On the road

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On Friday night, Papi and I went to the airport to pick up Luke, who came to visit me for Fall Break. Even though we got there later than I planned, we still had to wait around a while before he came out. I was bored and thinking about the kids I volunteer with, so I tried to get Papi to teach me some kid songs in Wolof or in French. To give him an example of what I was wanting, I sang the ABC’s. He got so embarrassed! I guess being with a singing white girl in the middle of a crowd is too much for a 12 year old. I felt like my mom. She loved to embarrass me when I was that age.. and still loves it, in fact.

Finally I saw Luke come around the corner carrying my backpack and wearing his own pack. I grabbed him and went hunting for the taxis because the airport is a too hectic a place to hang around. After haggling over the fare, we set off in a taxi for my house. I introduced him to my host parents and our maids, and then they fed him fried chicken for dinner (oddly enough, this is an all too frequent meal at my house). Then, because I am cruel and Luke said he was up for it even though he hadn’t slept in a couple of days, we set off for the Elton gas station.

We met my roommate Lauren there, who was hanging out with a bunch of Senegalese guys and one Senegalese girl. They were sitting around drinking on the side of the road, probably because all the clubs and bars are pretty dead during Ramadan. We sat around for a while and then the guys decided they wanted to go. So we followed them even though we had no idea where we were going. It turns out they are students at Suffolk too and were taking us to their dorm. Their dorm rooms were surprisingly nice, and even had air conditioning. Lauren and I were so jealous! All we have is in our room is a decrepit fan. Anyway, everyone was sitting around on the beds drinking and smoking and listening to music. For a while, Luke and I just sat around marveling at how identical dorm life is everywhere. But then the room starting filling up with smoke, and we all know how I love that.

We left and took the long way home so that I could give Luke a middle-of-the-night tour. He got to see the outside of my school, my grocery store, and the smelly dump I walk past twice a day. Since my host parents didn’t offer to let him sleep in the spare bed at our house, I had arranged for him to stay at Sahnah’s house, because her hosts don’t care who stays there. But by this time it seemed too late to call her, and we had less than 3 hours until we needed to head to the bus station. Luke just conked out upright on my couch, with a movie playing front of him. I figured if my parents woke p, I’d tell them I had just wanted to watch a movie before Luke left for Sahnah’s. While Luke slept, I packed and showered and played with all the awesome stuff my amazing parents sent me.

At 4:45 AM we set out with our backpacks to another gas station, where we met Mia, Libby, Hayden, and Zodiac. We split a couple of taxis to the bus station. When we got out of the cabs, about 20 men surrounded us and started telling us to come this way or that way and that they were the fastest or cheapest or most reliable. We had no idea what we were doing, and it was totally overwhelming.

We had planned to share a sept-place, a hatchback holding 7 passengers. Ignoring the guys trying to sell us bus tickets, we finally figured out which guy was the pimp selling rides in the sept-places. We were trying to figure out what the hell the pimp was saying in his weird French and simultaneously trying to discuss between ourselves how much we should pay. Amidst all that confusion, this crazy man came up to us and tried to grab our water bottles out of our hands. The drivers, worried about losing customers, violently pushed the crazy man away. He got mad, pulled a long florescent bulb out of the trash, smashed the end on the ground to make a jagged edge, and started trying to hit the drivers. While we white kids huddled up against the cars and tried to be inconspicuous (ha!), the drivers managed to get him to drop the light and become interested in standing in the middle of the road singing at the top of his lungs into a flashlight.

We continued haggling and finally agreed on a price for a sept-place, . The pimp disappeared of a while then reappeared and led us through a maze of cars and busses. He reached the car he was headed for, I saw the driver slip the pimp the equivalent of 20 bucks. I guess that was the pimp’s price for finding a car full of passengers. While we were trying to get all of our bodies and luggage into the car, the pimp starts asking me, “Didn’t I help you, finding you a good car for a good price?” etc. Considering he started off at double the normal price and was still over-charging us, I smiled and told him that I didn’t think he was trying to help us and that I wasn’t going to give him a cadeau (gift/bribe/tip). He made us sit there another 10 minutes or so while he and his friends told us through the windows that we had to pay him before we could leave. We refused and they finally let us go.

The 8+ hour ride was uneventful except that the driver was the crankiest Senegalese I have ever met. He wouldn’t respond when we tried to make conversation, and he refused to stop and let us pee. (And Carrie and Ryan thought I was a toilet nazi!) He finally allowed us one stop (keep in mind we’d been drinking tons of water in the heat). He stopped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We pushed through the bushes lining the road and into the grassy field, and then peed in a line.

We got to Tambacounda around 3 or 4 and decided to go all the way to Kedougou. (Click on the map of Senegal in the bottom left corner of this webpage to see where these cities are. They are in the south-east corner of the country.) To go to Kedougou, we wanted to take another sept-place, but got surrounded by men yelling to be heard over each other, all wanting us to go with them. We were confused and having hard time understanding and eventually ended up piling into the back of a minibus that was “about to leave” because it was “already full”. We sat there roasting in the metal oven for a good hour while the driver found another 5 or so passengers to cram in. In the mean time, the apprentis (assistants to the driver) climbed up and down the bus piling luggage on top. One of them stepped on the door too hard, and it fell off! They had to tie it back on with a bunch of rope. So between the stifling heat, the ridiculous number of people, and the fact that we were tied in, I was feeling pretty close to a panic attack.

Fortunately, and for no apparent reason, they decided to move all 40 of us and our luggage to different though same-sized bus. We sat there for a while, then we drove a few blocks to the gas station. We sat there awhile, didn’t get gas, then drove back to the bus station. Eventually we left for real. Even though the road was good, we drove excruciatingly slow, stopping at nearly every village to change passengers or cargo. Then, because it’s Ramadan, we stopped to break the fast. But for some reason we stopped an hour before sunset, so we ended up waiting around for about an hour and a half. We set off again, and a little while later our tire blew. Everyone piled out and sat on the side of the road while they changed it.

The only lucky thing about our choice of vehicle was that we rode with a former Peace Corps volunteer from the area. When we finally arrived, she showed us where to stay and eat. The campement (basically a hotel owned by the whole village) was nice. It had lots of plants around, and the rooms were individual circular bungalows. We were all starving, so we went across the street to a restaurant that is actually a hut. We got some rice and unknown meat that was too spicy for me, and then we went back to the campement to crash.

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Photos

The sept-place
This is the car the 6 of us took to Tambacounda. It still felt crowded, even though there was one less person than normal.

First view of Tambacounda
This is a picture from the window of the sept-place of Tambacounda.

Another view of Tambacounda
Here's another picture of Tambacounda from the window of the sept-place.

Random village
This is one of the villages we drove through in the minibus. Most of the buildings in the rural area have thatched roofs. Some are round like these, and some are square.

Me waiting
Here's me waiting on everybody to hurry up and finish breaking the fast so we can get to Kedougou and sleep. It was a long day...

Broken down minibus
And we stop yet again.

Comments

[Wheeler]

Thank GOD, we found a car going to Kedougou to pick up someone else there, and are going in that. We do have to take a sept place to Toubab Diallo back....hope it's better than that one.