As you probably figured out from the title of this post, my family (specifically my mom and sister) came to visit me for a week here in Senegal. We had an awesome time together and it was an interesting trip from my perspective because I got to see other people taking in the sights I've come to know for the first time. Those of you who have the opportunity to talk to my family about their experience will probably find that their versions of our adventures might be slightly different, but I'll share some of the details about their trip from my point of view.
Two weeks ago Thursday, I traveled down to Dakar via my usual transportation (a sept place) so that I could find a place to stay for the night and leave to pick up my mom and sister from the airport early the next morning. During the trip to Dakar I sat next to a strange man who spilled his meat sandwich on me (and proceeded to eat the meat after picking it off my clothes) and who also placed a hard case behind my head so that every time the car slowed down the case would slide forward into my neck. After a few hours next to this man my patience was starting to wear thin, so when he kept trying to speak to me in English I would respond in French. I sometimes do this because I meet a lot of people here who either think I don't speak French or speak to me in English because they want to do practice their English. The thing is, I want to learn French, so I generally respond in French unless it's someone I know (that could be kind of prideful of me, not really sure, but it's what I do). So anyways, the man would say things like, I want your phone (he really meant my ipod) and then I would reply in French that it's really expensive. After I would say something in French he would look at me kind of strangely and say, "I don't speak French." What threw me off is that I heard him speaking in Wolof with the other passengers. Consequently, after a little bit of pondering my "shrewd" deductive skills allowed me to realize that this man was from Gambia, the small country located inside of Senegal whose languages are English and Wolof instead of French and Wolof like in Senegal. I kind of felt like a jerk when he told me that was true and I made conversation for a while until he informed me that he wanted a tubab wife, and we parted ways soon after. I thought that story was a nice example of how once again you have to either be completely aware of all the perspectives concerning an issue, or you should proceed with caution... especially when abroad and representing your country.
Back to my mom and sister though, Thursday night I eventually rolled into our hotel around 8 pm looking very disheveled and carrying a huge hiking backpack. Upon entering the hotel I was extremely disoriented because I had stepped into an upscale place after I had just come from one of the more dysfunctional parts of Senegal, which is the "bus depot" for lack of a better translation. More specifically, I think I was experiencing a bit of culture shock but more along the lines of what it will be like when I go back to the U.S. The women behind the concierge desk seemed to notice as well because they brought me some juice in a champagne glass to make me feel less awkward? Fortunately, in a relatively short amount of time I was in our hotel room with hot, running water! A few hours later, at 4 am, the hotel shuttle and I arrived at the airport to try and find some lost looking Americans. The hotel turned out to be a pretty sweet deal because they had their own waiting room, but that meant that the very specific directions for the airport that I emailed to my mom wouldn't go according to plan. Consequently, I stood outside of the gated arrival area looking for them, and when they came out I had to scream my sister's name 10 times to get her to turn around because my mom took off at a run out the door of the airport. hahaha, it was so funny! A funny detail about our hotel in Dakar, the room was actually supposed to have two single beds and you could have them bring in a rollaway bed. As it turns out, two single beds actually means one really really big bed, so the three of us comfortably shared a bed.
Friday we visited Goree island, one of the islands off the coast of Dakar formerly used for slave trading. We walked all around the island, toured the slave house, and had a nice lunch of shrimp and local juices. Obviously my mom and sis were pretty tired so we spent the rest of the evening at the hotel and went to bed early. Apparently they didn't sleep too well because they were woken up by the call to prayer from the mosques, I remember those days... Saturday we toured the area were I lived with my host family and where the Baobab center is located. The tour also included a trip to our favorite little grocery store and lunch at the restaurant with hamburger complets and crepes filled with ice cream! Saturday afternoon was spent at the pool and then we dined at a really great restaurant featuring vietnamese food, kinda strange I know. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I left my cell phone at the restaurant where we had lunch, and after our time at the pool I dragged my mom and sister on a crazy adventure to find the lady who had found the phone. Our adventure included about an hour of driving, borrowed money from a nun, and me telling the hotel doorman that the taxi he called was too expensive. After all of that the hotel staff either liked me because I'm crazy or because I'm cheap, but we had an interesting time and made some new friends.
