By Ann Varner
Over the winter break I was able to have one of the best experiences of my life-studying abroad in Senegal for two weeks. 
While there I studied gender, health, and development in Senegal on a program sponsored by the UMKC Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Black Studies Programs, the Departments of History and Foreign Languages & Literature, the UMKC Women’s Center, and the UMKC Honors College,. The experience was amazing, eye opening, and also saddening.
In Senegal there are many efforts for women’s equality. Women can get divorced, legally and religiously, and they can pursue justice if assaulted in any way by a man. Women can also go to college and have their own businesses. While in Senegal I visited multiple women’s centers. One of the women’s centers was similar to a legal aid office where women can come for support as well as legal advice. I asked how often women actually get divorced and due to the stigma of divorce and family shame, it’s not very often. Women in Senegal can get religiously divorced, but it is much harder to become legally divorced. It is such an issue that legal help is primarily what that specific women’s center is dedicated to.
The other women’s center was quite different. This women’s center was in a small village. There, the women went every day to harvest items to sell such as oysters and fish. They then came back to the women’s center and spent many hours preparing the items to be sold, and spent their afternoons either selling their items or learning. The lessons taught were reading and writing, as well as practical lessons such as how to market and manage money for their business. One of the stories that stuck out to me was when we learned of the small loans that the center gave out. For a while men and women could get a small loan to start their business and then were supposed to repay the loan. The women always did, and the men never did. After realizing that the men were not going to pay the center back a rule was instated that only women could procure small loans. When we asked what the motivations were, the response was that women were more worried about ensuring success for their families while the men were not.
Women in Senegal deserve the recognition for all they do on a daily basis. While all women work hard, there is something different about watching a woman with multiple babies strapped to her carrying a large basket on her head as she walks in the 100 degree heat to her market spot. I feel as though we Americans live in a bubble and need to be reminded that there are people in developing countries just trying to learn to read and write so that they can provide an income for their families. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have visited with the women I did and learn about their lives and culture.