A day at Samres call center

At 9:00 am everyone that was going to the Call Center was off TS Gunilla and off to the taxies. The goal was to bargain down the taxi price to 1 500 francs which equals with 25 kr and some succeeded but we didn’t. At first the chauffeur seamed a bit bitter but after Ester started to have a conversation with him in wolof, he lit up. Ester used the phrases we learned yesterday when we spent the day with Tostan and she was impressively good.

After we stepped out of the taxi car and gave the chauffeur 2 000 francs, we got together with the rest of the group and went up what felt like thousands of stares to an apartment. The first thing we saw when Peter who is a teacher at Samres, opened the door, was a reception to the left and when we continued to walk into the apartment we saw classrooms. Peter led us into one where the Samres students we had already met sat in their seats.

The students study Swedish and have for 6 month to be able to answer the calls us swedes make when we want to order a taxi for example. Their Swedish was incredible. They understood everything we said and we understood everything they said. But they had to study for an exam that was due in only a week so instead of intervjuing them for our essay we went into another classroom to a class that has only studied Swedish for 8 weeks. Their Swedish was also good, better than my Spanish that I have studied for four years. But with them we had to talk slower and more clearly, which is very understandable.

After the intervju Peter took us to the call center where the workers at Samres make the calls. He told us to be quiet when we walked into the office and after we quietly went out again we took the stairs up to a beautiful view.

Then we took a taxi back to Gunilla again after an instructive day. I think I speak for us all when I say that we came back tired and exhausted but with more knowledge than ever.

Ebba Våring, Starboard