Senegal: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Ann M. Moore, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Modern Foreign Languages
Director of International Programs
Hampton University
The CIEE Seminar in Senegal was well organized and extremely effective in providing a wealth of information for faculty interested in internationalizing the curriculum of their institutions and adding a West African or francophone African component to their own research and teaching. In this report, I will address the process and overall structure of the seminar, as well as its usefulness to me, rather than recapitulating the enormous amount of information that was conveyed during the 10-day event.
I applied for the seminar for two reasons. First, as a French faculty member at a Historically Black University which is just reviving the French minor and major, I was eager to enrich the curriculum with reading materials and information about the French language in Africa. Statistics speak for the importance of this effort: 3.2% of the world population is francophone. Of these, 46.3% dwell in Africa, whereas only 44% reside in Europe and 7.6% in North America. Secondly, as Director of International Programs at Hampton University, I hoped to establish professional linkages that would lead to active faculty exchanges. I also sought information about study abroad in Senegal that would foster global awareness on campus and encourage more students to study abroad in Africa. All of these objectives were very satisfactorily met. I returned to the United States with photographs, packets of material and lists of contacts to use in various ways: preparing my classes for fall, applying for future grants, and establishing contacts between my university and various institutions in Senegal.
The excellence of the presentations left me with an enormous appetite to know more about the cultures, arts and crafts, literatures and social issues that were touched upon during our visit, and I hope that this enthusiasm for further inquiry will be transmitted to my students this fall. I have already spent many hours on the Internet compiling additional information about a variety of topics to which we were introduced at the seminar. For example, the visit to the IFAN museum on June 30 consisted of an hour-long guided tour in French conducted by the museum director, during which he introduced us to the cultural context of many of the museum artifacts, including secret societies such as the Poro, the traditions of the Bambara people and many more. What we learned at the Senoufo exhibit about the richness of this culture of 1.5 million people, whose territory extends through Mali, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire, later prompted me to purchase two beautiful masks. My son's questions about the culture that produced the masks led me to an extensive follow-up tour of Internet sites in French and English to learn more about the Senoufo people, their language, communities, art and religion. This material will find its way into my third year conversation class this fall as an incentive for the students to carry out their own cultural research in order to give presentations about francophone communities from various parts of the world. David McCullough once observed that anything can be interesting if you take the time to look at it very closely. This statement accurately describes the importance of encouraging students to do their own research on topics of particular interest to them. The introduction to Senegalese and West African cultures opened up many avenues for further inquiry that should prove stimulating and rewarding to my students.
The roster of speakers impressed upon us that the CIEE study abroad program in Dakar has access to the best authorities on contemporary Senegalese issues. Our opening lecture by Professor Ousmane Sène, president of the West African Research Association, and his follow-up literary discussion of the work of Léopold Senghor on the following morning, introduced us to the French technique of the explication de texte, a technique in which an intensive close reading of a text is used as a microcosm through which many aspects of a topic can be explored. Dr. Sène demonstrated his excellence as a teacher by using a single opening paragraph from Sheldon Gellar's Senegal: an African Nation between Islam and the West to show how geography and the interaction of cultures and religions has shaped the development of the Senegalese nation and culture over 5 centuries. On the following day, he again used explication de texte to explore "Femme Noire" by Léopold Senghor, showing the vast range of themes, cultural associations, and emotions that a great artist can evoke in just a few lines of a masterfully crafted poem. In our excitement about the process of discovery through which Dr. Sène was leading us, we gained a very favorable impression of the quality of the instruction and learning experience that CIEE offers to students participating in their study abroad program in Senegal.
The presentations were well planned to address the interests of all of the participants, including components on Senegalese political history, religious and social history, as well as global crises such as the horrific effect of the AIDS-HIV pandemic on the peoples of Africa. Not only that, but the timing of the various components of the seminar was carefully planned to integrate site visits with relevant lectures. For example, our visit to Gorée Island, which began with a tour conducted by Colin, a Baye Fall disciple, included a lecture by Professor Ibrahima Seck, who has carried out some extremely important research in the United States on the slave trade and the origins of Blues. Dr. Seck made a special trip to Gorée Island in order to present his lecture on the slave trade on the World Heritage Site where the earliest slave trade took place and where one of the most poignant memorials to that tragic era, the Maison des Esclaves, has been preserved. Following his lecture, the group visited the Maison des Esclaves and had a guided tour by (as I believe) the director, Bouboucar Joseph Ndiaye. Bolstered by Dr. Seck's informative lecture, we were fully prepared to accept the authenticity of this monument, which has been questioned in some guidebooks. The atrocious conditions in which people were held in this building in the immediate presence of those who were profiting from their mistreatment moved many of us to tears. Later, as we explored the island further and visited the IFAN historical museum in the old fort and the church in which Pope Jean-Paul II in 1992 apologized to the people of Africa for the suffering caused by the slave trade, the preceding lectures enhanced our appreciation for what we saw.
