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Published: February 8th 2007
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On the Plane
On our way to Paris! Well, I have way too much to say in one entry, so I'll try to start from the beginning. Basically, it took us a really long time to get here, and we got very little sleep. When we got to Dakar, Senegal, it was nighttime. We stepped out of the plane. It was humid and it smelled like smoke. The ground was packed sand. Immediately, I knew I was in Africa, even though I didn't really believe it. It smelled like I thought Africa would smell. Once we got through customs was when we really realized we were in Africa. It wasn't the fact that Black people were everywhere that shocked me. It was that there were so many people everywhere trying to help you (get money) or talk to you (get money) or buy something (get money). Women carried things on their heads. People came up to us and tried to sell us fruit. Africans were smooshed up against a rope waiting for people getting off the plane. It was surreal. We stacked our bags on top of a van and roped them down, then drove to the Fana Hotel. (See the galleries)
It was probably the most interesting
Over France
It was pretty cool seeing France from the air, even if we didn't actually get to go out into it (in a good way) hotel I've ever stayed in. The main thing about that night was that I froze the first night I was in Africa. They turned the air conditioner on full blast and since it was above the door, we couldn't get to it to turn it down. Now that was ironic (Jodi!).
So the next day, we drove in the van down through Senegal and into the Gambia. When we would stop, many people would come up to the van, and because it was hot and we had the window open, they would stick their hands in and try to sell us stuff, especially peanuts and cashews. Also, they would ask us for things like pens, chapstick, or money. It was hard to get used to, but you learn quickly what to say to them and how to act. We had one of our professors with us, an African American woman, who was proposed to many times. The best one was right before we got on the ferry to Banjul, where this guy was singing and dancing and trying to get her out of the car. It's just very different here. Especially for people that we
met while in the van, the girls had to let them know that we're married, because otherwise they try to set up a relationship with you. (And some still do anyway.) Also, it's important for you to keep your bags closed because they could see what we had and would ask for it.
The thing that struck me most about the drive down was the amount of animals everywhere. In Dakar, there were a lot of horses and goats. Along the way, there were cows and goats everywhere. It makes sense that there were so many, but I just didn't expect it. The roads are decent where they're paved and bumpy where they're not, but, because I was prepared for a bumpy ride, it wasn't too bad.
We waited at least 3 hours for the ferry, just because we were in a big van, and there was limited space for cars. We got across eventually, and then we drove to our house.
It is a lot nicer than I thought it would be, but there are some differences between here and home. The house is in a compound, which means that it is with 2 other houses
surrounded by a wall. So, to get in, you open the metal gate on the wall. Then you go to a metal gate that covers our front porch. Then you open our door to our house. You enter into a decently big room, maybe the size of a room in a dorm, which has a couch and bookshelf on the right and two tables on the left. If you walk straight through, you come to the kitchen, with a fridge and freezer, table and shelves for food, tableware, pans etc, a sink, and a propane stove. Now, if you're in the big room and you go left, there's a hallway. On the left and right are our bedrooms and straight ahead is the bathroom. In each bedroom, there are three beds and a dresser. In the bathroom is a sink, toilet, and bath/shower thing. The bath/shower thing is like a shower in the middle of the bathroom. There's no shower curtain, but there's a tiled ditch in the floor for the water. The shower usually doesn't have enough water pressure, so we use the bath thing, which is like a sink, but about 3 feet high. The water is not
First Day with a Skirt
Kelly and I at the Fana Hotel hot, but you can get it to be between lukewarm and cool, so that's okay. The toilet takes some getting used to, because instead of just pressing the handle down once, like in the States, you need to pump it up and down a couple of times until the pressure builds up. Also, all the handles on the sinks are backwards, so when I come back, I'll be really confused.
To sum up the travelling, it took a really long time, and it would have been shorter to fly from Baltimore to Banjul, but I'm glad we had to drive down through because I got a better sense of the place. Until next time . . .
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Christa
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I miss you Laura
Thanks for that update Laura. It sounds really interesting and I love the pictures. I love the way you write.