours to the countryside, just outside the city of Thiès. When we arrived, our bus stopped in front of a group of 50 or so people, including many children and a dozen village dancers wearing blue skirts with red fish patterns. Traditional Senegalese music began playing and we all got out and started dancing with the group! A photographer appeared behind us and started taking photos of us, and little kids kept waving hi and giggling when we waved hi back. We walked through the village, dancing and clapping along to the beat as we chatted with some of the kids. Mont Rolland is primarily ethnically Serer, not Wolof like the majority of Dakar residents. Therefore, the main language of communication was Serer. Suddenly, my French was utterly useless because very few of them spoke more than a few words of polite salutations. Even my Wolof, which I had only been learning for a month, was not a fully viable method of communication. It was a language barrier unlike anything I had ever experienced before!
We finally reached our final destination, where we all sat in a big circle and met the leader of the village. Our program director, Serigne, translated a welcome for us from Serer into French. We all smiled and nodded and waved goodbye when it was time to leave and set our bags down in Serigne’s house. I was sharing a room with three other students, and I was so excited to have a mosquito net to sleep under! It felt like one of those princess bed coverings I had loved but never had when I was little. As excited as I was about the aesthetics of it, I knew just how vital the mosquito net was to so many people living in disease-prevalent areas. I was so privileged to have one and just be excited about the aesthetics without having to worry too much about the practicality of avoiding disease.
We ate a lunch of maafe—chicken with white rice and peanut sauce—and then a group of Senegalese students began arriving. Our program director had arranged for them to spend the week with us, exploring Mont Rolland and mutually benefitting from conversations. We said hi and then all left to go watch a local soccer game.
Turns out, we weren’t watching the game; we were playing it! All ten students and our program coordinator Mohamed walked onto the field, not entirely sure what was about to happen. The referee told the opposing team to play “doucement” (softly) and the game was off! The next 20 minutes was spent running and dribbling and laughing as the ball bounced weirdly around on the bumpy sand. I hadn’t played soccer since intramurals my freshman year, so I was having a great time reliving my high school soccer days and I scored! One of the Senegalese students told me afterwards that the village kids started calling me Erling Haaland’s sister (#9 on Manchester City’s team, known for being a strong attacker). We returned home, ate dinner, and fell asleep under our mosquito nets, exhausted. It was such an amazing day!
Tuesday, day 2:
We had my favorite breakfast since arriving in Senegal: Croque Monsieurs! The seasoning was even better than the version of the food I had eaten while actually living in France. It was the perfect start to the day. After breakfast, we left to visit the Poste and the Case de Santé (two public health centers). Both had only two qualified personnel and many volunteers, but with few resources and equipment. At the Case de Santé, the smaller of the two, I saw a “USAID: From the American people” sign on the wall. Apparently, both centers had been initially constructed through foreign aid programs.
We returned back to the house, ate lunch, and then had some downtime before the afternoon activities. We decided to play cards, and taught the Senegalese students how to play the game BS. I explained all of the rules in French to the best of my ability, stumbling over a few words like “suit” or “face down” that I had to describe instead of translate because I didn’t know the words. However, as soon as we started playing, they got it immediately and we had tons of fun! Then, it started pouring rain. We transitioned inside and played a name game to learn each others’ names.
After the rain, we went on a “promenade en charettes”: a tour of the village on a cart pulled by a horse. We explored the whole village, including seeing many baobabs and the primary school. I chatted with Omar, one of the Senegalese students, the entire time about his experiences growing up here. He told me all about how he loved it, but said he wished the primary school had the resources it does now when he was little.
We ate dinner and then got dressed up in traditional Mont Rolland dance outfits: scarves over our heads and navy skirts with red fish patterns. We left for the village center, expecting a small gathering for a dance lesson. Instead, at least 700-800 people stood or sat in a huge circle, illuminated by floodlights and humming with energy from the music in the background. We followed our program director and walked around greeting everyone and then took our seats. We watched the dancers and other people dance, and then it was our turn! In front of everyone, the dancers taught us some basics and then everyone else joined us. I danced and sweated and laughed and finally fell asleep around 1:30am when we returned home. It was such a wild experience.
Wednesday, day 3:
I definitely needed the coffee provided at the start of this morning. Today, we visited a technical trade school called the École de Formation Professionnelle and the Handicapped Persons Center. At the trade school,we learned about four tracks students followed: agriculture, animal husbandry, sewing, and cooking. They also took a finance course where they learned the necessary skills to operate their own business. The purpose of this school was to empower students who had not succeeded in the mainstream school system. It offered them a second chance. The handicapped center was similar, and offered opportunities for handicapped people to get involved in work in Mont Rolland.
