Kedougou Trip

Dedicated readers of my online journal: We meet again.
It’s nice to be back in the world of technology, but it was also really great just to be disconnected for a while and only rely on what was readily available. I shall now tell you the details of our trip to Kedougou. (We students have decided that this trip is really just a big reality show and on the last day we’ll be told everyone was acting and all the “WTF” moments (if you don’t know what “WTF” means, that’s probably for your own good) were planned. So I kind of picture this whole trip as a soap opera. That could also be because of the incessant presence of soap operas in my life. Or also possibly because I’m writing this at 2AM after 20 hours of sitting on a bus with a broken air conditioner. Anyway,) Ready? Go.

Day 1: Friday

I got up early so I could get to school on time to leave for Kedougou—it’s always questionable whether there will be taxis available so, because of the threat that “Clint (one of the students) will beat up anyone who is late (but if Clint is late, everyone will beat up Clint),” I made sure to go out extra early…and ended up getting to school around 7:10. The bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until 8, so that’s why I got to post my last lovely blog entry before leaving. But as everything here happens at least an hour after it was planned to happen, we didn’t leave Dakar until after 9. Is this important to my story? No. So we drove for 4 or 5 hours before stopping for lunch in a city called Kaolack, the 3rd biggest city in Senegal (after Dakar and Thiès). Luckily I slept a TON because I hadn’t really slept the night before—a not-previously-planned but pleasantly surprising preparation for this trip. After lunch we drove some more and then stumbled upon the Worst Road I Can Possibly Imagine: Part 2. I don’t know if you remember last time I mentioned a bad road, it was after visiting Mariam (another sister)’s house. That one lasted for 5 minutes. This one lasted for…8 hours? Somewhere around there. I was terrified the whole time that we were going to tip over. We decided at about 4 PM that it was time for a flat tire! It happened right outside this little village where every single child came rushing out to see the toubabs. It was a really strange experience for me; the kids were just all over us, wanting to touch our skin, shake our hands, get our cell phone numbers (yes, in a rural village) (people here are INSANE with their cell phones, maybe I’ll explain sometime but that’s another story), get their pictures taken, etc. They acted like we were celebrities. That lasted for about an hour, and finally we were back on the road. After much more driving the driver realized one of the tires was loose. We pulled over and had another little rest, wished for food for about an hour, and continued on our way. We arrived at our BEAUTIFUL hotel in Tambacounda, “Hotel l’Oasis,” around midnight (so that means our drive lasted about 15 hours). The rooms were little huts with air conditioning, TV’s, showers/bathrooms, etc. (oh. I was sharing a room with Erin, and we were really really excited to take our first warm showers since we’ve been here, but found out that our water didn’t work. We asked the hotel guy to look at it, and he turned a knob outside of our hut and water just came POURING out of the ceiling. So after a few times trying the same thing, he moved us to a different room.) We had a lovely huge dinner, some people swam in the pool, I took a shower and went to bed.

Day 2: Saturday
We departed Tambacounda around 9AM to head towards Kedougou. I would have loved to stay at the beautiful hotel longer and maybe swim/relax some, but we were just so excited to start driving again. After 4-5 more hours we arrived at Campement Nieriko in Kedougou!! After lunch we visited the Bedik village I’d later be staying in (Indar) and hiked up to Etchwar, the other Bedik village at the top of the mountain. That was beautiful and it was really nice to get into nature again, it’s been so long! We climbed up to the tippytop and went rock-hopping and saw a pretty view of Kedougou. After dinner we were all invited to a “Where the Wild Things Are”-themed party hosted by a couple of students: costumes required. I experimented with my mosquito net and sheets for a costume but eventually ended up doing my hair with some things found in nature and wearing a pagne my homestay sister let me borrow. That was cute/fun, we basically just sat around in a group of 8 or so girls and talked, since the only channel that worked on the TV was the “Angry Mosque Channel” (not the real name, don’t worry) and nobody had any music. Later, though, the bartender/waiter showed up looking for a charger someone had previously left in the room, and we asked him to bring us some music. He brought a little tape-player boom box thing but he kept it very very quiet since there were other clients in the next hut sleeping.

