Blogs from Tambacounda Region, Senegal, Africa

Dear All, Thank you to those who have left us messages either on the blog or via jdpafrica@hotmail.com. It sounds a bit cliched, but it is great to hear about everything, even if it is snow or night shifts! We honestly derive no pleasure at all, none, from hearing about the ongoing winter in England.....! We have just passed the 50 day point and are celebrating our 3 month wedding anniversary overlooking the river Gambia. Ironically, the "campement de lion" menu tonight has served up Jo's nightmare meal of really bony fish, onions and rice, but she has been entertained by a baby monkey, so things are not too bad..... I have started the tropical medicine textbooks in an attempt to not look like a complete idiot, and have, to put it mildly, instilled a certain ... read more

Hitching a ride out of Nuakchott took all of two minutes, and the very helpful Mauritanian soldier who offered a ride ended up walking me straight through his country’s notoriously tricky customs in no time at all. Arriving in the bustling Senegalese border town of Rosso would have been intimidating if it hadn’t been for my Nuakchott friend Merina, whose older brother’s daughter (but not his niece) was waiting to guide me to their lovely home near the town center. A note on family relations: it is easy for a Westerner to get confused! A man not only calls his biological dad “father”, but also all the brothers and half brothers of his dad can also be father (meaning all his uncle’s kids are brothers and sisters, instead of regular cousins), and even the friends of ... read more

Le 22 juillet 2007 (July 22, 2007) I still have to figure out whether I want to write in French or in English. I think that I have to ponder about the purpose of my blog. Do I want to perhaps publish it through Cabrini, or show it to my future employers by settling with the English language? Or do I want true self-satisfaction by expressing myself in French? Naturally, the French population is a minor one in the USA, so if I picked French over English, and my journal were to be published, I doubt many a people would read it. I think that I have to appeal to my heart and not what I consider right in terms of the United States standards. I believe that Americans strongly appreciate assimilation that an alien “should” ... read more

We took a break from the hustle and bustle of Kedougou and decided to bike up to the falls. We made our way through many small villages along the way, and were immersed into the completly rural side of the Kedougou area. Everyone we passed gave us a smile, and the kids look at us like we were from another planet. The falls themselves were very immpressive. It was like being in a giant's shower for the day. We could hardly see the top, and the water was actually cold!!... read more

Cape Verde-Dakar-Petite Cote_Sine Saloum Delta-TambacoundaTom Griffith Senegalese bus journeys are stressful enough, without a mad, drunk, Sierra Leonean musician shouting abuse at you, as you struggle to squeeze into a tiny seat, clutching your oversized backpack. We had somehow picked up this mad guy, who was drinking beer for breakfast, at our hotel, and when he saw my guitar he decided he was going to teach me how to play No Woman No Cry 'the way Bob played it', and follow us to wherever we were going that day, even though our destination happened to be 50 kilometres down the coast away from where he was staying. Luckily for us, he was on crutches, so we managed to shake him off on the way from the hotel, but hecaught up with us at the bus stop, ... read more