Navigating a world where I did not speak the language only got more interesting. Everywhere I went, people spoke only French. At first, travelers, I felt nervous. How would I ride a taxi? How would I buy food?
One piece of advice helped me: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. As we learned before, when you are in a new country, you must push yourself to learn the language and the culture. This challenge did not scare me; it actually excited me. By asking my French-speaking friends questions and by using Google, I learned important phrases, including:
On the one hand, food in Dakar is similar to food in Accra. Both cities are on the coast, so it is easy to find seafood. I ate samosas with tuna in Dakar, and the restaurants always smelled like fish. I also ate Yassa, a warm Senegalese slurry made with lemons and onions.
On the other hand, many things were also new to me in Senegal. For example, the currency. Currency is the kind of money that a country uses. In the United States, we use dollars (USD). In Ghana, we use cedis. But in Senegal, they use colorful bills called CFA francs. One small water bottle costs about 500 CFA francs, which is about $0.50.
Senegalese culture also seems to differ from Ghanaian culture in some ways. In Ghana, I bow to elders to show respect. When I bowed to adults in Senegal, they did not know what I was doing.