We then visited a Christian sanctuary on our way back home. It was initially scheduled for the afternoon, but considering we had gotten home several hours later than we were supposed to the previous night, our program director gave us the afternoon to rest. In a predominantly Muslim country, seeing a Christian sanctuary was so interesting. According to our center director, Muslim and Christian people really do live in harmony here in Mont Rolland.
That afternoon, however, we didn’t end up taking a rest. We went to a basketball court and played a game with a Senegalese basketball team! Wearing long sleeves and pants, I sweat so much I felt like I was in a pool rather than on a court. But I had so much fun running around and passing and shooting and scoring, and even assisted the winning shot for my team! (Don’t tell my dad because he always insisted I play basketball rather than soccer, but I think the fast pace of the game made it even more fun than our soccer game earlier in the week).
Thursday, day 4:
Today we got to see two very different styles of agriculture: par machine (by machine) and par loxo (the Wolof word for “hand”). We first visited a massive industrial farm called Quality Fruit, which primarily exports its products to the Netherlands. They have acres of space and employ nearly everyone in the village. However, according to one of the students who works at the farm, the salaries are not equal between men and women. Women’s work earns 2,500 CFA and men’s work earns 3,000 CFA each day. Although the Senegalese Constitution mandates equal salaries, it is not the case in reality.
Afterwards, we visited a family farm. They explained their struggles to maintain their land as the government and industrial farms like Quality Fruit tried to buy or seize it. We also learned to use the shovel-like tool to remove grass from the soil. It was so different from the tractors and industrial equipment we saw at Quality Fruit.
That afternoon, we were supposed to watch a film, but it started pouring rain. Instead, we played BS and Sky-Jo and chatted with the Senegalese students. I had lots of fun playing with the little kids hanging out at the house, playing keep away with the soccer ball and teaching them how to throw a frisbee and swinging them around. I had to learn how to say “careful!” in Serer because they kept running a little too excitedly!
After dinner, we decided to play a big game of hide and seek in the village. We each paired up with a Senegalese student. I was with Awa, and her idea was to hide in someone’s house! She grabbed my hand and asked the family if we could hide in their kitchen. They laughed and agreed, and we hung out in there for maybe ten minutes. Unfortunately, we were one of the first teams found because another team revealed us! The game ended when our program director told us we shouldn’t be running around the village so late at night and it was time to go to bed.
Friday, day 5:
I woke up at 5am today because I had to pee, and I didn’t go back to bed because I realized the new Taylor Swift album was out! For the next hour, I put my AirPods in and listened to it under my mosquito net. Using data instead of WiFi, I texted my friends all around the world about my first impressions and it inevitably led to many conversations about life in Senegal. At 6:30, I fell asleep again, feeling happy and just a little sad that I didn’t have the option to listen to the album with my Swiftie friends in person.
In the morning, we visited Fam Moringa, an initiative to provide work to women. These women worked three days a week making teas and dried fruit and powders made out of the moringa leaves. This initiative started in 2018, but had been so successful with its moringa production that it was now in local and regional supermarkets. Afterwards, we visited a slightly less successful business of local women working together to produce grain. Their less formal business and lack of funding made it difficult for them to sell their products.
Keeping these experiences in mind, I had so many questions when I had the opportunity to speak with Mont Rolland families in the evening. Our program had arranged for each of us to partner with a Senegalese student who would take them to speak with families in their quartier (section) of the village and ask them about their lives. I spoke with three different families, and we discussed everything from difficulty working at Quality Fruit, their favorite traditions, and their dreams from the village. I asked many questions about foreign aid and their thoughts on it. The overwhelming response was simply that they needed money, and truly didn’t care where it originated from. I stayed up a while that night thinking about everything they had said.
Saturday, day 6:
The primary objective of today was to make a poster summarizing our experiences and then present it to everyone. It took so long that we didn’t eat lunch until 4:00pm! I partnered with Izzy, a student in the entrepreneurship class. We compared the situations at the two farms and the two businesses for women, and then talked about our thoughts on initiatives for the future. And it was all in French!
Afterwards, we had to pack up to leave. After many goodbyes, hugs, and tears, we left to return to Dakar. It was amazing how in less than a week, Mont Rolland had begun to feel like home! I was sad to leave, but we all decided we were going to try our best to come back to visit. When we arrived back in Dakar, my house felt so familiar and I gave my host mom a big hug. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable in Senegal!
Ba ci kanam / À bientôt / See you soon,
Caitlin
DU Abroad 