Toubacouta Day 4

Today’s focus was entrepreneurship and inclusive finance. We started the day off at a community garden in a nearby village. Before we began discussion we helped out watering and picking weeds. I helped a lady water some tomato plants and at the end, she gave us a bag of tomatoes which was so sweet! 27 ladies work in the community garden and are given a plot. The cost is 3 500 CFA (about $7) per year. The money is put in a community pot to be used for upkeep. They don’t use any chemicals and all the work is done by hand. In the village, they only use food from the garden. The ladies are split up into 3 groups (morning, midday, and afternoon) to water their plots. The goal of the garden is to engage in agriculture that respects the health of man and the environment.

After the garden,m we went to La Maison des Femmes (House of women), which is a microfinance institution, among a center to empower women in the community. There was a lot happening at once (women kept coming in, the whole conversation was in Wolof so we missed a lot in translation as well), but the two main sources of help I gleaned were that they help with baskets to harvest oysters and making ovens.

The baskets to harvest oysters were recently prohibited by the government because it meant cutting down trees to sift out big oysters, so the women quickly developed a new system (not quite sure what it is). They said that they work with the government to benefit the workload of women while helping the environment.

Secondly, the women are working on building and selling ovens for the community. These ovens have a variety of uses. First of all, it reduces the workload of women in the kitchen as it makes cooking a lot quicker (one oven is named “maquillage” or makeup because you can look good and cook at the same time…. It sounded like an infomercial while they were talking, haha). The ovens also help reduce forest fires (we saw a fire last night in the distance, so I feel like they are common here- but that is an assumption) along with reducing the amount of wood needed to cook with. What I found especially interesting was the process these women use to start building the ovens. They traveled to various regions and tested out ovens there to then come up with the best model. There is a lot of collaboration involved.

The bricks used to make the ovens

The final aspect of the microfinance center was la calebasse, a bowl that each month the women put however much money they can in. It is a form of insurance so if something urgent comes up, a sickness, etc. the woman in need can take what she needs and then repay the amount later. The bowl is covered because the act is not to show off but to encourage solidarity among the community. The women were very happy to welcome and talk with us and I felt very welcomed even without being able to communicate with them.

We again went to Sokone for lunch and then back to the hotel to swim. Another student and I decided to walk into town (what I mean by walk is literally just a step outside of the hotel) for the hotel to shop around. It’s hard to describe but the town does not seem to be a town. The roads are dirt paths and the buildings are very modest. The hotel borders the river so it’s very secluded, a weird thing to leave and step right into a different world, every time we leave it shocks me a bit. But anyways, the shop keepers were so nice and of course, wanted us to come “and just look around.” MSID students come each semester, so the small-town kind of knows who we are, and for sure all of the staff of the hotel. Professor Sene arrived today (the director of WARC) and since he is from here, everyone views him as a celebrity. Once the shopkeepers found out we were his students they were extra friendly. I’m always shocked at how fast news travels in small towns, because Professor Sene had arrived not quite an hour ago, and everyone knew because they saw his car.

The shops just outside of the hotel

Further down the street

We had to hurry back to watch a movie, La petite Vendeuse du Soleil and discuss it together. It has themes of international development but is about a little girl with crutches who decides to sell newspapers. We had supper and then got to go to bed early today! Tomorrow is our last day and we get to visit an island and mangroves, so I’m very excited to not sit in a room for most of the day. :)

Some other pictures from the night....

Most of the girls in the program (just missing 2)

The hotel