A Senegalese man – early twenties, I’d guess – has been running silently beside me for the last three miles as the sun pounds down on us. He’s wearing a long-sleeved jacket and a drawstring backpack and given that I sweat through my tank top miles ago, I am in awe. As we near the end of the race it becomes apparent that I might place so he begins clearing a path for me to accelerate through the runners ahead of us. I am exhausted but with his encouragement I pick up my pace. Just before the final turn he...
Stories tagged with dakar
A Senegalese man – early twenties, I’d guess – has been running silently beside me for the last three miles as the sun pounds down on us. He’s wearing a long-sleeved jacket and a drawstring backpack and given that I sweat through my tank top miles ago, I am in awe. As we near the end of the race it becomes apparent that I might place so he begins clearing a path for me to accelerate through the runners ahead of us. I am exhausted but with his encouragement I pick up my pace. Just before the final turn he...
0041.jpgw300Squished amid the forcibly vertical crowd of 45 some odd people in a Senegalese bus made for “15 maximum!” (or so the sign read…), arms glued to my sides and modeling a facial expression of utter discomfort, I overheard a jarring statistic shared in conversation between my neighbors: 25% of Senegal’s population is living in .3% of the land in Dakar.
The mind visual...
Continue Reading >>Senegalese cellphone subscribers 2000: Senegalese cellphone subscribers 2011:
Approximately 250,000 Approximately 9.3 million
The numbers are jarring, and the widespread presence of cellphones is palpable.
Before coming to Senegal, a friend encouraged me to keep an eye out for the radical, drastic, and constant ...
Continue Reading >>It’s not a path uncharted, per se; in fact, the use of banks on wheels the world over is surprisingly widespread. The existence of a mobile bank branch with UIMCEC – the bank with whom I’m working – is recent enough, however, to create quite a stir.
Allow me to present you with (drum roll): banks on wheels. As the name suggests, they’re adaptable, they’re versatile, and they’re… moveable! The wheels can come in a variety of forms – from cars, to buses, to vans, to RVs – and the impact they have in developing countries is simply immeasurable.
Needless to say the processes...
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