by totafab | Jun 22, 2022 | Family, Life, Senegalese Culture
It was the end of the summer, my brand new husband’s youngest children (11 and 13 years old) had spent the whole summer with us. In the summer everything goes, you wake up late and eat ice cream at all times, and I was absolutely not interested in issuing directives...
by totafab | Jun 8, 2022 | Dakar, Life, Senegalese Culture
In Sengal every Friday is fashion week. Senegalese men and women are exquisitely elegant and love to wear traditional clothes in rich, buttery soft embroidered fabrics, lace and ruffles everywhere for women, 15 sq. meters caftans and headscarves nonchalantly and yet...
by totafab | May 25, 2022 | Family, Life, Senegalese Culture
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...
by totafab | May 18, 2022 | Dakar, Life, Senegalese Culture
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. ...
by totafab | May 6, 2022 | Dakar, Family, Life
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...
by totafab | May 6, 2022 | Family, Life, Senegalese Culture, 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...