Touba

This past Friday, we visited the city of Touba, which was about a four hour bus ride from Dakar. Touba is the holy city for the Mourid brotherhood, a sect of Islam started by a man known in Wolof as Sëriñ Tuuba. The city is in the desert, and on the particular day we visited, temperatures were around 105ºF. Since the city is sacred to the Islamic religion, any building we visited required that women have their heads covered, as well as wearing dresses that reached to their ankles & with long sleeves. To say the least, it was a hot day for us. Our host families provided outfits for us, Caryn & Becca's mother giving them headscarves, and Austin's family providing traditional male Senegalese robes. We learned quite a bit about Islam and Mouridism, as well as the way life works in different parts of Senegal. The day was also not without its difficulties, as we came across many a cultural misunderstanding that proved more than a little frustrating to work around. Overall, however, it was a day well spent, as we were able to learn a lot and be exposed to many a new perspective.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Cats of Senegal

Austin's Internship

Caryn's Internship Experience