These guys, on Ile Ngor, were involved in a fiercely competitive game of bocce when I started taking photos. They invited me to play, which I did, thereby changing the tone of the game from fiercely competitive to pathetic.
I waded into the water to take this shot of a lovely cafe on Ile Ngor, a tiny island just off Dakar. You take a pirogue to get there -- all Toubabs are given life jackets, but you'll never see a Senegalese passenger bother with one.
On the beach at Ngor; the goats are taking a break from their wanderings among the beach-goers.
This is a pile of garbage. Oh, and behind that is the sign for the Infectious Disease ward at Fann Hospital.
The garden outside the Infectious Disease Ward at Fann Hospital. The brainchild of Prof. Salif Sow and Peace Corps alum Steve Bollinger, this garden provides patients with much-needed vegetables, which the hospital kitchen uses to supplement the sadly inadequate institutional offerings.
Photo-shy Steve Bollinger attempting to escape from my camera lens. He's in the middle of the garden outside the Infectious Disease Ward at Fann Hosptial.
One of the most visually interesting things about Senegal is the constant and bizarre juxtaposition of objects. Here, the ubiquitous Thai rice bag is filled with manure. And placed next to a retired wheelchair. Just, you know, because.
These girls are fraternal twins who attend one of the Daaras (Koranic schools) in Thies, Senegal. Girls are admitted as students, but are not sent out to beg like their male counterparts.
The talibe (or "student") population in Senegal is one of the country's greatest and most overlooked embarrassments. Boys, usually aged 6-8, are sent away by their families to live in Daaras, or Koranic schools, under the watchful eye of a marabou. The kids get about three hours of instruction per day, and the rest of their time is spent on the street, shoeless and filthy, begging for change, a practice the marabous insist teaches much-needed humility. Any boy who returns with less than his daily quota is subject to severe beatings.
Villagers in Keur Simbara, who were among the first in Senegal to abandon female circumcision, gathered for a celebration of their ongoing struggle against the practice. The woman sitting second from the left, in the orange and black boubou, is Duusu Konate, one of the village elders and a tireless crusader against genital cutting. She was horrified to learn that I hadn't received a Senegalese name yet, and, after a moment's consideration, she gave me hers.