Another aspect of the seminar planning which contributed to its excellence was the fact that the presenters were invited to join the participants at various other events during the week. This enabled each of us to establish further connections with those whose scholarly interests corresponded to our own, and to deepen our acquaintance with the impressive scholarly and professional community of Senegal. Thus, Coumba Touré, International Exchange Program Coordinator at the Institute for Popular Education, presented an impressive question and answer session on women's issues in Senegal on the morning of June 30. Her depth of knowledge was more than equal to the range of questions asked by the participants and many of us wanted to follow up with her and pursue some topics further. Ms. Touré not only remained with us for a traditional noon meal of ceeb u jen following her presentation, but later accompanied us on the weekend at Toubab Dialo. There, she not only participated actively in the lecture by Dr. Ibrahima Thioub, but demonstrated her dancing prowess at the evening demonstration of traditional Senegalese dance, at which the technical proficiency of some members of the audience impressed the onlookers as much as the professional dance troupe. At the close of the seminar, we were delighted to have her join us once again at the farewell dinner at Almadies. We bonded with many of the speakers on a personal as well as a professional level and some of us will maintain contact over the years.
Some impromptu contacts proved extremely fruitful. When the group stopped at the Media Center of Dakar, we were addressed by Mr. Modibo Diawara, the director. He spoke to us at length about the politics of the image in Senegalese film-making and in the accessibility of the news media to the general population of the nation. Because investigative journalism is not encouraged on the government channels and few people have access to television in any case, we learned that television plays a limited role in the formation of public opinion, compared to radio, newspapers and film. It is to the credit of Dr. Serigne Ndiaye that it was possible to follow up on some of these opportunities and to meet with Mr. Diawara later in the week. Even with the tightly organized schedule that we had, there always seemed to be a way to pursue an interesting contact further if participants wanted to do so. Thus, we had the chance to visit with a professor at UCAD during our visit and to ask questions about language instruction and the conditions of instruction in general at the university. Having taught in China, I was deeply concerned by the poor conditions of the university's physical plant. At the same time, I was awed by the scholarly qualifications and dedication of the faculty who are willing to work in such conditions as well as by the determination of the students who have to arrive hours before a lecture to find a seat and make a superhuman effort to pass the rigorous examinations. Since many of the faculty have contacts in other countries (Dr. Thioub teaches classes at Paris VII and offers an online course for Marne-la-Vallée), they could go elsewhere and it is a tribute to their dedication that they continue to teach at UCAD and to inspire the young people of Senegal.
For me, another important feature of the trip was the opportunity to explore Senegalese arts and crafts. I was the only participant to take batik lessons at Toubab Dialo, but the more popular drumming and dancing classes were observed by all of us and much appreciated. Later, we had the opportunity to visit several significant craft centers in Dakar. These included Ecopole, a center which at the same time offers a general education to children who would otherwise live on the streets with no hope of access to formal education, teaches them a useful trade that will enable them to sustain themselves without being exploited, and at the same time teaches the value of recycling and the importance of protecting and promoting the precious natural resources of the country, above all by protecting the sea from pollution. Having learned some of the arts of Senegal, we were particularly gratified by these visits. One professor from the drumming class joined a group of youngsters at their rehearsal, others quickly made contact with other young artisans as they purchased gifts directly from the young people who had made them.
Sobering news about the economic future of the nation came from many of the reports. The visit to UCAD showed us the limited resources available locally to finance development. Only grants from international organizations have been able to improve facilities such as the library. The directors of NGOs and the representatives of the US embassy provided further information about the challenges faced by Senegal and its neighboring states. All of us were alarmed, however, by the negative impression we received of United States' self-serving relations with the nations of Africa and by the total lack of a comprehensive policy for dealing with a region much less an entire continent.
Having touched upon just a few of the excellent features of this seminar, I cannot close my report without commenting on the human side of this marvelous experience. The group of American participants bonded in an exceptional way. A month later, we continue to share emails and deepen the friendships that were formed during this short visit to West Africa. Even more important, however, was the bond we established with our hosts. Dr. Serigne Ndiaye, his elegant and highly educated wife Haita and their beautiful child became a part of our family during the weekend at Toubab Dialo. Thiaba Ndiaye, a research assistant at the West African Research Center, stepped in at the last minute to serve as our guide after the intended guide became ill. She spent many hours with us throughout the week and became a close friend. Some of the staff at the hotel and merchants from the hotel environs became acquaintances during our stay and all of us felt deeply enriched by the bonds we forged with the intelligent, practical, warm-hearted and positive people of Senegal.
I am most grateful to CIEE for the Exxon-Mobil grant that made this trip possible for me. I look forward to repaying this generosity by publicizing the faculty development seminar opportunities and encouraging Hampton Students to enroll in CIEE study abroad programs. As I fulfill the other requirements of the grant by disseminating information about the program, and as I build on the contacts I made during the seminar, I will continue to report on the ripple effects of this experience as they contribute to increasing global awareness on the Hampton University campus and in the academic community of the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Higher Education, an organization which is working to increase interest in international affairs on all of the university campuses in our metropolitan area.