Celebrating my 21th Birthday and Senegal's Election

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

I finally turned 21! It feels so unreal that I have turned 21 years old. I honesty thought that my 20th birthday was the best, but this birthday I feel more blessed, loved, happier, more confident. I did not think that I would have been able to celebrate my birthday, due to the tension from the election in Senegal. We were told that the weekend of February 23rd-24th were to be high risk tension and was suggested that we should not leave the home or if we decided to we should not be out late.

The week before the election, after speaking with some of my new friends we began planning for my birthday lunch. On the 23th of February, the morning of my birthday I walked around my neighborhood, looked at the news and connected everyone who wanted to attend my birthday dinner just to make sure everyone was comfortable going out. We went out to eat at Cafe Rome in the central of downtown. It was an Italy American restaurant. I ordered lasagna and it was amazing!!

After the birthday lunch a friend and I decided to go to Mamelles beach near Ouakam, Senegal. We walked along the shore, had great conversations and took tons of picture. I really appreciate all the birthday messages and phone calls from across the world and the gifts. I could not have asked for nothing more.

Election in Senegal!

This past month I had the opportunity to witness the elections of Senegal and the outing of the results. I noticed that each candidate has its own theme song, which is kind of amazing to me. It’s kind of amazing to me because in the United States candidates go around the country and bashing each other and talk about their political agenda. They also have a slogan that people would chant instead of singing their theme song. It seems to be super crazy that the current president, now the re-elected president was not expected to win. However, when there was supposed to be a second-round election, it never came to place due to speculations of French interfering with the election and Marabout’s. The thing that shocks me the most is before the results were to come out the now re-elected president had packed his bags and family to move to France then a day later it was found out that he won! The day before election day, I came into contact with a guy and when asked who he would vote for he said that his parents want him to vote for the re-elected president. I found that to be super crazy because In America we are so individualistic, where our political officiations are different from our parents. However, when I talked to him about my point of view and how the current president is not looking out for the next generation of Senegalese, he stated that he is doing what his parents want him to do. In Senegal they are more collectivist, where they strongly believe in respect and obeying parents. If their parents want them to do something, out of respect they would do it. When

I think that people under estimate the France’s ability to still be involved with its precolonial colonies. I don’t know if it is the lack of education or if it is the lack of consideration/ belief that France still has so much control. The French government make sure that its precolonial colonies have presidents in place that still agree to their agenda. However, as the new generation of Senegalese are coming to the understanding that things need to change. They can no longer have France controlling things. The problem then becomes is that outside world began to think that African Presidents are corrupted, which is true to some extent, but must of its doing is from the French. When speaking to my house domestic and I asked her about here understanding of the election she said she doesn’t understand anything that is going on. It mostly due to the language barrier and they lack of understanding or consideration that most of country is being forced to have French as their administrative language.