Day 3: Sunday
Side note: March 1st—that means we’ve been here a month!
After breakfast we boarded 4x4’s (quatre-quatres, said like “cat-cats,” teehee) to begin our 2-hour journey to Dindefello. Within the first 3 minutes the cat-cat ahead of us got a flat tire, so we sat for a while. My stomach decided that it didn’t really like pain au chocolate so I felt very sick for the first 7/8 of the drive—again, the worst roads I can possibly imagine (I’m seeing a trend here) but also accompanied by clouds of dust and incredible heat. When I stopped feeling sick it was really fun!! We arrived at Campement de Dindefello and began our hike. It was the lushest, greenest hike I have been on in quite some time! After about 20 minutes we arrived at possibly the most beautiful sight I have ever seen: les Cascades de Dindefello (Dindefello Waterfall). It was inexplicably gorgeous and peaceful (except that we were a group of 21 Americans seeing nature for the first time in a month) and we got to swim and bask in the glory of the beautiful sun and cool water for a while. After a much-too-short stay we descended for lunch and our trip back on the cat-cats. (I was not feeling sick this time and was in the open-air jeep one so it was much more of a fun adventure on the way back.) We then visited the Kedougou market and I purchased some Indigo fabric and some little gifts for my village homestay. It was a much different market than those in Dakar: much less stressful, people don’t hang on your body and try to get you to buy their things, you can usually walk through the pathways without squeezing through a blob of people…overall much more calm. After dinner that night as I was trying to close the door to my hut (that I shared with a girl named Lucy) and go to bed, a big spider crawled in after me. I was very scared and I’m sorry to say that I killed it. I apologize.

Day 4: Monday
We departed for our rural village homestays! We drove out to the farthest one and saw some people off, then dropped off a couple more people on the way to ours: Bedik at Indar. (Megan and Isa were dropped off with Alex and I because they were living at the top of the mountain and wouldn’t climb up until their families came down in the evening to meet them.) Alex (the student staying in my village with me) and I met our family: Mark and Veronique Keita, and their 4 kids: Vanessa (8), Fabian (5), Thierry (3) and Zita (18 months). These names were SO easy to remember, I’m used to having to try to learn Wolof names! Everyone in the Bedik villages has a Bedik name (based on their birth order, all the first-born boys are named the same, second-born boys are all the same, etc.) and a Christian name (they are Christian Animists). We spent the day talking with Marc and getting used to the intense heat and style of life in the village: a LOT of sitting around. A lot of the women were topless, and the ones who weren’t usually wore very loose shirts so they “fell out” a lot. There were a lot of kids running around naked/partially-clothed, many had the stereotypical protruding belly and bellybuttons (I could go into the state of health etc. in the village but I don’t really feel like it at the moment, I feel like it’d take a lot of reflection and I’m not in the state to do that at the moment, sorry). Our “maison” was cute, it was made up of 4 little huts: one that contained Alex’s room and the family’s room (I think they all sleep in the same bed even though there were many empty huts around), one for Senegalese students (there were a bunch of teenagers who are from other villages but stay with the Keitas in Indar during the week since it’s closer to the school), one for cooking, and one for me (or when I’m not there, also used by Senegalese students). In the middle of the little semicircle there was a HUGE mango tree! The mangos won’t be ripe until mid-March or so, so that was a little disappointing but it was still magical to lounge underneath a mango tree all day. After doing typical rural village things all day (lounging, chatting, visiting others, watching some yurts being built) we returned from a walk across the street to (drumroll please)… a bunch of people sitting around a television, watching the soap operas I thought I’d escaped!!! There’s an electricity generator in this village that apparently is only used for television and a couple lights, and only used at night. Why this is a necessity over other things in a rural life is beyond me. Anyway after some wonderfully awful dubbed soap operas I was given a tent, since the rooms are too hot to sleep in. So I slept in my tiny tent under the mango tree. Actually, I shouldn’t use the word “slept.” I more waited in fear as the possibly-rabid dogs fought merely feet from me and the 90-degree-even-at-midnight weather kept me constantly sweating. I also attempted to use the hole-in-the-ground toilet (a little different than the one in my Dakar home) but I was a little freaked out by the giant red cockroaches crawling out of it and over my feet. (Side note: This isn’t so bad after hearing that other people had to deal with rats crawling on them. I’m thankful for cockroaches.)

