Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Senegal Fish Market M'Bour - Ben Barnier ABC News
The MOST vibrant place in Dakar is the Grand Markets where thousands of Senagalese people shop sell and work inorder to scratch out a living in this 3rd world country. It is the pulse of the city, the streets are crammed with wares and people all trying harder and harder to intice patrons into their shops.
Accidente en Dakar 2009
In Senegal one of the most exciting events is the famous Dakar Rally. It is a high speed and very dangerous street race that causes mayhem and discourse every year. 2009
Sabar Dancing in Senegal
Senagal had an amazing night life. These Sabars were a cornnerstone of the Senagalese culture. Here is a video of some of these activities that the native people partake in every week to worship and have fun!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Day 10 Yoff Village & the Orphanage
Today Cory and I decided to visit the local fishing village of Yoff which is the home of the Lebu people. These people were the first tribe to have inhabited Dakar hundreds of years ago, long before the age of written language. These people still live united in a neighborhood along the coast. They are mostly fishermen and traditionally use pirogues (canoe like wooden boats) and nets to catch their fish. The work is very hard and dangerous.
The first thing I noticed as we were walking through the narrow dusty alleys of Yoff was that there were no Taliday children begging for handouts here. The Taliday children are kids who have been given up by families who don’t have the means to care for them. They are given to their families Marabou (religious leader sometimes with mystical powers) who is supposed to teach them the ways of the Quran.
You wouldn’t be able to speak of a Marabou this way to a Senegalese person, but the Marabous are obviously corrupt. They control a quarter of the peanut industry of Senegal and have the ability to make or break political careers. Therefore all politicians cater to them and bribe them for support. There have also been accusations of exploiting the children left in their care, sexual abuse and beatings as well as child trafficking are a major problem here that the population and the government refuse to face. The officials and the citizens don’t wish to believe that the sexual abuse of a child is possible. Marabous and their followers have such a tight knit relationship and the peoples beliefs are so strong and superstitious that criticizing them is seen as an unspeakable offense. This has allowed them to grow rich and influential throughout their existence.
Anyway, there were no begging children here. All the horses pulling carts were well fed and healthy which is really not something that is normal in Senegal. The streets were relatively clean, free of debris and garbage and the people especially the children were clothed and happy. We wound our way through the quiet streets following the sounds of the ocean until we came to the end of the alley and were spilled out onto the busy beach.
There were literally hundreds of brightly colored pirogues beached in the sand away from the waters’ edge. All the fishermen were scattered about working on their boats or nets and some were bringing in the days catch from the newest boat. Cory and I walked down the beach before we decided that since we were here it seemed natural to go barter for a fish to have for dinner.
We found a man who had just brought in a school of Lot fish and chose a big fat one. Next we had to barter with them to fillet our fish which they did right there on the beach with a rusty machete. I thought it was pretty cool and don’t worry I took lots of pictures!
Later that day Thia brought me to the orphanage, where she usually volunteers at on Saturday mornings with another teacher. The Orphanage is specifically for babies who have lost their mothers in childbirth. Because the infant mortality rate in Senegal is so high, the catholic sisters who run it take in the new bourns until they are about two or three years old. The adoption rate is 100%, because after they have lived to be a certain age, the families come back and claim them, or they are adopted by another Senegalese family, it is very rare that anyone from another country adopts, only when there is no chance of being adopted by a local family.
There were so many babies there at first it was overwhelming. This is when I discovered that I knew almost nothing about babies… NOT GOOD! Babies have an uncanny ability to sense ‘blood in the water’ because they all started to cry. Thank god Thia and I were not the only volunteers there today! So we spent the rest of the afternoon holding, feeding, rocking, playing, and yes changing the babies. Some of them were so little it looked like they could have been born that morning. It was really sad but in reality the facility was really nice and they have a better chance of survival in there than they would normally. Malaria is the number one killer of infants in this region; the statistics say that of the people who contract it 56% die from it. In the Orphanage, not only are they fed clothed and medicine if they need it, they have their own crib with mosquito netting to protect them. It was a really good experience to go there, I was totally out of my element but it was good none the less. I hope that everyone of them has a happy and healthy life and that the Orphanage will continue to do its work for as long as they are needed.
