Sunshine and Mangoes

Wolof word of the day: fecc = to dance. (pronounced like "fetch") The command form is "feccal". We were forced to dance in front of very entertained Senegalese people about every 5 minutes during our trip to Toubacouta.



Toubacouta is a "city" about 6 hours south of Dakar, just north of the border with the Gambia. It's on the coast but also in a river delta, so it's really green and humid. I never really saw any part of Toubacouta proper that looked like what I would call a city, but this is Senegal. You kind of have to forget everything you know and expect.

Our trip was full of surprises, and much nudity or near-nudity. For example, on Saturday we went on a boat trip through mangrove forests. We piled into two pirogues (fishing boats) and went out into the river. We kept running into trees or getting smacked in the face by them, as it was quite narrow. Once we got out into open water again, Waly, one of the program directors, took off his clothes except shorts and a tank top and jumped into the water. By this point, I still thought this was not something I would do. Even when other girls started stripping down to various levels of nakedness, I was still surprised to find myself doing the same thing and jumping in. It was so freeing to feel comfortable enough with my body that I would strip to my underwear in front of strangers just to splash around in the water with a bunch of friends.

Another surprisingly cool thing we did was going to a traditional wrestling match. We have been to a really commercial wresting match in a huge stadium in Dakar, but this was totally different. We went at around 10:30 or 11 at night, so it was already dark. The only lights were two fluorescent lights on either side of the ring, which was basically a circle of people. They were sitting on the ground or standing, shouting and banging on things while the wrestlers fought in the middle. On one side of the ring, there was an announcer and some drummers and griots, who provided the music. I don't know if I have ever explained this, but a griot is basically a person in traditional West African society whose job was to sing about the royal families. They were a casted group of people, which means they were born into griot families and weren't really supposed to marry outside their caste. The castes still exist, but people are trying to get rid of them. Anyway, each griot family was tied to a royal family, so if the king and his griot both died, the griot's son would become the griot of the king's successor. Also, apparently Youssou N'dour is a griot.

Probably the most important part of the trip was the rural visit. We spent a whole day in a village, each with a different family, then we had the option to spend the night in the village, which all of us did except three girls. This village was really, actually in the middle of nowhere. From this small town near the Gambian border, we drove inland about an hour, getting further and further from "civilization". The people there were really nice though, and they welcomed us by making us dance in front of them, which gets less humiliating every time we do it. At the beginning of the trip, we were mortified when we had to dance "senegalese" because we look so ridiculous doing it, but it's actually starting to be kind of fun. I spent the whole day doing almost nothing. We cooked lunch then ate it, relaxed and chatted under a mango tree for a couple hours (by "chatting" I mean I listened to people chatting in Wolof. Mine is getting better but it's still not THAT good.), then made dinner. Also, no running water = lot's of water-fetching from the well. I even carried my shower in a bucket on my head! The night was almost as peaceful as the day, except for the zoo under my bed and the fire ant that kept crawling all over me and biting me. I never knew what they were like, but it's weird because it kind of itches but also feels like you were burned.

It was really relaxing being in the village for a day, but I don't think I could live in a place like that for any extended period of time, because I was getting really antsy to get back to Dakar. Much as I love doing nothing, having nothing to do is quite a different thing. I don't like being that far away from any people or things, although I suppose I might have felt more lonely because of my very limited interactions with people. They spoke no french at all, but as the region we were in is mostly Sereer, we were, ironically, relieved to be in a Wolof village where no one spoke french. We left the village dirty, hungry, and laden with delicious mangoes.

La Pâques

My family will be relieved to know that Easter in Senegal is much the same as our Easter. In a nutshell, my host mom's whole family and some of my dad's friends came over around lunch time and stayed until about 11 PM eating and drinking. My mom has 4 sisters and a brother, so there were lots of aunts fussing in the kitchen and cousins running around. And as usual, my mom made enough food for about 4 times as many people as actually came, so we'll be eating chicken and vermicelli for about a week. At least we don't have to stuff ourselves with white rice! We also got to eat pork, a rare treat in this country of non-pork-eating Muslims. I don't really know what else to say because it's just like the family gatherings I'm used to, except instead of our family's usual gin and tonics, we drink this fabulous coconut punch with home-made alcohol that my mom makes.


[This is me and my host mom]

There is always a feriée (a day where everything is closed) the day after religious holidays, so the Catholics can recuperate from all the drinking, and I guess the Muslims just pray.

24-Hour Boat Rides, and other unexpectedly long adventures

Really, I did love Cape Verde, but I would have loved the 1-week vacation I planned on spending, instead of the nearly 2 weeks that Air Senegal gave us as a result of changed and missed flights.

Cabo Verde is a country composed of several volcanic islands off the coast of West Africa. It used to be a Portuguese colony, where the Portuguese brought Africans to grow sugar. I would have liked it coming from America, but coming from Senegal it was even more spectacular. Mountains! Trees! Clean air! Cars that stop for you when you cross the street! The northern islands were even better than Praia; we stayed in a tiny town called Paùl on the island of Santo Antao, where we spent six hours hiking down from the mountains towards the ocean, and had a black sand beach all to ourselves for a whole day. The only problem? The boat ride to get there. It was described to us as a 15-hour ride, and how wrong we were to believe them. It was actually much less traumatic than we expected before going. We didn't really know how to grocery shop before, though, and we came prepared with lots of chips, chocolate, and beer, which wasn't the best food for a whole day. The most ironic part of this boat ride was when we found out that we could take a plane back to Praia for only $20 more. And it only took one hour.

We came back to Praia for our last few days. The morning of the day we were supposed to fly home, we sent two people to the Air Senegal office to make sure our flight info was the same. We probably should not have been so surprised to find out that they had moved our flight to the day before, and that there wasn't another flight for 5 days. After all, it is Senegal. We hadn't really budgeted for two weeks, so we had to get creative. We stayed in a disgusting hostel and made cheese and ham sandwiches for 3 days.

While we were freaking out about what to do about our predicament, Lindsay made the fateful suggestion to go to the American Embassy. When we got there, they said they couldn't really help us but all we could do was use the phone to make free calls to America. We stayed there until closing, and Lesley, the woman who worked there, told us she wasn't really supposed to, but she was going to drive us to our hostel and take us out for dinner. We went to a cafe owned by a delightful Scotsman named Fraser, and then afterwards Lesley invited us to our house to watch Twilight, the trashy teen vampire movie. She also let us make long-distance phone calls, made us cookies and brownies, and the best part... use her washing machine and dryer! (It would seem a lot more exciting if you had been washing your jeans by hand for the last 3 months) The taste of America was just what we needed to keep us going. And thanks to Lesley, we also met many cool Peace Corps volunteers and went swimming in the embassy pool. Basically Lesley saved the morale of our group and made our last 4 days a lot better, but I was still jumping (literally) with joy to finally come back to Dakar. Which is more than can be said for most of my friends who came with me. It was a beautiful trip and I loved it, but I'm used to Dakar. It's true that nothing ever works and things never happen when or how they are supposed to, but it's home.

I know it seems like I am just complaining about the trip and I'm sorry. It really was wonderful, but we spent so much time dealing with ridiculous things that it's what I remember. Fortunately, we can laugh about them now.