Tales of a Traveling Teacher

It is hard for words to express the impact that my time in Senegal had on me.  My eyes were opened in new, expansive ways, and my understanding of the world, and my profession, grew.   I do want to take some time to honestly, and openly express my thoughts about my travels in Senegal.  Often, I know that our social media posts tint our vision with rose-colored glasses, and while this can be helpful, I want to also be honest. 1. Teranga.  First and foremost, how I portrayed hospitality was not tinted.  It was honest, heartfelt and overwhelming.  I must admit that the hospitality that I was shown almost embarrassed me.  It wasn't that it made me feel uncomfortable, it was more that hospitality was something I had always prided myself on, something that we Southerners are known for.  We have a long way to go. 2. Trash.  I spoke on a recent post about trash.  Again, I reiterate when I say this, that I know I am spoiled, and that my tras...

 Before we went to Senegal, we were instructed to create guiding questions.  There were few guidelines for these, but rather the ability to make it what we wanted it to be.  These questions were meant to guide our experience as individuals and as educators, to be a focus for us on our journey. When creating my guiding questions, I kept my fourth graders in mind, so my questions felt incredibly elementary as compared to many of my colleagues, but I'm still glad that these were the ones I asked. 1. What do we have in common? 2. How do teachers keep students engaged? It is so easy to quickly pick out differences when you look at a country like Senegal as compared to America.  Even with just photographic evidence, you see the terrain is different, the population, the fashion and the customs.  So, I wanted to look beyond the surface level and find those many similarities that we share. When I returned, I got the opportunity to speak with about a dozen classrooms at m...

The small town of Gandon, just outside of Saint Louis, was where Brenda (my fellow Fulbrighter) and I spent much of our time while in Saint Louis.  It was here that our host lived where we were treated to several excellent, generous meals.  It was here that we were taken to a tailor and fitted for our own dresses.  And it was here that we got to visit even more schools. From my previous posts, you may have already gotten the sense of how different the schools were to our own schools, so I won't spend too much time focused on that.  But I will say, the shock of what they get by with remained with each classroom that we walked in.  We visited the high school where our host taught.  There were 6 - 8 classrooms, set in two different rows on the expansive sand with goats wandering freely, a small building for the teachers and a small canteen where students could purchase meals.  Classrooms were bare with desks and a chalkboard with often 60-80 students in a...

There are so many incredible nonprofit organizations; it is hard for me to choose just one.  However, if ever asked, and where a large part of my donations go, is to Heifer International .  As a child, the organization drew me in because it was all based on animals.  I remember raising money with my Vacation Bible School class to purchase a goat, and each day as money came in, we would color in the goat cut-out just a little more.  Of course, it is much more than that.  It started, however, with a cow.  Cows were given, along with the gift of educating how best to care for the cow, to help families become self-reliant. As an educator, I applied and was granted an incredible opportunity a dozen years ago, to travel with other educators to Honduras to see Heifer's work in action.  I was so impressed with how well-thought out every aspect of Heifer's work was.  In the communities where Heifer had been present, people had not only become self-reliant,...

After about a week together in Dakar, the fearless fifteen split into three groups headed into three different directions in Senegal.  Seven of us boarded a minibus and headed north to Saint Louis.  (Yes, it looks a lot like that name of the arched city in Missouri, but remember it is French city, so say it as such.) Mouhamadou, one of in-country-hosts, road along with us to make sure that we arrived safely.  He also, generously, invited us to his home in the large city of Thies along the way.  We even got to drop by one of the schools he teaches at and briefly meet some of his students during their break. The road north was a wide, flat, paved two-lane road through desert landscape.  I loved the opportunity to see the countryside and not just the large cities.  I'm not sure I once saw soil on the journey, but rather as far as the eye could see was sand.  However, it wasn't vast stretches of nothing, as many trees and often shrubs had found a way to li...

Our host on our beach day (hoping to get that blog written soon) kept saying, every time we told him we were full, "Eating is for eating."  And so, what better way to start off a blog about the food in Senegal than with his wise, wise words. I had heard that the food in Senegal was delicious and that it might even be reminiscent of some of my favorite southern dishes, for heartbreakingly obvious reasons of who cooked much of the southern food for generations.  I will admit that my first few meals at restaurants in Dakar were good, but nothing that made my mouth water.  Fish is very popular, as Dakar is on the coast, but much of the fish I ate was a bit fishy, and that is just not my favorite flavor.  We actually had pizza a couple of nights with it's own Senegalese flair.  I will also admit that for several days, with a stomach that had trouble with the long bus rides and traffic in Dakar, I went with some safe, simple options.   Chicken and Rice Beef ...