Bonjour from Paris!
I’m on a Senegalese chasse au trésors in Paris this week! I’ve had the chance to visit shops with Senegalese owners, eat some of the best poulet yassa and mafe, view traditional Diola masks from Casamance, and more. One highlight of the week was a Black Paris tour with an amazing guide. I promise you a blog post after I get back home with all the bonnes adresses for your next trip to Paris. If you aren’t following @vivelexperience on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, jump on now and see what we are up to. 🙂
For this post, I wanted to share a little bit about Senegalese teranga with you today, and why teranga in the Washington D. C. area convinced me to move to Senegal three months after getting married. I like to joke that my husband and I had a two year honeymoon in Senegal, but it’s not a joke, it’s true! I’ll tell you a story, and then you can check out a BBC article and a lesson plan for use in your classes.
As I was applying for an Ambassadorial Scholarship to live and study overseas, after a few years of teaching high school French, I wandered into the Embassy of Senegal on Wyoming Avenue in Washington D. C. down the street from the Alliance Française to see if I could get some first-hand information about Senegal. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of information available on the Internet, and I wanted to decide if I would list the universities in Dakar and St. Louis, Senegal on my application as my top two out of five. The Senegalese Education and Cultural Attaché M. Mbodj welcomed me warmly into his office where we discussed everything from literature to the weather in Senegal. He assured me that summers in Senegal would not be much hotter or more humid than those in Washington D.C. I had trouble believing this, but in the end, I think he was right. Before I left his office, he invited me to a grand sabar, a festive drumming party taking place in a few weekends in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, which has a thriving Senegalese community. My husband (then-fiancé) and I headed to that party and we were warmly welcomed. Nearly everyone was Senegalese, except for a few RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers). We marveled at the enthusiastic dancing, discovered new drum rhythms, made new friends, and of course tried some bissap, or hibiscus flower juice. Pretty quickly we learned that the Senegalese teranga, or hospitality, is genuine and ubiquitous. Not surprisingly, we decided to go to Senegal and discovered the same thing living there for two years.
Because our Vive French educator immersion trips focus on maximizing personal interactions, our participants have been able to experience this hospitalité as well. If you know the Manie Musicale 2024 winning song Akwaba, Senegalese teranga is pretty much the same thing: chez nous c’est l’hospitalité! Be prepared to make new friends, have impromptu conversations with someone you just met, and even be invited to sit down to enjoy a visit in someone’s home or for ataaya. Ataaya is Senegalese tea with mint leaves. Typically, ataaya is shared in three rounds in little glasses, giving everyone a chance to have long, relaxing conversations. I’ll definitely write more about ataaya in another blog post. When we needed a restroom break on the highway to Saint Louis on a recent trip, our bus driver took us to his grandmother’s home in a village just off the highway. His cousins and other relatives wanted to invite us all to stay for lunch. There were 19 of us! Unfortunately we had to decline as we had a pre-arranged tour at our destination and still had a few more hours to drive, but this is the kind of thing that happens often. Stay! Chat! Rest! Laugh!
Teranga is much more than just hospitality, as you can read in the BBC article I have shared on our website resources. I love that the BBC reached out to Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam who said that teranga is a way of life. Two other expressions in Wolof that are related to teranga are “ñoo far” and “ñoo ko bokk.” Our travelers learn these phrases quickly and use them regularly while in Senegal. You may know ñoo far from the song “l’Ours” which features Senegalese singer Youssou N’dour. He sings, ñoo far, we are all in this together. We are not alone. We are here for each other, and we help each other. Similarly, when someone thanks you, instead of a “je vous en prie” ou “de rien,” you are likely to hear “ñoo ko bokk” which loosely translates as “this is something that belongs to all of us” or “we share it.” Maybe it’s a little bit like, “what’s mine is yours.” Teranga brings welcomes a newcomer or stranger with open arms, embracing them in their communal society.
We carefully design our trips to offer these kinds of opportunities for you to be more than a tourist, so you can experience Senegalese teranga too.
Marnice, one of our travelers from 2024 sums it up nicely:
“Being able to celebrate Tabaski in the home of one our trip leader's family, stopping by our driver's grandmother's house just to say hi and use the bathroom, and visiting our trip assistant's former host family's home allowed us to get a better perspective of daily life in Senegal, something that most tour companies would not be able to provide. We also got to interact with other educators and students when we visited a high school, a university, an arts school, and an arts and cultural center. Having our leaders' Senegalese friends and families join our visits and chat with us was also a wonderful addition.”
Discover teranga in Senegal with Vive:
Summer #1 June 22 - July 3, 2025
Summer #2 July 6 - July 17, 2025
Our trips tend to book up by January for the Summer programs. You can sign up here for a free Zoom Informational Meeting – we have one coming up in a few days where you can learn more about our upcoming trips. We’ll tell you more about our itinerary, philosophy for travel, and how to sign up. Vive l’expérience!
Visit the website and our lesson resources if you would like to teach your students about Senegalese teraanga as well. You can find a BBC article in English, with activities to complete in English or French. You could integrate this into an existing unit, or you could save it for an emergency lesson someday to do with all of your classes. Let me know how it works out for you.
Hope to see you soon! Ba beneen yoon!
(Originally sent via email on November 8, 2024 from Paris, France)
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