This entry is to tell y’all about my lovely trip to Toubacouta and the little village of Keur Moussa just south of Toubacouta. The trip was four days from Thursday to Sunday and it was exhausting but a lot of fun!
We started out at the bright and sunny hour of 8am at WARC. Alison and I shared a taxi from Ouakam to the research center. Once everyone arrived, we all hurried (and I do mean HURRIED) to the bus so we could avoid getting the obnoxious fold down seats in the center of the van. I found a window seat with the tire well jutting into my personal space but hey it wasn’t the middle seat. So let me tell you about our drive. Now in most parts of the world the drive is smooth and lulls you to sleep. NOT in Senegal. The roads are about as reliable as the electricity. There were times when the sand next to the road was preferred over the pavement. Besides that, there was also stop and go traffic all the way out of the city. Public bathrooms along the trip were also interesting. Gas stations had bathrooms but they weren’t usually pretty and one almost ate Jess alive by locking her in. Luckily she’s like MacGyver with a hair clip! That sums up the drive. Long and rocky.
Finally we reach our lunch destination, Sokone. This is where Professor Sène’s family lives. We went to his house for lunch (Chebujen – google it folks it’s the national dish of Senegal) and some dancing. The meal was great and we got to try the fruit that grows with Cashews. I’m not a big fan of them because the texture was a bit weird but essentially they look like mini bell peppers. The dancing was fun and the funniest part was that the women use shotgun shells as finger covers to play their bowl-like instruments. I thought that was super interesting and pretty funny especially since I bet my fingers would get stuck. Chunky fingers. I danced a bit, looked like a fool. We also got to use real civilized bathrooms. Very nice.
Off we go again into the deep sandy yonder. I forget what time we checked into the hotel but it was later than planned as is everything else in Senegal. We stayed at a really nice hotel called Kairaba (you can google this too! www.clubdevacanceskairaba.com) . It had nice huts for everyone to stay in with a TV and a bathroom and a functioning shower! The shower was my favorite part. I thought my favorite part would be the pool but there was a LOT of straight up bleach in the pool and two bees nests in opposing corners. There were two gazebo type things. One where we check in and can sit at some tables and one that counts as the dining area/restaurant. I got to room with Alison and Jozy. We made good roomies. The three beds were a bit close together so I have a few bruises from kicking them and such but hey they were good beds either way. We took a short walk around Toubacouta. We got to get our first look at the mangroves. Then a surprise! Let’s just say I was less than impressed with this surprise…the van left us all in the town and we took dirt bike/motorcycles back to the hotel. I had no choice parents! I know Kara would have been proud but I was terrified. I do not like going in or on any vehicle without a roll cage involved. It was fun and I kept my eyes open most of the time. I was also ready to take a digger at any moment. I got back safe and sound and it was kind of fun to be at the back of the pack and watch our funny little motorcycle gang of toubabs. Our dinner started off with a really good shrimp salad type deal and I think after that it was Yassa Poulet but I don’t remember the main meal. The best part was the fruit salad in yogurt after dinner! So good! Then off we go again.
At 9pm we left for le lute traditionnelle! If you want to see exactly what this is you should google wrestling and Senegal. I don’t even know how to start. We show up to this ring of people with one bright flood light and LOTS of men. There were women there too but the first thing I noticed is the amount of men. There are wrestlers dressed in ridiculous diaper type deals which look like they cause a man to become sterile. Wedgie of the century folks. The fighting was pretty cool. They did wrestle into the crowd a couple times. Almost into me a few times. The funniest time this happened was to Karla. The look on her face was priceless and although it shouldn’t be funny it was kinda funny. Unfortunately, the fights went on WAAAYYYY longer than we all cared to watch. We were cold and very tired after a full day of travel and activity. Waly lied and told us we would leave at midnight but we were so close to the final fight that we stayed. There was a dance competition in there too which was so cute. The boys thought they were the hottest thang and the women would throw their scarves in to them! Oh it’s such a spectacle the whole fight and the dancing. It was really amazing. So instead of midnight it was more like 1:15am that I got to bed. Honestly I don’t remember exactly what time but it was freakin late. That’s all you need to know.
