Course Description

Political Science 216: Politics and Society in West Africa

This is a study away Intersession course at Washington & Jefferson College led by Professor Dr. Buba Misawa. Intersession is a three week class between the Fall and Spring Semesters held in January. This year, 16 students accompanied Dr. Misawa to Senegal and The Gambia to experience the African political and social systems through The Gambian and Senegalese societies. Village interactions, views of the education systems, tours of animal culture, social interactions with local crafters and businesspeople, and visits to towns and national monuments helped students learn about both the political and social culture of these two countries.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1

Saturday January 6, 2018- I departed for Senegal on January 6, 2018. Myself, 15 classmates, and my advisor, Dr. Buba Misawa all met at the Pittsburgh International Airport in order to catch our first flight- Pittsburgh to JFK in New York. It took us a while to gather and organize the luggage. Each student was allowed to fill two suitcases. However, Buba requested that if you do not use your other suitcase, that it could be used to carry school supplies and clothing down to Africa to give to the local children. This process was complicated and put us behind schedule. We were supposed to be boarding our flight at 9:41 and we just got into the TSA lines at 9:42. Apparently, Buba called Delta and had them delay the flight for us. I am not sure if this is true. A few girls set off the alarms with granola bars at TSA checks, but besides that, everything ran smoothly.               The Pittsburgh to JFK flight was only a ...
Read more

Day 13

Image
Thursday, January 18, 2018 Today’s agenda consisted of leaving Tandaba and heading towards Banjul. Before leaving Tandaba camp, we had a bunch of W&J uniforms and school supplies to hand out to the local school children. I was very touched when I saw how happy the children were to get a pack of pencils or a box of markers. Americans would not even think twice about getting a gift like this. I probably have thousands of pencils in my house and I do not take this simple writing material for granted. Regarding the W&J uniforms, some of these people might only have two or three outfits total in their entire closet. Getting something else to wear must have been extremely exciting. One thing that I was surprised about was that some of the people that we were giving stuff to were quite greedy. One lady complained that we didn’t have straight legged pants for her. Others were begging Buba for money and asking if he had any more stuff that they could have in his room. I thought that ...
Read more