SENEGAL

Baked red earth the color of terra cotta and the stinging sweet smell of naga champa incense. These are the two most poignant sensory memories of Senegal for me.
When we stepped off our seemingly too short flight, it was clear we were no longer in Halfrica, as we lovingly call our misfit chain of islands 400km off the coast of Senegal, where we had landed. The airport in Dakar, which is one of the best in Africa, was intimidating and confusing. Did I mention the official language in Senegal is French and I speak Portuguese Creole?
Our groups of PCV’s travelling from Cape Verde were met at the airport by Chris Murphy, a third year PCV serving in Senegal who would become our savior throughout the course of the trip. We had met him last year when he was travelling in Cape Verde. We climbed into an overcrowded bus, knocking locals in the face with Klean Kateens and hiking backpacks. This is not an un-familiar routine. We arrived at Chris’ house, a little outside of the downtown part of Dakar. As a third year he lives in a nice house with water, regular electricity, beds, etc. with other ex-pats.

I did not find Dakar remarkably different from Praia, the capital here on Santiago Island. There was more dust than in Praia, paintings of Islamic figures in imposing black and white robes, and the women wore loud solid colored tops and long skirts. It still felt like a modern city. There were cars, restaurants, banks, fruit stands, all the things I associate with a city. The highway was probably the notable difference for me, coming from a tiny island nation that boasts paved roads along heavy traffic as a huge success(previously the roads were all cobblestone). There are also peculiar knee-high concrete dividers through these daunting heavy traffic roads. Chris would stop taxis, figure out the driver’s dialect, greet him and then argue prices. The argument is much more heated in Dakar than in Cape Verde. I guess there’s something to be said about sleepy, laid-back island mentality…

For the first three days of the trip, Friday through Sunday we were participating in a West African Peace Corps Volunteer softball tournament. It was a lot of fun, sort of like a university quad fest. Basically, Peace Corps volunteers who serve in West African countries who have to act conservatively and fit in with local customs, let loose. Let’s not forget that Senegal and Mali are both Islamic countries.

Our Cape Verde team was supplemented with volunteers who had been evacuated from Niger and were in the process of being re-assigned within Senegal. Our theme was tye-dye, bright striped stockings, and capes (for Cape Verde, naturally). I completed my outfit with a pair of purple booty shorts that say CABO VERDE on the back. The days passed in a drunken blur. PCV’s were dressed up in outrageous costumes, African wax fabric lederhosen, cops and robbers, tuttu’s etc. Music was played, people drank, danced, and occasionally played softball. Each night there was a huge party for volunteers that was like a huge meat market, so much so that all I could do was sip a drink and sit with my fellow Cape Verdean PCV’s and watch the other Americans much like a Cape Verdean would have done. Being surrounded by a huge group of Americans is overwhelming. My English conversational skills get so little practice with strangers. I am even more socially awkward than I was before Peace Corps….how will I ever survive in America?

After the tournament we travelled to the far Southeast of Senegal, to Kedougou. We stumbled out of bed around 6 A.M. (Had we drank? Likely.) and went to the “garage” in Dakar. This is a place where old station wagons from America have gone to live a second life. Seven people pile into the back of a station wagon and travel hours across Senegal. It is very strange. You almost have a nostalgic feeling for family trips to a lake house or something and then the baby sitting on the lap of the women beside you grabs your blonde hair and puts it in his mouth and you reminded…oh right, this is Africa. The first car ride was 7 hours. Lisa and I were crammed in the back seat with the aforementioned Senegalese woman and baby. As we left Dakar it became obvious how different Senegal is from Cape Verde. The villages are small, spread apart, and the standard of living is much lower. Houses are small huts with palm roofs. My perception of Africa had been based on my experiences in Cape Verde and South Africa which I had known where not like the rest of the continent, but seeing it was still somewhat jarring.

Around dusk our second station wagon transport left us in Kedougou. We had shaky directions from a Senegalese PCV and Jon’s three years of high school French (plus my one semester if you want to count it) to help us find the PC regional house. Several people did not know. At least the town felt safe. You may be inclined to think in the poorer more rural areas you would feel less safe, but I found the opposite to be true. We finally found a kind soul to escort us to the PC regional house. The regional house in Kedougou is composed of several large, open huts. There is a kitchen hut, big sleeping hut with 15 or so beds, a communal space/living room hut, water tanks for laundry, bathrooms, etc . For the volunteers in the region I got the sense it is a cherished space they come to when they need to escape their homestays and village life, as well as use free wi-fi Internet to talk to friends and family and work on various projects.
Our second day in Kedougou we woke up late. We ate avocado and hard-boiled egg sandwiches on French bread (egg sandwiches with beans, meat, etc. are everywhere in Senegal!). After casually discussing it with some Senegalese PCV’s Jon, Lisa, and I decided to bike 22 kilometers to Segeou, a PCV’s site. Now, Cape Verde is very different from other African PCV posts because it’s so tiny we are not issued bikes therefore we don’t bike everywhere. We left the regional house at the hottest part of the day, with a few bottles of water, and another set of directions to decipher. After the initial excitement of riding a bike on the red dirt with villagers carrying things on their heads, we realized how poor our decision to leave mid-day had been. The ride to Segeou was the same sun-baked ground with Acacia landscape for hours. There was no shade. We cursed silently (and outloud) and tried our hardest to conserve our water. The only thing I knew how to do was keep on keepin’ on….