That night we joined Mike, Devin, Ben, Chris and Chris’s mom for Chinese. The restaurant that we went to was unique in that they had no menus, they did not speak French or English and they were in the middle of downtown Dakar. We were able to go there because Chris (who is in the Peace Corps) speaks half a dozen languages including Chinese. They set us up in a karaoke room with a large table complete with a lazy-Susan and just started dishing out food. There were only a few English songs on the machine, mostly backstreet boys and Celine Dion and lots of 80s soft rock. We sang the good songs and made fun of the horrible music videos from the 80s. Some of Chris’s friends from the Peace Corps showed up and we tried to do a sing off with them. It was a good night and we had a lot of fun.
The first thing I noticed as we were walking through the narrow dusty alleys of Yoff was that there were no Taliday children begging for handouts here. The Taliday children are kids who have been given up by families who don’t have the means to care for them. They are given to their families Marabou (religious leader sometimes with mystical powers) who is supposed to teach them the ways of the Quran.
You wouldn’t be able to speak of a Marabou this way to a Senegalese person, but the Marabous are obviously corrupt. They control a quarter of the peanut industry of Senegal and have the ability to make or break political careers. Therefore all politicians cater to them and bribe them for support. There have also been accusations of exploiting the children left in their care, sexual abuse and beatings as well as child trafficking are a major problem here that the population and the government refuse to face. The officials and the citizens don’t wish to believe that the sexual abuse of a child is possible. Marabous and their followers have such a tight knit relationship and the peoples beliefs are so strong and superstitious that criticizing them is seen as an unspeakable offense. This has allowed them to grow rich and influential throughout their existence.
Anyway, there were no begging children here. All the horses pulling carts were well fed and healthy which is really not something that is normal in Senegal. The streets were relatively clean, free of debris and garbage and the people especially the children were clothed and happy. We wound our way through the quiet streets following the sounds of the ocean until we came to the end of the alley and were spilled out onto the busy beach.
There were literally hundreds of brightly colored pirogues beached in the sand away from the waters’ edge. All the fishermen were scattered about working on their boats or nets and some were bringing in the days catch from the newest boat. Cory and I walked down the beach before we decided that since we were here it seemed natural to go barter for a fish to have for dinner.
We found a man who had just brought in a school of Lot fish and chose a big fat one. Next we had to barter with them to fillet our fish which they did right there on the beach with a rusty machete. I thought it was pretty cool and don’t worry I took lots of pictures!
Later that day Thia brought me to the orphanage, where she usually volunteers at on Saturday mornings with another teacher. The Orphanage is specifically for babies who have lost their mothers in childbirth. Because the infant mortality rate in Senegal is so high, the catholic sisters who run it take in the new bourns until they are about two or three years old. The adoption rate is 100%, because after they have lived to be a certain age, the families come back and claim them, or they are adopted by another Senegalese family, it is very rare that anyone from another country adopts, only when there is no chance of being adopted by a local family.
There were so many babies there at first it was overwhelming. This is when I discovered that I knew almost nothing about babies… NOT GOOD! Babies have an uncanny ability to sense ‘blood in the water’ because they all started to cry. Thank god Thia and I were not the only volunteers there today! So we spent the rest of the afternoon holding, feeding, rocking, playing, and yes changing the babies. Some of them were so little it looked like they could have been born that morning. It was really sad but in reality the facility was really nice and they have a better chance of survival in there than they would normally. Malaria is the number one killer of infants in this region; the statistics say that of the people who contract it 56% die from it. In the Orphanage, not only are they fed clothed and medicine if they need it, they have their own crib with mosquito netting to protect them. It was a really good experience to go there, I was totally out of my element but it was good none the less. I hope that everyone of them has a happy and healthy life and that the Orphanage will continue to do its work for as long as they are needed.
That night we joined Mike, Devin, Ben, Chris and Chris’s mom for Chinese. The restaurant that we went to was unique in that they had no menus, they did not speak French or English and they were in the middle of downtown Dakar. We were able to go there because Chris (who is in the Peace Corps) speaks half a dozen languages including Chinese. They set us up in a karaoke room with a large table complete with a lazy-Susan and just started dishing out food. There were only a few English songs on the machine, mostly backstreet boys and Celine Dion and lots of 80s soft rock. We sang the good songs and made fun of the horrible music videos from the 80s. Some of Chris’s friends from the Peace Corps showed up and we tried to do a sing off with them. It was a good night and we had a lot of fun.
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