Sunday we traveled, in a little more style than I usually opt for, by private taxi to Saint-Louis. The drive was the usual five hours, and my mom and sister were fortunate enough to experience the wonders of Senegalese traffic, heat, angry taxi drivers, and random donkeys crossing the road. While in Saint-Louis we stayed at Hotel de la Poste, a hotel with a great location and known for it's sense of history. Back in the day when the postal service operated directly from Saint-Louis by private one person planes, the pilots would stay in hotel de la poste. I thought it would be fun to stay in the suite at the top of the hotel from which you have an awesome view of the city. Unfortunately, Hotel de la poste was maybe a little too authentic because our room had some hot water troubles and it was freezing at night, I don't think my guests were expecting cold weather in Senegal. After we unpacked, I arranged for a horse drawn cart tour of the city. The tour was actually pretty cool, I had to translate everything our guide said so I'm sure my mom and sis missed a lot of info, but they were able to see the many faces of Saint-Louis from the old crane that loaded cargo onto ships to the filthy area were they smoke and salt the fish they catch before apparently sending them to China.
Monday we ventured into the markets to get some fabric and then we hit up my tailor for some sweet outfits. After the tailor we visited the university campus and had a nice lunch of maafe, hopefully it was nice anyways, maafe is not my favorite Senegalese dish. Later that afternoon we checked out the hotel's pool, which seems to close down a bit during the cooler season because they placed a patio/dance floor over most of the pool. Tuesday we went on an excursion to the supposedly highly populated bird island just outside of Saint-Louis. It definitely was an excursion forcing my mother to climb through a traditional fishing boat for our tour. Strangely, our guide brought us to a small little hotel that was serving excellent spanish cuisine for lunch. As you can see, we didn't have too much Senegalese food, which was not by choice because ceebujen is great. Wednesday I was not a great hostess because I needed to take a test for my Wolof class, so I brought my mom and sister to our little hideaway called ranch de bango where they could spend the day at the pool. The catch about hanging our there was that we they had to eat lunch, which meant that they would have to order their food by themselves, in French! I arrived just as they got their food and I was extremely impressed to see how well they managed. For dinner that night most of the other girls on my program came to have dinner and desert with us (and to entertain my mom and sister with some of their wild stories). We also had to make a late night stop to the tailor because he hadn't finished the clothes earlier, so my mom and sister were able to watch them make their clothes on the spot. It sounds kinda sketchy but they did a good job.
Thursday we headed back to Dakar for their last days in Senegal. My mom enjoyed some shopping sprees in the artisan markets courtesy of a hilarious man who spoke English and wore a button with President Obama's face on it. Friday we toured a bit of Dakar's beaches, enjoyed some ceebujen, camped at the pool, and then dined at our vietnamese restaurant again. At 1 am we were back at the airport and they got into line behind some huge American shot putters who we had followed from our hotel, there was some strange athletics convention going on. I returned to Saint-Louis the next day to get back to business with my studies...and I've been here melting ever since. Have a great week!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Spring break continued
So I left off the story of my spring break adventures when we found our cute little apartments. After getting rid of our luggage, and my poor decisions in shoving too much junk into a duffle bag until the straps broke, we ventured out into the main part of town to see what was happening. As it turns out, the town of Saly where we stayed the next few days is incredibly touristy, and by touristy I mean that it caters to French tourists who come for an experience similar to that which we would have in Mexico I think. For example, as we meandered down the street and learned that Senegalese men refer to young women as "gazelles" to tell them they are attractive (more like to get them to buy something) we ran into a strip mall. It was like someone cut this thing out of France and pasted it onto a plot of land in Senegal. Included in this strip mall was a coffee shop, grass, and a carousel. At that moment I felt a little confused because this is not the Senegal I know and love, but some Senegal in some strange dimension. I know that tourism is good for the country because it brings in money and jobs and encourages growth in infrastructure, but sometimes it feels like the Senegalese have to sell their souls to get the tourists to come. That might be over dramatic because I don't really know what an all out tourist experience is, it could be infused with elements of Senegalese culture.
