Senegal

I spent several years of my childhood growing up as Senegal. Obviously, I was too young to take most of these pictures, although a few near the end were mine.

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Our very first home in Senegal, in the town of Bignona	Me and my two friends	I spent most of my time with these two neighbours	A group of local girls, holding my sister Bethany
Several kids dressed up as part of a cultural ritual	Someone is taking this game a little too seriously!	The two in costume would dance in the middle, surrounding by the dancing crowd	Looking into a large tree
A woman plants rice the traditional way	These trees were often found in the more rainforest-like parts of southern Senegal	Living in the village of Santiaba	Young boys are circumcised in a ceremony attended by many of the men of the village.
Some folks from the village, with my mom standing in the back	Two men from the village, looking almost as cool as me	Not sure what this is, but it sure looks like a young boy trying to escape a mob!	Celebrations and dances were taken very seriously!
The "house band"	This guy has probably been drumming for hours!	Our house in Santiaba, seen from the side nearest the village (a couple hundred meters away)	Two cows in our backyard
Bethany with her little friend	Me playing soccer with several of the village boys	Often I had the only "ball", in this case a blue plastic thing that probably belonged at a beach	My mom hanging up the laundry
A group of women working in the field right behind our house	Me and my sister, Bekka, climbing a large tree in our backyard	Gathering outside one of the village houses; my dad is on the right drinking "tea".	Fields were plowed by hand, just like these two men are doing
A woman waters her small garden	My sisters with an unidentified village kid.	Bethany and Bekka	My dad walks past our well and toward the village
Drawing water from the well was a group affair	Me and our short-lived dog, Dagon	A group gathers in the village	Under the mango tree...
Our house on the left, my dad's study on the right, seen from our backyard	One of the men from the village tries his hand at mowing the lawn!	Me on the swing in our backyard	The center of the village, with the chief's house on the right
Bekka and me, with our brief pet monkey, Cheechee	Bekka and Cheechee on the swing	Bethany has her turn posing	And finally, Cheechee poses solo.
My dad pulling water from the well	Our house on the right, looking past our front yard to the rice fields beyond	Our family in the front yard	Another local celebration
Everybody puts on their finest clothes!	The crowd moves on	Bekka tries her hand at the African dance. The villagers find the little white girl very amusing!	Dust rises from the ground as the huge group moves
A group of women hoeing the ground for planting	They break into dancing as the photo was taken	Our house, seen from the field behind our house.	Water from the well...
A few little kids coming around to sell some fruit	The local school, having just received a gift of a world map	Typical houses of a southern Senegal village	The "teen dorm" at the boarding school in Fanda
Bekka (on the right), a couple other missionary kids and a few kids from the village	Me suiting up to play soccer at school.	Sitting on the beach in Dakar, on a break from school	Bethany and her friend down by the Casamance river, with Baobab trees in the background
Bethany poses by a dugout canoe in the Casamance, which is actually the world's thinnest and most river-like ocean inlet	The walk back from the river to Fanda	Bethany and her friend again	The shores of the Casamance, where we teens would often spend the afternoon
Driving south from Dakar	There are several areas in the northern region that consist entirely of Baobab trees to the horizon	Driving behind a dangerously underloaded truck (by African standards)	Vehicles yield the right-of-way to cattle