A room with a view: random notes about life in Senegal, especially useful if you want to start a mixed-race family on the verge of mid-life
When life gives you onions
When I only had to feed myself and didn’t have to systematically cater for teenagers and guests, I never really gave much thought to onions. I knew they were cheap but ignored how much they really costed, I rarely bought more than one or two at a time and used them...
Mommy Mommy
You can travel up and down the world and will find no two cultures are alike. But the mom is always The Mom. In Senegal it is not a rare instance to be raised by a woman who’s not your biological mother, even if your mother is alive and well, you know her and have a...
5 reasons why I love living in Dakar
The beach and the ocean: it is the first time I live so close to the water and you don’t need to a water sports fan or have health issues to appreciate the proximity with salted water and the opportunity to take advantage of it even for just fifteen minutes. ...
Attaya
One of the most beautiful things about Senegal for me is tea, which here is called attaya. Chinese green tea boiled for a long time with little water, lots of sugar and sometimes mint, which in wolof is called nanà. I especially like it because I don’t have to make...
When life decides for you
I don’t remember what day of the week it was when I arrived in Dakar for the first time, it was January 2013. I remember that as soon as I got out of the plane it was hot and I could smell the ocean: it seemed like I was off to a good start. I wasn’t really expecting...
Teranga
One of the first words that you learn in Senegal is teranga. You can translate it into hospitality if you accept that something gets lost in translation. With the experience I have today, I’d rather translate it into “the guest is King” and Senegalese people are...