Wednesday we decided to venture off to a bird lagoon located in one of the nearby towns. When we arrived at the lagoon we realized that it was really just a pretty little inlet alongside the coast with a few birds and a overcrowded population of lagoon guides. As usual we avoided all of the guides because they're a little on the pushy side, and we walked up to the mouth of the lagoon, which featured some very chill and cute little shacks with some hammocks and menus arranged in the sand. After deciding that that was the place to spend the day, we had to figure out to cross the little bit of water with all our stuff. Fortunately, a man with a kayak appeared at the right moment to escort us across to his little restaurant. The day at the lagoon turned out really great, we had lunch with fresh prawns, swam, and I got to go ocean kayaking. Oh, and a fun side note, the name of our restaurant getaway was the vitamin, hahaha, I think it was implying that it is good for your health to spend time there, not really sure. That evening we enjoyed some great, relatively home cooked meals courtesy of an awesome local grocery store and Elise's mother who has sent her probably 40 bags of instant pasta dinners.
Thursday we followed the advice of the guidebook and visited a nearby island town about an hour and a half away from our apartment. The guidebook described the town as being made entirely out of shells, full of character, and home to the only shared Muslim and Christian cemetery in Senegal. Upon arrival we realized that made of shells was more of a metaphor for having shells on the ground, but the cemetery was interesting in kind of a morbid way. An hour later we had walked completely around the island and decided that there really wasn't that much to do, so we might as well head back to our lagoon. Fortunately, on the way out I caught a glimpse of a faded sign directing you to the hotel home to the dancing pelicans. Since we hadn't eaten lunch yet we decided to head over to the hotel restaurant and try and catch a matinee performance. When we walked in the owner informed us that "our generation" had freed the Pelicans and they had flown the coop. Apparently, the Pelicans were kept in cages, and I'm not sure how they were made to dance. (Random fact: I've heard tell of a Pelican named Akon who lives in Dakar and can be seen hanging out near a group of seafood restaurants showing off his extensive bling bling jewelry collection that he proudly wears on his feathers?) Since we were at the restaurant, we decided to have some ceebujen and support the owner who seemed to have fewer guests since the departure of the Pelicans. Lunch turned into a fiasco when the patron brought us one plate of ceebujen and two plates of yassa and then got really mad when we reminded him we had ordered ceebujen for three. I was planning on eating the yassa anyways when he grabbed the pan from us and proceeded to shove the food in his mouth at a table in the corner. He later rejected my tip. All in all, lunch was really a weird experience; I think there was a mix of cultural mixups and hurt pride. After lunch we returned to the lagoon for some more kayaking! and other fun. It turned out that the men there thought we would be spending the night at the lagoon with them... definitely not! Friday we left via taxi to Dakar to finish up our trip and spend some time with the host families.
The weekend with my host family was great. I wish Saint-Louis was closer to Dakar so I could visit more often, but those sept place rides to Dakar are just not fun if you're only staying for a weekend. Everyone was around: Nathalie, Isaa, Habib (Isaa's dad), my host mom, and my host dad. My host mom was mad at me because I don't call enough, which is legit since I don't like talking on the phone in French, it's hard to understand. On the other hand, she never calls me so yeah... Isaa has gotten bigger and pretty much speaks coherently. He mostly talks in Wolof, but it's hilarious to hear him use phrases that only adults say. Friday evening I snuck away for a few hours to hear some Americans who live and work in Senegal speak about what it's like having careers abroad. It was pretty cool to hear what they had to say, and we got to hear from the U.S. ambassador to Senegal who is an awesome lady. Saturday I spent the morning watching the Senegalese Independence day parade on T.V. with my host family. It was almost more entertaining listening to their commentary about the parade than actually watching the parade because they knew so much about each group that marched by and were extremely critical about the synchronization of the marchers. For some reason a whole bunch of schools in Dakar were featured in the parade, and the students were forced to march with their arms swinging in unison. It was kind of an unorthodox marching style and reminded me of another similar marching style... Saturday evening I hung out with some other Americans in the more upscale part of Dakar where we enjoyed a nice ocean side table and seafood featuring muscles and live urchins. Just so you know, I did not order the urchins, and their living condition was too much for all of us to handle. Sunday I returned to Saint-Louis to start my second semester classes and get things in order for my visitors arriving Friday morning!