By the time we made it to the village outside of the tourist compound, we were exhausted and dehydrated. We staggered in pushing our bicycles , all of us covered in dust, and asked for a store to buy water. The village’s French teacher informed us there was no store here. We asked for water. He took us to a pump. A shy little boy pumped milky gray water into our bottles and Lisa and I washed our feet in the run-off water. For a split second we worried about parasites then drank the water. We remembered a PCV had given us water purification tablets and put some in the water. We walked back to the small group of Senegalese people gathered outside of a hut that we had demanded a store and water from, and then asked for food. We were taken inside the hut and given a giant bowl of Mafa (peanut sauce over white rice). We were given spoons although the custom in Senegal is to eat with one’s right hand, exceptions are made for tabouabs (foreigners/white people). We thanked and paid the family and continued another 2 kilometers to the tourist encampment. The PCV whose project was establishing the place, was not there but had informed the two men running it that we would be showing up.
We were given a picturesque, quaint hut to stay in. We stupidly attempted to bike another 10 kilometers or so to the waterfall but were unable to before it got dark. That night we ate Yassa (onions stewed with spice and white rice) with the two men running the place and attempted to communicate. The people of that region speak Pulaar, which we decided is more closely related to Cape Verdean Creole than the Wolof we had been hearing in Dakar. Perhaps it was the dehydration, or the ambience of Acacia trees and the Guinean mountain range, but it almost seemed like we were having a meaningful conversation. It could also be that Peace Corps has made me comfortable with long pauses and not really understanding what someone has said to me.

That night our charming little hut turned into a fiery hellish pizza oven. We were nervous to sleep with the windows open because in Cape Verde as PCVs we are strongly advised to not sleep with windows open without metal bars on the window. The men working there had also placed our bikes and the water filter inside our room. Lisa and I started off sleeping in one bed. The air was thick and difficult to inhale. I slept maybe an hour before waking up to her turning about and complaining about the heat. Then I realized I was dizzy and my head pounding. Earlier in the day I had had cold chills in the baking sun and someone mentioned heat exhaustion but I didn’t think much of it. I could not stay in the room. I went outside. I threw-up right outside of the hut. There were chairs down in an open thatched roof area where we had had dinner. I brought two in front of our hut and slept/stared at the stars. I was out there for maybe two hours. After I cooled down sufficiently, I went back inside. There was an extra foam pad that I used to sleep on the floor.

The next morning we started off the waterfalls earlier and with water. I chugged a few liters of juice, attempting to re-hydrate myself. We biked through Savannah like plains until we reached the lusher, green area that borders Guinea Conakry. We followed trail markers finding small waterfalls, uncertain if we had reached our destination or not. We passed baboons angrily smacking the ground upon seeing us. We made it to the waterfall, unlike anything I’ve seen in Cape Verde. It was maybe 40 feet tall. We splashed around, washed ourselves and our clothes with peanut soap, and swam. A few days later we would learn that a crocodile lives there and tourists are never told until after they have gone…haha

We spent another day in Kedougou. We biked to a village where there was a lake where there were hippos. In true Peace Corps fashion we entered the village without hesitation, attempted to communicate in what little language we knew, and then were accompanied by a local. We arrived noisily the lake ruining the tranquility of a serious French couple in Safari-casual gear. After waiting 30 minutes we were bored and left to meet a new friend for drinks and swimming at a tourist encampment on the Gambia River.

We took a night bus back to Dakar, which was far more pleasant than the daytrip in multiple station wagons. We spent our last day shopping the huge market, buying wax African print fabrics and cheap bracelets and sunglasses.

I was not ready to leave. We had travelled so far, so long, yet seen only a tiny piece of the country. I had started to feel comfortable using rudimentary French and not knowing what people around me were saying. My first day back in Praia was like returning home. I understood everyone, no one tried to cheat me, I knew where and how to get places. Cape Verde felt so relaxed compared to Senegal, more peaceful. Before our trip to Senegal, I had not so deeply appreciated the serene nature of Cape Verde.

I was inspired by how well-run Peace Corps Senegal. I’d like consider extending in another country, although cross-country extensions are difficult especially considering most countries are Francophone (and Cape Verde is Lusophone). A part of me wants to go home and pursue a higher degree first. Whatever my path, this trip reawakened my love affair with Africa and desire to spijda pe (spread my feet/explore). Not all those who wander are lost…right? Truthfully I might be a little lost but where better to find myself than a vast continent that encompasses such a large part of the world...right?