Workshopping the Senegalese way

Since Christmas, my boss has been talking about this workshop he would like me and a colleague to arrange on adaptation to coastal erosion. I cannot count the number of times we have set a date just to cancel it a few days before the departure. So I was rather surprised when I found myself in a car on my way to Joal at 5am. The workshop was held at the headquarters of our primary partner, Dynamique Femme, about 3 hours from Dakar down the coast. Now, this is not the first workshop I have participated in down here, so I know the procedures and general chaos that comes with these kinds of events. Still, being the one arranging it made it slightly more challanging. The guy who was supposed to bring the projector had forgotten it, our dictaphone and camera was all of a sudden out of battery (the driver had been having fun doing tapes of himself over the night), EVERYBODY was at least one hour late and so on and so forth. On the picture below you can see the attendance an hour after we should have started. During the day the number of participants more than doubled.

 Well, everything works out in the end anyway, so why not just laugh about it. If not before, people will certainly show up for the 'pause café'. That is an essential element of workshops here. When the welcoming speech is done people start getting restless in their chairs, impatiently looking out the door hoping get a glance of what is waiting. The pause café has to include an impressive selection of pastries, juices and hot beverages, and enough to keep you full preferably the rest of the day.

Biggest kanelgiffel I have seen in my life

When the pause café is finally done, the workshop can begin! The Senegalese just love to talk. In general, everybody's convinced that they have all the right answers and the necessary knowledge to save the world. So the least they can do is to share it with the rest of us. This means that every single participant contributed with a presentation during the workshop, which summed up to more than 30 speeches during the days of the workshop. Always being extraordinarily polite, every single presentation must start out with thanking the people arranging the workshop, the host organisation, the prior speakers for their wonderful contributions etc. That can easily take up the first 5-10 minutes of the speech. And then they start talking, rarely prepared or structured in any way, but always with a great passion and capturing gestures and vivid facial expressions. Often a speech ends out in a heated discussion where the whole room gets involved. Unfortunately, the 'plenum debates' were mostly in Wolof, so I did not understand much, however making it no less entertaining to follow.

Well, I shouldn't be the one joking with all these endless contributions. Even i had the chance to do a presentation at this workshop. I was a bit worried that a big discussion in Wolof would follow my contribution too. But, the other participants were very respectful and attentive during my speech, and kept the following discussion in French.