GUIDE OF SÉDHIOU - Cesie

JOBS
Behind the hotel Faradala in Sédhiou another world begins;
women are going to their daily work in the rice fields very
early in the morning. They take off their shoes, step into the
muddy earth slightly overflooded with water and start
cultivating rice- with nothing but their hands. They put the
plants in the earth bowing down repeatedly and wait
approximately 2 to 3 months to harvest the mature rice by
cutting and threshing it. Sadio Silla sighs: “Working, working,
working- that’s Africa.” The women don’t cultivate enough
rice to sell, it’s for
their own use as
their families are big
and rich of children.
Why don’t the men
help them in the
fields? “They don’t
want to”, is the
short answer,
cementing a long,
never questioned tradition. Africa means hard labour-
especially if you are born female; Senegalese women call
themselves working slaves: as many among them lack
education and don’t have a proper job, they are doing the
unpaid and therefore unrecognized housework from morning
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