In my next post I'll share about my adventures with my mom and sister and their trip to Senegal, we had a blast, but I am still wiped out, or it could be the heat, wow!
Wednesday we decided to venture off to a bird lagoon located in one of the nearby towns. When we arrived at the lagoon we realized that it was really just a pretty little inlet alongside the coast with a few birds and a overcrowded population of lagoon guides. As usual we avoided all of the guides because they're a little on the pushy side, and we walked up to the mouth of the lagoon, which featured some very chill and cute little shacks with some hammocks and menus arranged in the sand. After deciding that that was the place to spend the day, we had to figure out to cross the little bit of water with all our stuff. Fortunately, a man with a kayak appeared at the right moment to escort us across to his little restaurant. The day at the lagoon turned out really great, we had lunch with fresh prawns, swam, and I got to go ocean kayaking. Oh, and a fun side note, the name of our restaurant getaway was the vitamin, hahaha, I think it was implying that it is good for your health to spend time there, not really sure. That evening we enjoyed some great, relatively home cooked meals courtesy of an awesome local grocery store and Elise's mother who has sent her probably 40 bags of instant pasta dinners.
Thursday we followed the advice of the guidebook and visited a nearby island town about an hour and a half away from our apartment. The guidebook described the town as being made entirely out of shells, full of character, and home to the only shared Muslim and Christian cemetery in Senegal. Upon arrival we realized that made of shells was more of a metaphor for having shells on the ground, but the cemetery was interesting in kind of a morbid way. An hour later we had walked completely around the island and decided that there really wasn't that much to do, so we might as well head back to our lagoon. Fortunately, on the way out I caught a glimpse of a faded sign directing you to the hotel home to the dancing pelicans. Since we hadn't eaten lunch yet we decided to head over to the hotel restaurant and try and catch a matinee performance. When we walked in the owner informed us that "our generation" had freed the Pelicans and they had flown the coop. Apparently, the Pelicans were kept in cages, and I'm not sure how they were made to dance. (Random fact: I've heard tell of a Pelican named Akon who lives in Dakar and can be seen hanging out near a group of seafood restaurants showing off his extensive bling bling jewelry collection that he proudly wears on his feathers?) Since we were at the restaurant, we decided to have some ceebujen and support the owner who seemed to have fewer guests since the departure of the Pelicans. Lunch turned into a fiasco when the patron brought us one plate of ceebujen and two plates of yassa and then got really mad when we reminded him we had ordered ceebujen for three. I was planning on eating the yassa anyways when he grabbed the pan from us and proceeded to shove the food in his mouth at a table in the corner. He later rejected my tip. All in all, lunch was really a weird experience; I think there was a mix of cultural mixups and hurt pride. After lunch we returned to the lagoon for some more kayaking! and other fun. It turned out that the men there thought we would be spending the night at the lagoon with them... definitely not! Friday we left via taxi to Dakar to finish up our trip and spend some time with the host families.
The weekend with my host family was great. I wish Saint-Louis was closer to Dakar so I could visit more often, but those sept place rides to Dakar are just not fun if you're only staying for a weekend. Everyone was around: Nathalie, Isaa, Habib (Isaa's dad), my host mom, and my host dad. My host mom was mad at me because I don't call enough, which is legit since I don't like talking on the phone in French, it's hard to understand. On the other hand, she never calls me so yeah... Isaa has gotten bigger and pretty much speaks coherently. He mostly talks in Wolof, but it's hilarious to hear him use phrases that only adults say. Friday evening I snuck away for a few hours to hear some Americans who live and work in Senegal speak about what it's like having careers abroad. It was pretty cool to hear what they had to say, and we got to hear from the U.S. ambassador to Senegal who is an awesome lady. Saturday I spent the morning watching the Senegalese Independence day parade on T.V. with my host family. It was almost more entertaining listening to their commentary about the parade than actually watching the parade because they knew so much about each group that marched by and were extremely critical about the synchronization of the marchers. For some reason a whole bunch of schools in Dakar were featured in the parade, and the students were forced to march with their arms swinging in unison. It was kind of an unorthodox marching style and reminded me of another similar marching style... Saturday evening I hung out with some other Americans in the more upscale part of Dakar where we enjoyed a nice ocean side table and seafood featuring muscles and live urchins. Just so you know, I did not order the urchins, and their living condition was too much for all of us to handle. Sunday I returned to Saint-Louis to start my second semester classes and get things in order for my visitors arriving Friday morning!
