This article reflects on the uses of qualitative sociological field methods with children undergoing vocational training and living in a underprivileged socio-economic environment in Dakar, Senegal. First, it examines the role of interpreters in the process of conducting qualitative interviews. It explores the three-way indirect communication strategy – children, interpreter, researcher – developed to accommodate the ways in which sensitive issues are spoken about in the local context. Next, the article examines how the researcher positioned himself as an "atypical, less powerful adult" and analyzes the impact of this position on the research. Finally, the paper explores how two dominant Wolof values, kersa (modesty) and sutura (discretion), relate to the wider Senegalese moral economy of shame. Thus, the article also contributes to the debate on the usefulness of the concept of agency in the field of the sociology of childhood and childhood studies in the Senegalese urban context.