Crazy Adventures in the Life of a Redhead

As a final stop on my three-week tour of different cites and villages, I stayed in a village called Taiba Ndiaye with one of my “aunts.” What a lovely and inspiring week it was! Running in the countryside, harvesting peanuts, discussing agricultural development and dancing at a baptism culminated in a memorable cultural immersion. Absorbed into the fabric of village life, I metamorphosed into Diobé Lô, my Senegalese alter ego. My first night in Senegal, almost two months ago, one of my “brothers” named me Diobé Lô. I did not realize how effective it would be to have a Senegalese name during my journey. Few people can retain the name “Kelsey” but everyone immediately remembers “Diobé.” Senegalese people are masters at remembering people’s first and last names from the first encounter. In the U.S. it is excusable to forget someone’s name or forget meeting someone, but here in Senegal, failing to recall someone’s name is a grave social faux pas. One of the most indispensible notion...

Generalizations are easy to make but rarely founded in truth; however I am confident in stating this generalization: there are few people who revel in the unknown. I am one of the few who is invigorated by the possibilities that exist in never establishing a firm program of pursuit. Since leaving Pikine at the end of September, my plans have changed multiple times, leading me to people and places I had not intended on visiting. Every step along the way has been blessed and intriguing, teaching me that frustration is a waste of energy and patience and adjustability are great virtues in any situation. From Somone, I traveled to Diamniadio, which is built at the crossroads of a national highway traveling to the interior and to the south of the country. Along the sides of the road, travelers and vendors create quite a ruckus, belying the calm and tranquility of the countryside that prevails just beyond the small grid work of cement block homes. Rugged and dotted with baobabs and African...

After more than one month in Senegal, there is one social element that truly amazes me: Senegalese hospitality. They call it teranga here in Senegal and although I have mentioned this concept in previous entries, I recently experienced the very extent of what this term means to Senegalese people. I was supposed to go to Kaolack, a town in the interior of Senegal, at the beginning of last week, but due to a miscommunication, the project with which I was supposed to work was not ready to welcome me. There I was in Dakar with my huge sack and nowhere to go, at least nowhere programmed to go. I had spent a long time exiting Pikine and did not feel like returning for a while. After all, I had stayed for one month and was once again allured by the chance to travel and see what lay beyond Dakar. Last week I attended a baptism in a lovely seaside village called Somone. The host was the brother of my host mother, Nogaye and he invited me to come back to spend more time with him and his fam...

The women are in the process of removing the black particles from the rice. C'bon: a meal of fried fish, sauteed onions with a bissap and local bean paste and some MSG-flavored sauce Dakhine: rice with peanut butter, oil, local beans and some smoked fish I know that you all have been wondering what I eat here in Senegal. What a great question! Senegalese people are very proud of their food and are quite attached to the national dish, ceb bu jen (literally rice and fish), which is prepared in an incalculable number of ways. There are two questions I am frequently asked here in Senegal: have I eaten and do I like ceb bu jen and do I have a husband? Everyone is happy that I like the national dish but is not content to discover that I neither have a husband nor am looking for one ☺ Since this blog entry is about food, I will not go into the subject of marriage here in Senegal, but I will certainly write more on that topic later for it is truly a fascinating aspect of Senegalese s...