Fatoumata (Famita) Balde is eight years old and in the second grade. She attends school, does many chores around her house, and plays with her neighborhood girlfriends every day. She lives in a multi-generational household of about ten people and is the second youngest. Her life in Senegal is different but also similar to many kids' lives in the USA!
Famita usually eats a sandwich for breakfast, fried rice for lunch, and rice with a stew sauce for dinner.
Famita’s house is a compound comprised of three houses. She lives in the largest house that has three bedrooms and a storage room. Famita shares a room with her mom and her little brother. She also lives with her grandfather, grandmother, two aunts, and sometimes cousins. Other family members all live in the house with them.
Famita sweeps the yard and the inside rooms of the houses, she washes dishes and she is learning to make rice and sauces with her mom, her grandma and her aunts.