In my next post I'll share about my adventures with my mom and sister and their trip to Senegal, we had a blast, but I am still wiped out, or it could be the heat, wow!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Spring Break 09!
Hey ya'll,
It's been a while and I've got lots to catch up on. I think I left off about two weeks ago while I was finishing up my first semester here in Saint-Louis. I still have a few classes just kind of dragging along here from the last semester but I'm ok with that because I kind of created the courses for myself so it seems to be working out fine. We had one minor scare with regard to my history of Africa class because the grade for the class is based solely on a paper we wrote, but because the last few weeks were review and exam weeks for the political science classes, our history of Africa class never actually met. As Ariel and I were pondering how to turn our papers for the class in, one of the other girls on our program returned form her trip to southern Senegal to inform us that our Professor had moved to a different city, very far away, two days before and would not be returning. For the next 24hours I had some minor panic attacks until I stumbled across the solution to my problem in the form of said Professor walking down the hallway towards me. Haha, I was obviously in control of the situation, and our professor had obviously not moved to Timbuktou.
That weekend I wasnt really up to much, and Sunday I spent the day once again at Noa's house where I had the pleasure of trying pigeon. Unfortunately, my phobia of birds seems to extend to eating those varieties outside of the chicken and turkey families, so the pigeon was not my favorite meal so far. Noa's family was as entertaining as ever, and I got to meet a really cool girl studying applied math. At the moment, she's researching Malaria treatments and why/how certain medications that are working well suddenly stop helping. She had some fascinating things to share with me, and I told her that I thought her research was great because so much Malaria research goes on outside of the the regions that actually suffer from it, and I think that those living in the regions afflicted by Malaria have access to alot of useful information and they know the disease because they have suffered from it. Monday we packed up and headed out on our spring break adventure to the petite cote, a grouping of towns along the coast that are known for their beaches and tourists, or so I've decided.
My spring break trip was a huge learning experience for me. I'm not sure why it took so long for me to understand some of these things, but I think it had to do with not being so surprised by things anymore, and looking at them from a perspective of doing them from a more Senegalese view point. For example, traveling to each city was possible by various modes of transportation, ranging from private taxis to buses crowded full of people heading off to unknown final destinations. I learned quickly that if I said, "I want to go to this place," my options would be a taxi ride for $20, but if I said, "How do I get to this place?" then I could take a variety of vehicles for different prices. It took me the whole year to get the hang of it, but now I understand how to travel in Senegal without having to pretend to get in a fight with taxi drivers because they wont give me a good price, hooray!
Back to the begginning of the trip, we took a minibus down to Thies, a city outside of Dakar (where I spent my first month) with hopes of finding some other form of transportation to our final destination: Tubab Diallo. Learning experience number one occurred on the bus, be careful what you say, just because you're foreign doesn't mean people dont understand you. Sidenote, this seems incredibly obviuos to me, especially because almost everyday I encounter people who think that I dont understand what they're saying about me in French or Wolof, and they are wrong...But anyways, I still needed to learn this little lesson. I was sitting in the front row of four rows in this minibus formerly known as a van. Luckily, the two other girls I was traveling with, Ariel and Elise, got placed in the fourth row, so in order to communicate with them I had to call them on my cellphone. As I was making sure they were situated alright, I explained to Ariel that I was in the front row with three other people and two very young girls who happened to be eating bananas and then spitting the banana on me. About ten seconds after I hung up the phone, the women next to me said, "m'am, m"am, excuse me, where are you from?" We proceeded to have a great conversation through which I learned that she is Mauritanian but has spent the last eight years in Colorado and speaks english very well. Secretly though, I was wondering the whole time how she felt about me proclaiming to two random girls that her children were spitting bananas on me. Moral of the story, well theres a few of them, but mainly, dont give your kids bananas on a minibus, I would recommend oranges.
