2024/2025 winners reports
Honor Bishop
Amazingly I’ve already reached the halfway point of my time in Senegal. Thanks to the enormous support I’ve received from friends, family, school and trusts, I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy an incredibly happy and exciting past 6 months. Here’s a little bit about what I’ve been up to during that time!
My project partners (Eva and Freya) and I are teaching across four different schools- the primary, middle and high schools, as well as at a private school called Yenne Kids Academy (YKA). I think my favourite lessons are at the lycee (the high school) because the kids there are such characters and I’ve gotten to know them the best during my time so far. This, along with the challenges that come from large class sizes there (40-60 per class) makes teaching at the lycée not only fun and funny but also difficult and rewarding. Frustratingly though a combination of teacher strikes and, recently, student strikes (in solidarity with students at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar who are on strike over the death of a student during a clash with the police during protests, as well as over the imprisonment of some University students and over loan payments) have meant that the school has been very empty recently, and we have lots of time on our hands!
The big class sizes (up to 100 per class in the middle school) mean that kids have a hard time answering questions in English- they don’t fancy embarrassing themselves in front of nearly 100 of their peers. We run 4 different English clubs, all with the same aim of boosting confidence in spoken English. My favourite English club is the one we do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at YKA, where we do lots of games, singing and dancing. One of the little girls there takes the games very seriously- say she rolls a 12 in a game of snakes and ladders, she’ll cry “Alhamdulilah!”
Playing twister with the lycée English club. We made a Senegal themed twister mat!
My teaching schedule varies from week to week- strikes, national football matches etc make sure of that- but some things are relatively steadfast (or were, until Ramadan!). One highlight of my week is girls’ football club on a Monday afternoon. The club has taken its time getting off the ground- the last session before the December holidays saw a grand total of 2 attendees- but the wait was well worth it, with girls from the CEM (middle school) now enthusiastically taking part alongside the lycée girls. Matches are routinely punctuated by the ball being chucked with gusto into the sea or under a pirogue (the local fishing boats).
My favourite time of the day here is the evening just before sunset- the sand turns an orangey gold colour, and all of the paintings on shops and buildings, dimly illuminated, become especially pretty. It’s also when the day gets cooler, so is the best time for runs past the enormous new harbour being built a little south of us, swimming, table football at one of the senegalese flag adorned tables on the street, and going to meet my friend Amineta and being given Cafe Touba and beignets at the café-restaurant where she works in Toubab Dialaw just down the road.
My favourite time of the day here is the evening just before sunset- the sand turns an orangey gold colour, and all of the paintings on shops and buildings, dimly illuminated, become especially pretty. It’s also when the day gets cooler, so is the best time f
Over our December break we packed our backpacks and set off on an epic trip round Senegal, through the Gambia and dipping briefly into Guinea Bissau. Highlights were the ferry over the River Gambia estuary on Christmas Eve, exploring the very busy Serrekunda (just beneath Banjul), visiting Gujur mosque, which sits right on the beach, surfing in Cap Skirring and watching ‘la lutte’ (Senegalese Boxing) on New Year’s Day, seeing the rice paddy fields in Oussouye and seeing the waterfalls in the Kedougou region.
Gunjur Mosque
La lutte!
Found on a beach in Guinea Bissau. ChatGPT wasn’t very helpful when we tried to find out who it’s from.
We stayed on two farms through WWOOF on our travels, the first being a man called Par’s farm in south western Gambia and the second a man called Samba’s farm in Kedougou. Samba told us about his concerns regarding migration of local youth to Europe (mainly Spain), and how he hoped to create a sustainable and reliably productive communal farm to provide employment for young people and dissuade them from leaving. An American NGO called Mother Trees had provided small sturdy trees to fortify the field’s fencing and a previous WWOOF guest at Samba’s farm had started an ongoing fundraising campaign for Samba to raise money to dig a well in the field so that it can be cultivated during the dry season.
Par and Freya cooking
Freya, Par, Me and Eva
Samba pointing to where he’s been told there is water. This is where he will dig the well.
When these trees grow, they will reinforce the fence to protect crops from cows.
Beyond Samba’s farm, Kedougou is an incredible place. We visited a stunning waterfall, one of many in the area, and on our way there the mountains surrounding us were pointed out; “That mountain over there is in Mali, and that one over there is in Guinea” we were told. The
tri-border area is a very interesting one, with market days seeing people walking long distances through the mountains across borders to the markets in adjacent countries.
Upon our return after Christmas, 4 new classrooms had finished being built at the CEM (middle school). Despite there still being a classroom shortage, the new classrooms (privately funded, as supposed to the state funded new classrooms that have been under construction for much much longer and do not look as if they will open in the near future) make a big and lovely difference to learning and teaching at the school. The rooms are light and airy, and an elevated stage at the front of the class means that everyone- including the kids at the back- can see what’s written on the blackboard. (Not the case elsewhere!).
This past term we’ve been really enjoying the company of the newly arrived 8 month Project Trust volunteers. We did a weekend trip to Touba, burial place of Amadou Bamba, who founded the Mouride order of Sufism and was a figure of pacifist resistance against French colonial power. We were told a story about how, when faced by a firing squad, all the bullets shot at him swivelled 180 degrees in the air and whizzed back to hit the French soldiers.
We also enjoyed a weekend in Dakar all together recently, where we spent a happy day at mainland Africa’s westernmost point- a place with impressive waves and marked with a lighthouse.
Eva, Freya and I are now coming to the end of our Easter holidays, having had an amazing time travelling around Guinea-Bissau and Guinea. I’m looking forward to getting back to Yene for our last (!) term!
I’m incredibly grateful to the Bulkeley-Evans Scholarship Fund for helping me get here. I’ve had an incredible time and have much more to look forward to in the coming months. Thank you!
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