Laia from Louga, two months later

saalamalekum

..how beautiful stories are read by here, and even more how smiles on the few people who write them, eh!?

Our adventure began more than two months ago ... that's crazy!
Man yaaq na fii naari weer, two months in Louga!

And how quickly all it happens, at the same time that many things happen in so little time ;) Every day I feel that multiculturalism reaches deeper levels, I know better Wolof, and that means not only that I can communicate and express myself better but the most important thing is that I can understand more of what is happening around me. It’s as if few doors had been opened, showing, allowing me to see inside.

For me it is not so much as the fact to uncover a secret but the fact to guess a riddle with which you can then laugh sharing the solution with the person who approach it to yow.
Here in Louga I’m really feeling it. When I find a key (which may be a word or expression, or a way to do something...) and then I ask "well then here is it ...? " Or maybe I say nothing but I implement some point in my action, then the responses, the effects, are always complicity surprised faces, smiles, laughs, laughter and " ahaaaaaaaa, yow, yow xam nga eh?! Tu connais bien toi, eh?!” And more laughs! Here, people are always willing to tell you how things are here, how things are lived, how they do this and that and that... I feel it like a very rich learning and I really enjoy it every day.

During these two months, my work experience has focused on the tourist village of FESFOP, my first experience in this field. So I can not figure what I have learned about responsible tourism, tourism management, accounting management, bla bla bla … but if I must to stay the most relevant of all of them, undoubtedly I would say the initiation into the "work in Wolof mind", it seems I’ve approached the concept of “the work” here, the way they work, how they feel and live it. A great lesson! When I see the way they take the time, their concepts such as efficiency, effectiveness, probability ... then I see also mine, my way to work, my concepts, what I’ve learned in my life until now… And certainly I show it just because I do like this.

I thought about the bilingual dictionaries,

and all the side effects can have…
Our “work” really not seems the same of their “work”

Then, I’ve seen the challenge: work team going together to the balance, to the adaptation for find the point where maximum good is made. It is an amazing (and not so easy) experiment!
The other volunteers, are you also feeling these differences and experimenting with them? What are your feelings on this?

My best wishes to euroafrican team!
Long live interculturalism!

Jamm ak jam

Laia Pibernat to Louga