Tostan - Day 1

After 28 hours of travel, we met Molly outside the Dakar airport at 10:30pm (Senegal time) amidst throngs of Senegalese meeting friends and family coming in our flight from France. It was immediately Africa - the warmth in the night air, men in quiet voices saying "Madame" and waving keys at us asking if we wanted a taxi, bright colors of the women dressed in boubous (traditional Senegalese dress), the rocky and sandy parking lot...

Lib and I were pretty dazed. Beyond tired after having only slept for a couple of hours over our journey. Instead of napping and lounging at the Paris airport, we hopped the local RER train into Paris and spent 3 hours walking around. We came up out of the subway right at the Notre Dame cathedral! What a glorious view!

Ignore the puffy, squinty, jet lag eyes! Lib was a great tour guide. My first time to Paris!

To go from Seattle, to Paris to Africa in 28 hours...3 completely different cultures and settings. It's incredible really. Molly drove us to the King Farad hotel. It is on the Atlantic Ocean at the western most point of Africa. We so so tired and yet needed to decompress before sleeping. We didn't go to bed until about 1:00am. We reluctantly woke up at 9:45am to shower and get dressed before the hotel stopped serving breakfast at 10:30.

We met Molly at 11:45 and went right to the Tostan International office. We met all 30+ staff members in one large group and then spent the next 7 hours meeting with the various departments separately. The entire staff eats lunch together every day. We ate on large mats on the floor after we ll removed our shoes. We were served a delicious meal that reminded me of Moroccan couscous. Large platter of white rice with mixed veggies and a grilled chicken in the middle. We ate directly from the platter with spoons though Senegalese eat normally with their hands (Lucas would fit in well here!) I got to share my lunch with Fatou, the 3 year old daughter of a Tostan staff member. She is a hoot. She loved walking around in both Libby's and my shoes.

The diversity of the staff is remarkable - members from England, Italy, Senegal, France, Zimbabwe, Togo, US. We really got to hear in depth about the work of the various departments - grants, evaluation, programming, and time with the directors. It is a lot for the staff to meet with all of the visitors who come. It was so generous of them to give us their time and answer our questions. You can really see that the organization focuses on working collectively like the villagers who go through the Tostan Community Empowerment Program do - with a respectful, integrated, communicative approach.

I wish I had some pictures to share of the street scenes from today. I was outside so very little...just got to see the area from the car. Dakar is much more developed and cosmopolitan than any city I saw in Congo. The roads are in excellent condition, there is even an elevated auto-route with on and off ramps! But right along side all of the cars are still the horse-drawn wooden carts used for hauling brush, construction materials, etc. There is rock and rubble and garbage everywhere. Young men hanging out with little to do. Road side stands selling fruit and veggies. In all of these ways it is so very similar to Congo. It is Africa.

Tomorrow (Wed) we have a more relaxed morning - time to sleep in and then go to a local market with Molly. Then we head back to the airport to catch a plane to souther Senegal. We will be visiting a regional office and village in Zingunchor. Then on to Guinea-Bissau the next day. We will visit 3 villages over the next few days. We will head to Molly's house at the beach on Sunday.

I don't know what the internet access will be like until. Will post again once we have access. Inshallah.

lots of love!