Day 5: Tuesday

I “woke up” (or rather exited my tent) very early and after lounging for a while and sharing some rice-slime with a Senegalese student, I was invited to go collect water with Veronique! (She never would have asked me to, but I had told Marc the day before that I really wanted to try it. She was too sweet and never wanted me to do anything even remotely difficult!) She pointed to a little white bucket I could carry, and then strapped Zita onto her back and picked up a big tub with 3 plastic jugs inside to put on her head, picked up 2 other plastic jugs for her hands, and then let me carry the remaining little jug along with my bucket. I felt quite ridiculous walking down the street next to her. We got to the pump where a few teenage boys were fooling around and collecting water, putting filled containers on a cart drawn by a donkey. I was surprised to see them let so much water go to waste, and also that they didn’t quit fooling around even though others were waiting to use the pump. I asked Veronique if there was always water there, even during the dry season, and she said yes; even though wasting water isn’t really a problem if it’s always available I was still surprised to see such a valuable resource lost in a setting like this. We waited for a while, letting some others go ahead of us, I played with Zita a little bit, and then it was our turn. I entered the cloud of bees (I thought of you, Grampy) that surrounded the pump and brought my two measly containers to be filled. Veronique let me try the pump but not for long, even though there was no difficulty involved. Just as I was wondering how we were going to carry back all the plastic jugs, Marc and Theirry showed up with a cart like the one the donkey was pulling before. We put the plastic jugs there and I got to carry my bucket on my head!! I held it the whole time with both hands and didn’t try to let it balance ( I was afraid of losing all the water and being really embarrassed), it hurt my neck just a little but I felt very accomplished and a little less useless. Walking back I saw Alex sitting with some guys at the town boutique, drinking palm wine at 9AM. (It’s obvious that the men here do barely any work—when asked about gender roles here, the first thing Marc said was that the women do ALL the work in the village, except for earning money.) A while after that Alex decided he was leaving the village—he had had a cold for a few weeks and the heat and dust certainly weren’t helping—so he called Souleye to come pick him up and he left the village. After playing marbles with Fabian and a Senegalese student (which took me forever to understand, by the way), Marc and I hiked up the mountain to visit a couple families, see the well up there (which could only be used very rarely, it’s not finished and keeps caving in—the women hike up and down the mountain twice a day to collect water from the pump at the bottom) and we met up with Megan and Isa for a bit to watch the sun set and then came back down for dinner. That night in the tent went better, with no rabid dogs and a tiny bit less heat. But during this day a big lizard, flies, bees AND cockroaches had jumped/flew/crept out of the toilet, so I decided not to try to use it in the dark.

Day 6: Wednesday

I got up early to hike the mountain and watch the sun rise with Megan. I hung out on the rocks some, there was a nice breeze and it wasn’t over 90 degrees yet so it was very enjoyable. Most of the rest of the day was spent doing a séance de coiffure: I got my hair braided! It took about 7 hours (that’s including breaks and lunch) but my derrière was quite sore by the end. I really like how it feels, it’s SO much cooler not having all my hair piled on my head all the time. Something funny happened during the braiding: two white tourists were visiting the village and saw me getting my hair braided, and practically ran over to ask if they could take pictures. It was very strange being the object of a tourist photo instead of the photographer. They even went back to their car to grab their other camera and take more pictures. Toubabs. After the braiding I really bonded with the kids for the first time! I had run out of drinking water so they walked me to the next village to buy some. We played a lot together (marbles, soccer, volleyball, etc) and then did some drawing and played cards after dinner. They were SO different from the kids I’ve encountered in Dakar—very gentle and sweet, less overwhelming, more shy, they listen and respond and don’t constantly attempt to hurt others. It was very enjoyable and made me really sad to be leaving the village the next day! That night it wasn’t nearly as hot as the others, I actually used my sheet for the first time!!! How pleasant. But the rooster decided to stand outside my tent and crow from 5AM until I came out…so that made up for the temperature.

Day 7: Thursday

The morning was spent packing my bags and hanging out with Marc, Megan and Isa until we got picked up. I was surprised how sad it was to be leaving; this family was just genuinely very nice and hospitable and enjoyable, a great host family. They made me feel very welcome and comfortable and included me in things! So it was sad to say goodbye; I gave Veronique a little bit of money for spending so much time doing my hair, and she gave me a couple necklaces as a gift and said I had to return to the village sometime. She’s really what a host mother should be like. Later in the day, after returning to the hotel and showering and napping, we went back to the market for a while, ate dinner, and slept. Nothing too exciting.

