The Baobab Centre is a school of language and culture in Dakar where we have just spent the last two weeks learning French. It has been an excellent start to our trip and It has also given us the opportunity to stay with a family in urban Dakar which has been a fantastic to settle into Senegalese life.
Baobab itself is made up of two adjacent white buildings covered in Bourgevillea. As you approach, greetings are offered from the staff sitting outside under the shade of the trees. The interior is a cool respite from the heat outside and you can’t walk past anybody in the corridor without exchanging many Ca va’s? and Na Nga def’s? (how are you? in Wolof).
The student body is made up of people on university study abroad programmes, volunteers with tailor made courses and independent travellers like ourselves. You can do classes from Djembe (drumming) to History of Islam, and learn a variety of African languages as well as French.
If you don’t have lessons there is plenty of space to sit in the sunlit courtyard gardens and try and chat in your newly learnt language. Wolof is Senegal’s most widely spoken indigenous language and one that will get you far with the locals. We did one lesson with Oumoul, a lovely lady, to pick up the basics. There are a number of strange sounds that are hard to grasp but it gets easier and over all Wolof is a jaunty language with a lot of gesticulation!
As we are travelling in a few Francophone countries we decided to spend the rest of our time learning (or re-learning!) French. Our teacher Tomas has been marvellous at whipping us through what we have to know in just two weeks. We realised how good an idea the course had been when we couldn’t get past Je m’applle Harry/Tash, J’ habite a Londres!
As well as grappling with verbs and tenses it has been interesting to chat with Tomas, finding out about Senegalese customs and traditions. A favourite of ours, afternoon tea, has been looked forward to every lesson! Merci beaucoup Monsieur Tomas!
While at Baobab we went to a talk with one of the founders Gary Engleberg. We learnt that the Baobab Centre went much further than simply language courses. It acts as the base for ACI, African Consultants International, an organisation founded thirty years ago. With funding provided in some part from the school, ACI has set up a number of initiatives in West Africa promoting social justice and access to healthcare.
Many global NGO’s, including Plan International, have worked with ACI’s innovative initiatives. Better local communication and an increase in cross-organisation dialogue has lead to ever improving outcomes in various projects. On our first day Oumoul told us that learning to say hello in another language ‘opens many doors’, this is whole-heartedly supported by the ethos of ACI.
We have enjoyed every moment of learning at the Baobab Centre and have been particularly interested to find out about the work of ACI, if you would like to know more please click here.
