Hello! So Eid has come and gone. Eid marks the end of Ramadan and the end of fasting in the Islamic culture. The day consisted of mostly eating with an eventual outing to a relative’s house. To be honest, I found this day to be rather strange. Gabby and I did dress in our traditional clothes as you can see.
Senegalese women on Eid actually dress like they are going to prom. They spend HOURS (yes hours). I’m not even saying a few hours. They spend SEVERAL hours approximately 4-6 hours on their hair. And then they wear full on ballgowns. Everyone told Gabby and me that we looked “really good,” but we were not nearly as fully dressed as all the other females in the entire country. To fit in, I literally would have had to wear my high school prom dress. I should’ve thought to pack that just in case! It actually would have come in handy many-a-time on this trip! It was quite the day.
Today Gabby and I met with our translators for the first time, so the research will be starting very soon. I couldn’t be more excited! For those of you that don’t know the research that I’m working on I’ll post a blurb below for those interested.
Research Proposal: The World Bank found that female headed households in Senegal are less likely to experience poverty. This finding in itself is VERY peculiar (if not completely unique to Senegal) especially for a developing country. This information paired with statistics saying Senegalese women experience widespread work discrimination with overall lower employment opportunities makes the statistics on female headed households much more interesting and overall baffling. So, Gabby (my friend and research partner) will be conducting qualitative interviews around Senegal in hopes of determining 1) Is the statistic regarding female headed households accurate and 2) If the static is correct, then why are female headed households less likely to experience poverty?
ANYWAY after lunch, our host family took us to a very crowded market to buy dresses for the BIG party on Wednesday, which marks the end of Ramadan!
After selecting the “best” dress in the shop, we tried on our new clothes for our host dad, Sarah, and host grandmother, Mami. They seemed to get a big kick out of seeing us all dressed up! Hahaha Bill you do not have permission to post this next photo on facebook no matter how hilarious you find it!
I just wanted everyone to have access of my day to day activities should they wonder what I’m up to! The two commodities other than running water and air-conditioning that I lack currently are consistent wifi and the hours in a day. So, I thought a private blog would be a fun way to connect my family and friends (cue Bill Wood “Grace you don’t have any friends”) to my travels and numerous adventures here in Dakar Senegal. For those of you that do not know exactly where that is like I didn’t a year ago here is a visual!
We had a full day tour with Oumar, our local tour guide. We went to Cayar, which is a fishing village about an hour and a half from Dakar.
As you can see from the photo, there are thousands of colorful wooden fishing boats lining the beach and out at sea. The men go out to fish and bring back the catch for the women and wholesalers to bargain over as well. The women then offer their service of preparing the fish, which includes descaling and gutting. We wanted to buy fish for our host family because fish is more expensive in the city, so we bought 3 large white tuna and a few other types of fish for only 6 dollars TOTAL! After asking politely, a woman on the beach gave me a knife to participate in the gutting and descaling the fish. It was really fun, but in all honesty, I’m pretty sure I missed a couple scales!
We then went dune riding in a 1940’s car. The car’s gas tank was a tank of open gas in the front seat that had a tube connecting it to the engine. You also started the engine in a similar way to a lawn mower. There were also loose wires by the steering wheel that the driver had to spark together in order to start the engine. Our diver had us whipping around the dunes, and it was a blast!
I have dozens more pictures and videos, so if you’re interested I can try to send them to whoever is interested! I miss you all! There will be more updates to come!
Grace in Senegal 