We escaped our minibus in Thies without real knowledge of how to continue along our journey, but we evenutally found a taxi who would takeus for $10 to our hotel a ways away. The taxi worked out really smoothly for me because it was a long drive out there, but the Taxi driver seemed to have given us a good price in hopes of wooing Ariel, so she was a little uncomfortable. Monday night we stayed in a great little hotel, one of the few in Senegal where you can share a room with four people, which I think is very interesting. Besides that, the hotel appears to be owned by a very sweet French women who makes a lot of effort to employ locals and use local resources. For example, next to the toilet was a sign that explained that the toilets are made locally so could we please dispose of our toilet paper in the trash can so as not to clog them. Apparently Tubab Diallo is not the
Kohler of Senegal, but they'll work on it. Later that evening Emily came to join us after her travels in Morocco, and we had dinner and hung out at the hotel.
- as an addendum to my stay in Tubab Diallo, Tubab is the Wolof word for a white person, and I was told Tuesday morning by a random man following me on the beach that Diallo is portuguese. Senegal was originally colonized by the Portuguese, and it appears that Tubab Diallo was a Portuguese tourist hot spot during the 17th century.
Tuesday morning we decided to move onto a different town because Tubab Diallo, although very cute and calm, was just a little too cute and calm. We hiked about a mile with our luggage after refusing an overpriced ride from the hotel driver, and found a taxi willing to take us to the next vehicule en route to the town of Somone. After the taxi we boarded a large van contraption that took us to another taxi station, who finally helped us get to Somone. According the guidebook, the things to check out in Somone are the bird lagoon along the coast and a creole restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant informed us that they are closed tuesdays (not normal) and we decided to first find a place to stay before touring the lagoon. The hunt for a place to stay turned into a strange adventure with the man from our pizza restaurant and a bunch of Senegalese people leading us through their homes and showing us random places we could stay. Eventually, we escaped our overly forceful tour guides and headed off to the heighboring town called Saly. In Saly, some very nice bartenders at the cheapest hotel listed in the guidebook informed us of a less expensive place to stay where we wouldn't be obliged to share twin beds. The place turned out pretty great, we had two person apartments with kitchens, air conditioned bedrooms, hot water, and living rooms for about $26 a night per room.
Saly housed us for the next three nights and gave us a perfect location to explore the rest of the towns that make up the petite cote.
It's been a while and I've got lots to catch up on. I think I left off about two weeks ago while I was finishing up my first semester here in Saint-Louis. I still have a few classes just kind of dragging along here from the last semester but I'm ok with that because I kind of created the courses for myself so it seems to be working out fine. We had one minor scare with regard to my history of Africa class because the grade for the class is based solely on a paper we wrote, but because the last few weeks were review and exam weeks for the political science classes, our history of Africa class never actually met. As Ariel and I were pondering how to turn our papers for the class in, one of the other girls on our program returned form her trip to southern Senegal to inform us that our Professor had moved to a different city, very far away, two days before and would not be returning. For the next 24hours I had some minor panic attacks until I stumbled across the solution to my problem in the form of said Professor walking down the hallway towards me. Haha, I was obviously in control of the situation, and our professor had obviously not moved to Timbuktou.
That weekend I wasnt really up to much, and Sunday I spent the day once again at Noa's house where I had the pleasure of trying pigeon. Unfortunately, my phobia of birds seems to extend to eating those varieties outside of the chicken and turkey families, so the pigeon was not my favorite meal so far. Noa's family was as entertaining as ever, and I got to meet a really cool girl studying applied math. At the moment, she's researching Malaria treatments and why/how certain medications that are working well suddenly stop helping. She had some fascinating things to share with me, and I told her that I thought her research was great because so much Malaria research goes on outside of the the regions that actually suffer from it, and I think that those living in the regions afflicted by Malaria have access to alot of useful information and they know the disease because they have suffered from it. Monday we packed up and headed out on our spring break adventure to the petite cote, a grouping of towns along the coast that are known for their beaches and tourists, or so I've decided.