Friday – 8:15am wakeup call! Yay for sleep deprived toubabs! We start off with breakfast. Bread and jam and chocolate sauce and butter. Pretty much bread and anything you could put on it. Then there was real milk! I got so excited then I realized it was hot milk…gross. Not sure it was real but it tasted real. I had it as hot chocolate. Milk and Nesquick! Yep they had nesquick! How weird. This morning we are off to the mangroves! Super cool. We start by touring where they dry the fish out and where the women cook the oysters. They aren’t exactly the kind of oysters I’ve ever seen in my life. Refer to my pictures on facebook. It was really cool because they had huge piles of oyster shell everywhere which they use for paint and things like that once they are crushed down. There is an environmental problem in the mangroves where they are cutting the whole root of the mangrove trees to get the oysters. This is a problem because it kills the mangroves. Instead, there is a project there to show them the proper ways to harvest and protect the mangrove. If memory serves me right I think this is the only government protected environmental site. It is illegal to harvest in many parts. We then took boats through all the trees and rivers. Unfortunately, Imani and Waly’s cameras both fell into the water at the bottom of the boat. Waly’s survived after rice treatment but Imani’s didn’t. One concerning note however…there was a boy scooping water out of the bottom of our boat the whole time. Not a very well constructed boat. It was a fun ride and the weather was perfect. Our boat lead some singing and shenanigans. And when people went pee there was a HUGE super cool lizard in the trees. I don’t think I got a good picture so that’s too bad but it’s still cool.
Lunch is served…really late. Yassa poulet definitely for lunch and it was really good. I enjoyed my lunch a lot. After lunch we had a Djembé and dance lesson at the hotel. A professional group who travels through Senegal came and showed us how to play this type of drum and two women showed us how to dance. It was fun and it was good to get some exercise! Kinda stretches you out after a day in the van and the next day in a boat. We got sandwiches to tide us over until our late dinner and headed out to see the troupe play in town. The show was really interesting. There were women dressed in men’s clothing who started off the night with their dances. They pulled us up to dance with them. They went around shaking our hands after that. One woman kept repeating photo to me and I didn’t get it. Finally I was like a photo with me?? Hence why I have a photo with a woman dressed all funny on facebook. She then wanted to be best friends and gave me a very soggy kiss on the cheek. It was cute though. Then the djembés started and the dance group began to dance. They had some really interesting dances and it’s not totally different than the stuff they brought you too in middle school at the Flynn theater in Burlington but it’s different because I’m actually in Africa. There was fire breathing and acrobatics and a guy on stilts. All of this seemed to be for us toubabs and a bit like a carnival. It was a lot of fun. I was also really tired once again. Two LONG LONG days in a row. We got back to the hotel and had dinner around 9:30ish. We started with some shrimp filled fried thing which was good. Then we had fish and mashed potatos of sorts. I didn’t eat the fish but I LOVED the mashed potato deal! I was so excited. It’s my favorite comfort food. We had the option to go to another lutte in the village but we were all tired. I went to bed after dinner and had the worst dream every. I had the most vivid dream of a house burning down…anyways that’s getting off topic. Although it is spooky that Ballard’s, a store from my home town, had burnt down the night before. I found that out on Sunday when I got back and read my email. Kinda spooky.
Anywho. Saturday was a serious change from the modern comforts of a cozy hotel to the real world of a small Senegalese village. Now when I say small I mean you can see all the houses. They are all centered around the mosque. These are the huts and houses you read about in National Geographic. Waly was born in the village so it was really cool to see how they received him with our huge group. It was also reassuring because it means he knows all the families. We left the hotel at 9am and drove south towards the village. On our way, each student bought bread as a gift for our village host family since they can’t make bread in the village and it is a long walk to get it. I think we got there around 10:30. There was a large group there to greet us. At first it was all women and children, but then some men joined the group as well. We danced once again with the women and children. A large group of children had to go back to school after the dancing. I was the first to get a family! I was a little shocked for some reason lol. After a few words with the chief woman and the chief man of the village, Waly told me I would be staying with the woman who is the leading lady of the village. I don’t know how to spell her name but I think it was something like Anta Chiop? I grabbed my backpack off the bus and three bottles of water from Korka and off I went. My first thought was that this was going to be a LOONGGG day and it was going to drag. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My host mom lead me around their house. It was a cement structure that was fairly well built. It had a front stoop surrounded by about five rooms. She showed me where to put my stuff. Then she gave me a tour of the shower area and the toilet. Now by toilet I really mean a hole in the ground. At a young age I was traumatized from peeing outside or by squatting. On a trip back from the drag races with my dad and brother, I tried to pee outside and didn’t quite get the concept because I was pretty little. I peed on myself and have not been a fan of peeing outside ever since. I must also say that there was really nothing to lean against which makes this twice as hard. My method was to just sit on the damn cement. F*** it. And yes I used toilet paper. Totally biodegradable. Moving on….
