Except for religious duties, punctuality is not a particularly important concept in West-African societies. Nevertheless you will find people in the remotest villages that carry watches as a decorative item. Nowadays, watches are even part of the panoply of ceremonial gifts i.e. weddings, Tabaski etc.

Marking Time

Telling time by the hour and the minute is something which you probably won't have much use for in Pulaar. However, people mark the times of the day either by noting the position of the sun or by the five Muslim prayers which are called out from the mosque. In addition to gnalowma e jamma, day and night, the times of day are divide as follows:

During the day time: Subaka (morning), fegnange (mid-day), kikidhe (late after noon)

At night: kikidhe jamma (evening), nder Jamma (middle of the night), weendogo (dawn).These are the units of time more or less measured by the position of the sun. Other units are: weeti ,day time, hiiri, evening time, nange fudhi sun rise, nange muti, sun set . The subsequent cardinal directions are: fut nange, east, the direction from which sun rises and hirr nange, the west, where the sun sets. In the specific case of Fuuta Toro, rewo is the north and worgo the south. It is these factors that divide everyone's day, and people make their plans accordingly.

Daily activities change according to the season of the year. Being part of a rural farming community will make it important to know the yearly seasonal cycles. Daily activities for both men and women change with the season.

Seasons

Life in a village revolves around two life sustaining activities farming and/or herding cattle. These activities change period­ically with the seasons of the year.

There are three major seasons in the year. They are known as ndungu, ceedhu, and dabbunde. Ndungu, is the rainy season. It extends roughly between the months of July through late September. In a good year, the Sahel region may receive 300-400 mm. of rain water, and rains will come every week or so. In bad years it may only rain a couple of times throughout the entire season. Ndungu, is followed by dabbunde, or the cold season. Dabbunde runs from October to February. For Westerners, it is by far the pleasantest season. in Fuuta and the easiest to work in. It gets quite chilly at night, and even at noon the temperatures are pleasant. Ceedhu, or the hot season, begins in February or March and continues until the rains begin. It is a time marked by hot, drying winds from the North. Farmers have few activities during this time of the year, whereas herders must work very hard to find water and pasture for their animals.

In Fulani regions, daily activities change according to the season of the year. In a rural farming community it is important to know the yearly seasonal cycles. Daily activities for men, women and children change with the season. This may be important in project planning since people are much busier during certain seasons than others. To be effective in one's own work, it is better to divide up the year into periods of time which can be effectively exploited for various purposes depending upon the seasonal flow of work, seasonal migration patterns, and times of the year when money and leisure time are available. In a sense, a seasonal work plan would make more sense than any kind of daily schedule, and work goals should be set accordingly

Farming

From the point of view of the farmer, the region of northern Senegal is divided into two very different ecological zones: the waalo and the jeeri. The waalo is the land which lies next to the Senegal River and which is flooded every year during the rainy season. In dabbunde, when the floods recede, this land is planted with millet, rice, and some vegetables. The jeeri is all the land to the south of the river which is not flooded. Water in the jeeri comes from very deep wells, or from pools of water which slowly evaporate after the rainy season. The jeeri is planted with millet during the rainy season.

For people living near the river, the year is divided into the season for farming the jeeri (during the rains) and the season for farming the waalo (after the rains). The jeeri does not produce enough agriculturally to sustain a family throughout the year. Those families who are not able to plant a second crop in the waalo depend upon their herds for a major part of their livelihood. In that case they depend first upon the milk to drink and secondly upon milk products to sell or trade for millet and rice. Finally, they may occasionally sell an animal in order to meet a major need for cash.