My spring break trip was a huge learning experience for me. I'm not sure why it took so long for me to understand some of these things, but I think it had to do with not being so surprised by things anymore, and looking at them from a perspective of doing them from a more Senegalese view point. For example, traveling to each city was possible by various modes of transportation, ranging from private taxis to buses crowded full of people heading off to unknown final destinations. I learned quickly that if I said, "I want to go to this place," my options would be a taxi ride for $20, but if I said, "How do I get to this place?" then I could take a variety of vehicles for different prices. It took me the whole year to get the hang of it, but now I understand how to travel in Senegal without having to pretend to get in a fight with taxi drivers because they wont give me a good price, hooray!
Back to the begginning of the trip, we took a minibus down to Thies, a city outside of Dakar (where I spent my first month) with hopes of finding some other form of transportation to our final destination: Tubab Diallo. Learning experience number one occurred on the bus, be careful what you say, just because you're foreign doesn't mean people dont understand you. Sidenote, this seems incredibly obviuos to me, especially because almost everyday I encounter people who think that I dont understand what they're saying about me in French or Wolof, and they are wrong...But anyways, I still needed to learn this little lesson. I was sitting in the front row of four rows in this minibus formerly known as a van. Luckily, the two other girls I was traveling with, Ariel and Elise, got placed in the fourth row, so in order to communicate with them I had to call them on my cellphone. As I was making sure they were situated alright, I explained to Ariel that I was in the front row with three other people and two very young girls who happened to be eating bananas and then spitting the banana on me. About ten seconds after I hung up the phone, the women next to me said, "m'am, m"am, excuse me, where are you from?" We proceeded to have a great conversation through which I learned that she is Mauritanian but has spent the last eight years in Colorado and speaks english very well. Secretly though, I was wondering the whole time how she felt about me proclaiming to two random girls that her children were spitting bananas on me. Moral of the story, well theres a few of them, but mainly, dont give your kids bananas on a minibus, I would recommend oranges.
We escaped our minibus in Thies without real knowledge of how to continue along our journey, but we evenutally found a taxi who would takeus for $10 to our hotel a ways away. The taxi worked out really smoothly for me because it was a long drive out there, but the Taxi driver seemed to have given us a good price in hopes of wooing Ariel, so she was a little uncomfortable. Monday night we stayed in a great little hotel, one of the few in Senegal where you can share a room with four people, which I think is very interesting. Besides that, the hotel appears to be owned by a very sweet French women who makes a lot of effort to employ locals and use local resources. For example, next to the toilet was a sign that explained that the toilets are made locally so could we please dispose of our toilet paper in the trash can so as not to clog them. Apparently Tubab Diallo is not the
Kohler of Senegal, but they'll work on it. Later that evening Emily came to join us after her travels in Morocco, and we had dinner and hung out at the hotel.
- as an addendum to my stay in Tubab Diallo, Tubab is the Wolof word for a white person, and I was told Tuesday morning by a random man following me on the beach that Diallo is portuguese. Senegal was originally colonized by the Portuguese, and it appears that Tubab Diallo was a Portuguese tourist hot spot during the 17th century.
Tuesday morning we decided to move onto a different town because Tubab Diallo, although very cute and calm, was just a little too cute and calm. We hiked about a mile with our luggage after refusing an overpriced ride from the hotel driver, and found a taxi willing to take us to the next vehicule en route to the town of Somone. After the taxi we boarded a large van contraption that took us to another taxi station, who finally helped us get to Somone. According the guidebook, the things to check out in Somone are the bird lagoon along the coast and a creole restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant informed us that they are closed tuesdays (not normal) and we decided to first find a place to stay before touring the lagoon. The hunt for a place to stay turned into a strange adventure with the man from our pizza restaurant and a bunch of Senegalese people leading us through their homes and showing us random places we could stay. Eventually, we escaped our overly forceful tour guides and headed off to the heighboring town called Saly. In Saly, some very nice bartenders at the cheapest hotel listed in the guidebook informed us of a less expensive place to stay where we wouldn't be obliged to share twin beds. The place turned out pretty great, we had two person apartments with kitchens, air conditioned bedrooms, hot water, and living rooms for about $26 a night per room.
Saly housed us for the next three nights and gave us a perfect location to explore the rest of the towns that make up the petite cote.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
