I cannot tell you enough how amazing Senegalese women are. Seriously. They are so impressive.
All of the women in my host family, I feel, really represent a different aspect of the badassness of Senegalese women. My host mom runs the entire house - which is currently 3 families in 1 house. She coordinates all of our meals, the cleaning schedule, she buys all of the food, she makes presents for her kids living outside of Bambey, she handles most of the household's bills, and she somehow seems to know everyone and everything that's going on in the neighborhood. Oh, also, she never seems to be in a bad mood - ever. She's always jolly and happy even though she gets up at 5am, doesn't go to sleep until 11pm, and is doing manual work 80% of her day. She's awesome.
Aisha is a single mom raising her two kids in her husband's parents house. She helps with the house work while managing Khady and helping Adji with her schoolwork - even though she doesn't speak much French. She was the first person to really joke with me but not in the normal mean way, just joke about the way I say things (which isn't as mean as it sounds).
Miss is a whole different kind of impressive that I have come to appreciate more the more time I spend with her. Sure she lives in my house and no one is ever not nice to her, but her husband (who's actually related to my host family) lives in Dakar and she only gets to see him about 7 days a month. They've been trying to have kids for a few years now and she is really trying to remain positive through all of those challenges. Her family lives in Bambey but she rarely sees them because she spends so much time doing housework here. Recently, she and I have started joking and she always has been really nice to me in the kitchen... the normal Senegalese reaction is to make fun of my inability to do something (cook ceeb u jen, clean a fish, etc.) but she has always tried to teach me and give me simple tasks that I can do so I can help.
Mairame and Ndeye Diop spend most of their days in school and when they get home they help cook and clean, then do all of their homework. Now that Mairame is studying for the BAC (end of high school exam) she studies almost the entire day and into the night, sometimes morning (the national passage rate is about 10% and you can't finish high school until you pass it). They are really an example of a generation struggling the divide between modern and traditional women's roles.
Adji and Khady are still young but they often, Adji especially, help with housework and run errands for different family members. Adji does the same school work that the male students do but spends more time doing chores around the house - all while staying ahead of most of her class.
They were making a peanut butter/sugar/chocolate snack that requires pounding all of the ingrediants with this HUGE mortar and pestle. In the picture Adji is doing it but Miss did most of the work. Take my word for it, the pestle is heavy - it's solid wood and several feet tall. I could do it for a few minutes but Miss was doing her thing for about 20 or 30 minutes. In some houses women do this every day to prepare millet for dinner.
Anyway you see it - Senegalese women are impressive.
KO
Miss is a whole different kind of impressive that I have come to appreciate more the more time I spend with her. Sure she lives in my house and no one is ever not nice to her, but her husband (who's actually related to my host family) lives in Dakar and she only gets to see him about 7 days a month. They've been trying to have kids for a few years now and she is really trying to remain positive through all of those challenges. Her family lives in Bambey but she rarely sees them because she spends so much time doing housework here. Recently, she and I have started joking and she always has been really nice to me in the kitchen... the normal Senegalese reaction is to make fun of my inability to do something (cook ceeb u jen, clean a fish, etc.) but she has always tried to teach me and give me simple tasks that I can do so I can help.
Mairame and Ndeye Diop spend most of their days in school and when they get home they help cook and clean, then do all of their homework. Now that Mairame is studying for the BAC (end of high school exam) she studies almost the entire day and into the night, sometimes morning (the national passage rate is about 10% and you can't finish high school until you pass it). They are really an example of a generation struggling the divide between modern and traditional women's roles.
Adji and Khady are still young but they often, Adji especially, help with housework and run errands for different family members. Adji does the same school work that the male students do but spends more time doing chores around the house - all while staying ahead of most of her class.
I always have an underlying appreciation for the women in my host family. But occasionally they do something particularly impressive just to remind me how cool they are. A few days ago I heard pounding outside my window and went to check it out.
They were making a peanut butter/sugar/chocolate snack that requires pounding all of the ingrediants with this HUGE mortar and pestle. In the picture Adji is doing it but Miss did most of the work. Take my word for it, the pestle is heavy - it's solid wood and several feet tall. I could do it for a few minutes but Miss was doing her thing for about 20 or 30 minutes. In some houses women do this every day to prepare millet for dinner.
Anyway you see it - Senegalese women are impressive.
KO
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