Let me try and explain the “family” dynamic here. I had my host mom and there were two little girls and a teenage girl at first. There soon popped up several little boys and a baby girl with a name that sounded like Georgia. That’s the only name I really remember besides my host moms. There then was another woman about my host mom’s age and an older gentleman which I was told is my host dad. I figured out, and believe I am correct, that this is my host dad and these two women are his wives and these kids are their many kids. There is also another couple who live in a house in our complex of sorts. Her name sounded like Sona? She did most of the cooking which took most of the day.
I started out with introductions and such. Then Sona got me to help her cook. First we went to the field with something like a paint can with a hole cut in the side. She put a large stick (it looks like a giant cotton swab if cotton swabs were wood) into the can and shoved some wheat/hay looking stuff around it. This made an L shaped path between the hole in the top and the hole in the side. To cook, you shove burning wood into the hole in the side and the fire rises up the makeshift shaft. Me being terrified of fire wasn’t too fond of this method but it works. We cooked chebujen. Fried the fish, cooked the rice. I didn’t help with all of it because every now and then the family would pull me away to introduce me to someone or take a walk around the village. Lunch was good and simple. The men ate off one plate and the women off another. They tried to hand be a spoon but I told them “Begg naa lekke loxo” = I want to eat with my hands. I’m only in the village once so why not? Everything else was already so unsanitary I couldn’t see it getting much worse. They did have a bowl of water to wash our hands in and they gave me soap to wash my hands after the meal. I took a walk around the village. There was a large group of our students in back of one of the houses preparing a HUGE amount of food. We later found out it was for a wedding reception of sorts? Then I was told to go home and help cook. I sit at home for a while and help cut up onion. Dangerous without a cutting board let me tell you. As we are chilling in the front yard Sona catches a chicken, ties it’s feet and shoves it under a bucket. The chicken had been bugging some stuff so I figured that was why they put it under the bucket. Then they do this to a second chicken…it all starts to make sense to me now.
My dinner is now thrashing under said bucket. Lovely. Even better yet I got to pluck them once they were boiled a bit. Plucking the chicken isn’t bad. If I picked it up its head would kinda wiggle and the stuff in its neck would stretch out. Yucky. I also wasn’t too keen on picking their butt feathers. Just sayin. I don’t want anything to do with chicken butt. I also got to watch Sona peel the chicken feet. Yep I ate chicken feet meat folks. Not half bad if I do say so myself. As we’re plucking chickens the children are helping…mostly. They tore the heads off the chickens and plucked the heads so I didn’t have to. Then the small boy tried to eat the raw neck innards. That’s a no-no. Thank god I know how to say no in Wolof. Did I mention these families only speak Wolof? No French. Very difficult day as far as language goes. Anywho, I then get to help Sona cut the chicken up and I watch her rip out the not-to-be-eaten parts of the chicken. This whole time I’m thinking: as much as I loathed bird class with Prof Witmer at least I got to dissect a pigeon as a precursor to this interesting ordeal. And I was even able to identify the majority of the parts! Yay me! And I never thought bird class would come in handy.
After chicken innards, I got to wash an extraordinary and irritating amount of lettuce. This took forever and there were lots of bugs involved. I’m glad we washed the lettuce twice but it was a damn tedious process. No one helped me with that but I was glad I could help Sona. She had done the majority of this cooking on her own all day with just the help of me and a few of the kids. Also cooking in their cooking hut was a little piece of hell. When she fried the fish for chebujen I near about died from smoke inhalation and my eyes were burning. I was so thankful she cooked the chicken for dinner outside. I couldn’t stand cooking in that hut. So dark descends and it’s about 8:30ish and we eat dinner. It’s lettuce with chicken and onion sauce. It was really good and I enjoyed having the salad. The family is so funny they kept saying “lekkal lekkal lekkal” which is the imperative form for eat. Eat! Eat! Eat! I was fairly certain I was going to explode or turn into a head of lettuce. Jen and her host mom wandered into the complex and soon after that it was family meeting time!
