When discussing gender roles with with my Peul Bande father, I asked him:
"Are women good with money?"
"No, of course not."
"Who is in charge of the communal village collection system?"
"My wife! She is the president of the women's society"
"And what funded the new machinery in the peanut field?"
"The communal pot. The women decided to buy the machinery."
"And have the machines improved the condition of life here?"
"Yes.They have brought in more money."
"Are women good with money?"
"No. Women are not intelligent."

From November 7th to December 7th, I will be set free to roam Senegal in search of primary-source information on the topic of my choosing. Right now...leaning towards microfinance.
(Woah there! Talk about words that I would not have expected to come flying from my mouth...or out of my fingers, rather)

Before leaving for Senegal, I ran across a few lines of text highlighting Senegalese women's tendencies to set up miniature "insurance" systems within their social groups. Once a week, each woman puts a small percentage of the family's income into a communal pot. The pot is then given monthly to a family who needs it, the money rotating between the involved families over the course of a year. This system creates both a monetary safety blanket for families in crises, as well as a fund for possible familial business ventures.
What's so incredible about this system? From what I've heard from the locals, you can find a version of it in EVERY Senegalese setting - from Thiés to Etchwar, from towering cities to 12-hut villages - almost always run by the women.

In Boundou Kodi, (my Peul Bande village), it was the women's savings pot that had funded the new farm equipment that increased cultivating efficiency, in turn providing the means to send two of the children to school in Kedougou. Back with the Samb family in Dakar, it is the women's communal pot that will fund our upcoming baptism. (...as soon as Aunt Lefatou's baby is born. Can't give an exact date as it is culturaly inappropriate to ask. A roundabout questioning of when we might expect a baptism revealed that the due date may be soon!)
Self-starting microfinance lends power to otherwise dominated women. As in the above conversation, in rural settings, women are not seen as intelligent beings (and are treated as such).

I am not the only one intrigued by this... Le Centre Africain de L'Entrepreneurait Féminin (CAEF) has taken this idea and run with it, pairing these rural women's self-starting money know-how with small loans and Sénégal-specific economic education. The result: blossoming village-based businesses that promote commerce, health education (as demonstrated by a women's group that is using its proceeds to hold malaria-awareness block parties) and community.

Villages are learning self-sufficiency.
Women are taking advantage of their brainpower.
Children are sleeping under mosquito nets.

...and I'm getting excited.

(Have any knowledge on microfinance and impoverished nations? I'd love to talk to you!)