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Published: June 20th 2006
So far I have been trying to give you at least a feel of my life here in Dakar as I know it. However, we have had the opportunity over the last few weeks to take a couple of side trips to some nearby places outside of Dakar that I thought I would give you a bit of info and share some pictures on. I apologize in advance for the length and any ‘soap box’ messages given.
I guess it has been over 3 weeks ago now, when we decided to take our first weekend trip. We had (yes, yet another) holiday the first week of June, so we decided to take advantage of it and visit Saint Louis. Saint Louis is about 4 hours north of Dakar, also on the west coast of Senegal. It is very close to the border of Mauritania. Although it is still in the ‘Savannah’ zone, like all of Senegal, it is closer to the Sahara which brings much more of a desert feel to the area. First of all, in case I have not already made clear…any form of travel here in West Africa is not easy. Getting to Saint Louis was an
Riding the dunes!
Very fun...but dirty. We got up to 50km/hr at one point!adventure in itself as, much unlike Europe, S. America, and other places I have visited…you can’t just find a train or bus ticket. So instead we woke up early Saturday morning and made our way to Gare Routiere. This is a CRAZY area where hundreds upon hundreds of worn down Peugeot car drivers await their next victims. The Peugeot is basically like a mini-station wagon…and holds 7 passengers (notice I did not add ‘comfortably’). The process is to go to this place, try to negotiate yourself the best price possible (we of course get offered rates 5 times anyone else), and then wait for enough other people to fill the car up so you can be on your way. Now I have heard that this process can last hours. We were lucky, although it was way too chaotic for me, we were in and out within the hour. The drive was very long, crowded, and as most things here, we never really knew where we were going…but it was interesting nonetheless. I never seem to be bored by the sights on the sides of the streets or the buses passing by with tons of people - and Madonna stickers everywhere,
Beach time
Seriously, not kidding...they just take a seat nearby and stare. No effort to make it at least appear like they are looking somewhere else! or cars with sheep riding on top of them! Four-plus hours later we arrived in Saint Louis. Although very similar to Dakar, it definitely had a different feel as the buildings downtown were more colonial in style and there were some nice bridges getting you across the Saint Louis river. We stayed at a great place right on the beach. Unfortunately whenever we had to go to and from, we had to pass the local dried fish market….definitely not my favorite smell. During the days, we really just wanted to relax, so spent most of our time just lying on the beach. That is, for as long as we could until we could no longer handle the passer byes that no matter how much you ignored or asked them to go away, would just sit down near you, try to talk or just lay down and stare. I won’t get into further details…but that part wasn’t fun. At least we could just get up and leave and enjoy the pool at our place. In the evenings we enjoyed wandering around the town, finding good places to eat and shop. We also went that weekend because it was the annual jazz
Precious
Maliek was the sweetest little baby.. festival for Senegal. The festival was nice but, like everything here, it got started a couple hours later than we expected…and we were all pretty beat by the time the first band was done. (I know…I’m so old!).
The one other thing we were able to do in Saint Louis was go ‘quading’ (i.e. 4 wheeling) in the sand dunes. This was the first time I felt like I was in the Africa that I had expected to see. No…there were no animals (a couple camels I guess..but that is about it)…but it was just miles and miles of desert with the occasional Baobab trees that are so famous to Africa. Kids would see/hear you coming and would come running to try and get a chance to wave, it was very cute.
All in all it was a very good trip, until the ride home….we met a very nice guy who offered to drive us back to Dakar on Monday. He had a great car (all things relative) and it wasn’t much more $$ than trying to deal with that 7 seater car so we went for it. Unfortunately, we were not thinking when we chose what time we wanted
Just look at those smiles
The kids were hams for the camera to leave…we left around 3. I am sure most of you all know that is the hottest part of the day, meaning sitting in the back of a taxi with no a/c at the height of Africa heat was not the best move. I was by the window (you would think a good thing), but literally thought my face was going to melt off as the hot ‘air of fire’ came blowing in. We finally realized that we were better off baking inside of the car with windows up. We were afraid to fall asleep as we thought we may never wake back up…yes, it was that hot....so I made up stupid car games to keep us entertained (i.e. I am going to Africa and I'm bringing...). To top it all off, our driver had this one cassette tape that he loved that unfortunately only had ONE song on it…on both sides! So we listened to the same song for 4 hours straight. Sometimes I catch myself humming it as I go to sleep….so sad.
Our second road trip from Dakar was last week. We had the opportunity to go to Thies a town about an hour away where
Plan Senegal has a couple different community projects going on. As we work in the main country office, we do not get to see the programs in action on a day to day basis....so we were all very much looking forward to our day in the field. After meeting with some people in the office, we went to our first community visit. It was to a school for adolescent age girls of the community. These girls are chosen by their community leaders to get to be part of the program and learn ‘life skills’. While we were there they were learning how to sew. We had the opportunity to talk (through an interpreter of course) to a few of the girls and ask if they enjoyed the program and what they liked about it. With big smiles…they all said yes and one girl said “We were nothing, now we know what we can do and how to stay away from the things that are not good for us.” The question we were often asked was if we sponsored anyone. Some of these girls were once sponsored children, but they all come from communities that have sponsors. The fact of the
matter is, even if they were not sponsored children themselves, the money from those donors is used to run these programs…so they understand the importance.
Next, we went to another village where Plan had recently helped dig and create wells so that they can finally have a water supply (it really is amazing the things that we take for granted back home). The minute we got to the village we were surrounded by 60+ people…mostly children. They don’t often see toubabs (a term we get everywhere we go, meaning Europeans…white people), so they ALL had to come out to see what was going on. One woman handed her little baby boy to me, and I immediately fell in love. He spent the first few minutes just staring...but immediately was at home and fell asleep. The mother kept signing to me that I could just take him home with me…and believe me, if I thought possible, I probably would have. It just broke my heart to leave. The entire community was so happy and welcoming (Agnes had her camera, and they LOVED getting their pictures taken). It was hard to not just want to give them everything you had before leaving.
I just kept wishing that I had clothes, food, money…anything that could help make their lives easier. They were so appreciative for the water (which was going to be finished and working in a day or 2), but it was hard to not think of everything else that they need. I guess one step at a time. I know that when talking to the Plan employees, they said it is hard to prioritize which communities get what and when, because obviously the need is everywhere.
I have been sponsoring a child in Sri Lanka (through a different organization), but there is no way that I can leave and not sponsor a child here in Senegal. I spoke with the woman who handles all sponsorship activity for the office and was amazed at how they keep it organized (i.e. they take pictures of the children with the gift that their sponsor sends them, as well as all of their correspondence). I know we all have our causes or already have sponsored children…but in case anyone is looking for a good present in the near future, or want to see the cost of a couple dinners out each month go to a good place, I thought I would give you the link to Plan’s sponsorship site. Sorry, I know I sound like a cheese ball…but after seeing those children and how just these 2 programs are making a difference in their lives, it is hard for me not to at least share with you. (http://www.planusa.org/sponsorachild/)
Ok, I could go on and on…but you may all start boycotting my blogs in fear of boredom or worse…so I will call it a night. Everything else is going fine. Nicole and I have managed to figure out most things with the living situation and oddly enough this is really beginning to feel like home. We start French class this week (and may throw in some Wolof once a week as well)…so things are good.
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Maria
non-member comment
Now, I want to help sponsor. Any ideas of what organization to go through? And you're not boring at all. I look forward to your posts!