Comments Off on Life in Senegal: Sometimes Ordinary, Sometimes Different
I think westerners expect to hear much more exciting stories about our life in Senegal. One friend, whom I love dearly, asked us in all honesty if we’d ever seen a lion about town.
I cannot say this enough times: There are no lions in Senegal. We don’t live in “that” part of Africa. Nor tigers. Nor elephants. Except at the zoo, and I don’t recall even seeing an elephant there.
Virtually indistinguishable from what our usual workdays were like in America. Life is definitely different here, but it’s different in subtle ways that are hard to quantify or verbalize when people ask, wide-eyed, “So what’s it like in Senegal?”
Sometimes it’s extremely different. And sometimes it’s (meaning our day-to-day life) quite ordinary.
That said, my work friend sent me an email photo compilation today entitled “Only in Africa.” A few made me chuckle because they were so very “Senegal.” Enjoy. (PS: I don’t have photo sources for these. No idea what countries these photos were taken in.)
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.
