Senegal part 4

I was surprised at the amount of culture clash I felt. I think of myself as a fairly tolerant person. Although I grew up in eastern Canada, the whitest place I've ever seen. Skin colour is nothing to me. Blond, redhead, brunette...blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes... It's all the time to me. I don't understand judging someone on the colour of their skin because it's superficial... just like hair and eye colour.

Many of the girls, after the first night, gave us Canadians a rather frosty reception. Jerri and I kept trying to talk to them, but they either made excuses not to talk to us, ignored us or put themselves in situations where they weren't near us. With the exception of a lovely Senegalese girl named Aminata and the Malian girl, the others wouldn't give us the time of day.

I asked Jerri if she felt the same way. She started asking some questions, and it's true, they were avoiding us. Apparently, according to them, "white girls don't like black girls". I was shocked, but I realise that we've all got prejudices deep down. After that, we made a conscious effort to really be personable and friendly and by the end of the conference, many of them did start to warm up to us.