The students got together in a group with Waly and Korka. We had some fruit over an interesting conversation about our families. I didn’t have any concerns but simply a question of whether or not the families were coached not to ask for our numbers. There was one boy about 18 years old who kept making underhanded comments about other students who had visited and how they had left their numbers written on the wall of the house (which is their version of a rolodex). He spoke French though so that was a nice break from the brick wall that is Wolof. Other people had some concerns but nothing major. I think it was a lot to take in all at once for all of us. I guess I can’t speak for others but it was a great learning experience but also very exhausting.
After the family meeting we went back to my village house for all the women and children and students to dance again. I think we might have been the only house with electricity? There were rumors that other houses were getting or had solar panels. I thought that was really nifty that they have solar panels. We can’t even implement them in the U.S. but these village folks are doing just fine with them. Anyways, we were all tired and some people were feeling sick so the night didn’t last too long. We kicked up some serious dust and called it a night.
So my host house had rather large beds and I knew they had to be shared. I shared mine with the teenage girl in the family. Nana if you thought I was a violent sleeper you should have tried to sleep next to this girl. (My Nana always told me I kick a lot when I sleep over at her house as have other friends I’ve had to share beds with). This girl was like 5’10” and all skin and bones but she was bound and determined to take up the whole damn bed! I got in first and chose the edge which was the worst possible idea in the world! She would roll over and smack me, she’d kick me. One time I got an elbow to the face and then I almost got shoved off the edge! It was also really cold and she was a blanket hog. Good thing I’m pretty much equal to her at blanket hogging it up. So it wasn’t the most restful night of sleep but it wasn’t the worst either.
Breakfast was some questionable couscous stuff. Not like the couscous you’re thinking of. This stuff is like eating sand. Not very tasty either. We had some peanut type sauce on it which was a nice touch but nothing can make sandy couscous jazz taste good. The most exciting part of my morning was the REAL MILK fresh from the cow. Thank Allah for cows in the village! I am so sick of this powdered milk bullshit at home. I was thrilled to have real milk and they gave me like 3 glasses of it AND it didn’t make me sick…as far as I know.
As I was getting ready to change and head for the bus, my family surprised me with a lovely gift. They had me change into traditional clothing and I thought it was just to take pictures of me. These people loved taking pictures and having pictures taken. They were just tickled pink with my camera at their disposal. I say I am going to Dakar today because that’s the only way I can manage to say I need to change before I leave but they say it’s okay. I asked if it is a present in French. I ask “cadeau”? and they just sort of repeated me so I think that’s what they meant. They gave me a skirt and shirt that are white and green. They are a little tattered and the shirt was WAAAYY too tight over my boobs but it is a really sweet gift. They really have nothing to give and they gave me these clothes. I thought it was great. I did change on the bus though because I couldn’t really take full breaths my boobs were squished so tight. I’ll have to have my tailor fix that up. Maybe he can insert some fabric into the side seams. Off we go to the bus.
The bus ride was so long. It took literally all day to get back to Dakar. Well first we stopped at the gardens for the village we were just in. They have these gardens along the edge of the river. They eat some of the goods grown there but they sell most of them. It was interesting enough to stop quickly. Then we went to the Gambian border because we were already right there. It was good to see this because I’m going to Gambia for spring break. I got a feel for the amount of harassment I will get and where to check into the country and get a short term visa or whatnot. I was super tired at this point. We went on our way to Kaolack for lunch which was yassa poulet…again. It was good but I’m pretty sick of yassa poulet at this point. It was also good to see a nice restaurant in Kaolack since I will be there one night during spring break as well. Then all the way back to Dakar. The car rapide home was a crock of shit since the guy shorted us our change. He must have thought we were tourists with all our bags. He was a jerk about it but I think we were all too tired to fight to hard. I came home and stopped by the tailor. He finished my dress!!!! I had bought fabric at the social forum and found a faux wrap dress picture I like. He did a good job and it was a nice little treat to end my weekend. I promptly showered as soon as I got let into my damn house which took forever too because my host sister was in the shower and Muhammad wouldn’t open the damn door. I felt so gross…I took a shower and washed my hair and unpacked. It feels good to be home but it was also a really cool trip.
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