Day 8: Friday

The temperature was pretty brutal for our most difficult hike: the hike to the Iwol Bedik village at the top of a mountain. (Oh, and on the way our bus’s air conditioner broke and smelled very strongly of burning rubber. We have yet to take a more-than-20-minute-drive without a breakdown of some sort.) The hike was very steep the whole time and our group leaders do NOT like to take their time hiking to enjoy the view. Their favorite phrase is: “We’re burning daylight!” (and I liked the response of one of my classmates: “Daylight is burning US!”) The village was very cute, the chief told us a bit about it and then we went to the little schoolroom and had a couple students read what was on the chalkboard. We then climbed on the biggest baobab in the region, one person got stung by a wasp that, once it stings, sends out a signal to all the other wasps to swarm and follow that person…so that was interesting but the villagers got them to go away. Another person fell out of a tree because there were a bunch of ants that surprised him…but overall it was a fun little rest. We then visited the teeny-tiny market in the village where women sold their goods; I bought a couple little homemade things and then we hiked back down. Later we went to the Kedougou market again and I picked up the two skirts I had made, and bought some little gifts for my Dakar homestay family. (They make it a point to tell me all the nice things past students have done for them, I try to get them things to make them not hate me but I never know what they’ll actually use! So I bought some honey, which is made in Kedougou, and some baobob fruit to make juice because I know they like it.) We ate dinner and then hung out a while before getting dressed up in our new pagnes (wrap skirts) to go out dancing! We were about halfway to the night club walking when the person leading us decided to tell us that the night club wasn’t open that night, so he took us to a sketchy bar where it was at first a group of 21 Americans and one very drunk (I think), very creepy Senegalese man. More of these types of Senegalese men kept showing up, I felt extremely uncomfortable as they were very aggressive and instead of asking if you’d like to dance, they’d come up behind you and just start dancing on you or wrap their arms around you. I really had trouble with this and ended up yelling at two of them, pushing many away forcefully…I wanted to leave the second I got there but wasn’t allowed to walk back alone. After what seemed like HOURS some other people decided they’d like to leave so the four of us walked back with some guys who worked at our hotel. The only reason I had gone out really was so that I’d stay up late and be able to sleep on the bus the next day…so in that way the night served its purpose, but at the same time really made me re-think a lot of things about being a toubab in Senegal.

Day 9: Saturday

We got on the bus at 5AM to return to Dakar. The ride was going very smoothly for a great 12 hours (well, not “smoothly” because of the roads, but because the bus was surviving) until we got a flat tire. It was no big deal, it was fixed pretty quickly and the kids in this village were much more polite than the Wolof kids from the last flat-tire experience. We continued driving for a while and suddenly heard a loud POP and the flapping of rubber against the bottom of the bus. One of the back tires, fortunately one with another tire right next to it, had exploded! We stopped to check it out and while a couple of us got out a mat to lay in the cool breeze (I had forgotten that cool weather existed!) to watch the clouds/moon, some others decided to go for a walk, thinking it would take several hours to fix this problem. In fact in a couple minutes we decided to keep driving, so we could get it fixed in the next town. But that group of people had disappeared into the African savannah…so we spent quite some time yelling to them to no avail, beeping the horn of the bus, trying to call their phones…eventually they came back but it was scary to wonder what might have happened if it had been one or two people and no one had noticed they were gone. (Bouna hates waiting the extra 4 seconds to count and make sure everyone’s there on the bus, so I always do it and yell to him when someone’s missing, and it’s usually by the time the driver is beginning to pull away—Bouna then waits a while to tell the driver to wait…it’s annoying.) We got to the next town and waited at a gas station and had snacks while the tire was getting fixed, and finally, after a few more hours of driving, returned to SIT around 1AM. That means our trip took 20 hours. I got home and the door was luckily still unlocked, and Moussa greeted me and let me go straight to my room instead of trying to talk to me for a while (that was so very nice). I stayed up and wrote the first part of this blog entry because I wasn’t ready to go to bed (I had slept some on the bus), and went to bed around 3.

And now today is Sunday and I am tiiiired. (People here don’t care whether or not someone is still sleeping at 8AM after getting home late, they still slam doors that don’t need to be slammed and yell to people in other rooms and throw things etc.) I did my laundry earlier, I also had a big…I’m not sure what to call it: a misunderstanding, fight, conversation, breakthrough, “moment,” something—with my homestay mom. So that was fun…If we’re in touch through email you’ll probably hear about it but I don’t think it’s appropriate to post it here. Anyway later she came into my room with a gorgeous boubou (dress) she made for me, which was sweet. My first full traditional Senegalese outfit! I’m posting a picture of it but it’s not a very good picture because it’s not well-lit, but you’ll have to live with it, my friends.
Classes start again tomorrow (Monday), which will be really weird for me—I’m still having a lot of trouble realizing that this is supposed to be school. That said, we only have 3 ½ weeks left of classes, the first two including music/art workshops!! This week I’ll spend 4 days learning the Kora, and next week I’ll spend 4 days learning to Batik. Okay, it is time to part again; thanks for joining me! I sure do miss you all a bunch!

Maangi dem, ba beneen yoon! ☺