I couldn’t resist posting another photo of the lovely Mosquee de la Divinite, especially with this Senegalese man sitting in the foreground. He looked so peaceful sitting there with his legs dangling over the edge of the rock wall, watching the waves.
One aspect of Islamic culture that’s difficult to ignore in Senegal: the daily calls to prayer. We recently moved into our permanent apartment and can’t hear the speaker-blasted prayer calls anymore, but in our temporary residence we heard them five times a day, every day. An odd lilting, half-singing/half-yelling voice would suddenly seemingly come from nowhere, chanting the same Arabic phrases over and over again for a few minutes every few hours until around 9 p.m. The Senegalese generally don’t speak Arabic, so the prayer call is heavily tinged with a French accent.
As I said Monday, more than 90 percent of Senegal identifies with the Muslim faith, but the religion isn’t nearly as overt as in Middle Eastern countries. The clothing and social attitudes here are pretty liberal. But this month, we’ve seen more men outfitted in long Islamic boubou tunics and, in general, religion seems to be an aspect of life that is taken very seriously.
Rachael Cullins is a twentysomething American girl living in Dakar, Senegal, with her husband and two dogs. She blogs about her adventures in Senegal and travels elsewhere in West Africa. She will reside in Dakar until summer 2013, when she and her family will move to another foreign post as part of her husband’s career with the U.S. government. In addition to West Africa, she has traveled to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy and Costa Rica and plans to continually add to that list.
