Here's a map showing where I went. As you can see, I really didn't cover all that much territory, because road travel here is difficult and slow (oh, how I missed trains in Senegal!), but I did get to see a variety of places, from the coast to the baking hot interior (and this is just winter!), as well as the Senegal River that forms the border with Mauritania, and the Sine-Saloum Delta, near the Gambia.
View Senegal in a larger map
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Pictures: Goat Farm, Mbour, Mar Lodj, Ngor
We set out very early one morning (to beat the heat, I assume) to visit the family whose goats' milk Maniang uses to make his cheese. Here's the sunrise behind baobabs out in the countryside:
Along the way, Maniang and Kap had fun with a dried out cow skull they found:
Baobabs are large and we are small:
I didn't want to take to many pictures around the family's place, because we were there as friends (not obnoxious tourists!), but their family compound looked something like this:
Here's (some of) the Ka family, on their family compound, where they keep goats and cows (photo from Kap):
Intrepidly exploring baobabs:
Back in Mbour, Maniang has a small room in his house where he makes the goat cheese, which he then sells to tourists and local hotels:
From Mbour, I headed off alone for a few days to this small paradise, Mar Lodj:
Herons and egrets!
And a last sunset in Ngor, my last evening:
Along the way, Maniang and Kap had fun with a dried out cow skull they found:
Baobabs are large and we are small:
I didn't want to take to many pictures around the family's place, because we were there as friends (not obnoxious tourists!), but their family compound looked something like this:
Here's (some of) the Ka family, on their family compound, where they keep goats and cows (photo from Kap):
Intrepidly exploring baobabs:
Back in Mbour, Maniang has a small room in his house where he makes the goat cheese, which he then sells to tourists and local hotels:
From Mbour, I headed off alone for a few days to this small paradise, Mar Lodj:
Herons and egrets!
And a last sunset in Ngor, my last evening:
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Departure
Um. Oh well. I was going to post a few pictures from the last week of the trip, but as usual, it's ended up not working. So it goes. I might come back later, if I get bored between now and when I leave for the airport at midnight, but probably you'll just have to wait.
It's been the relaxing day I wanted - getting things in order, having mini almost-conversations in French with Marie, the friend of Kap's I'm staying with (long story, involving the actual room elsewhere not being available, but it all worked out). Getting a last pastry at the really good bakery in Ngor. Taking my last opportunity to be in the sun on the beach, while being assiduously wooed by a middle-aged Cape Verdean, who nonetheless was gentleman enough to let me go in the end (despite his protestations) and not follow me all the way back to the house, the way sellers and hustlers are apt to do. It was actually nice, being able to have a conversation with someone in English.
Now, I think I'll go get a last café touba (sweet black coffee spiced with black pepper, possibly my favorite discovery here!) and watch the sunset from the beach, here on the westernmost tip of mainland Africa.
When you next hear from me, I'll have behind me a four-hour flight, a day in Portugal (hoping to wander further afield from Lisbon this time, since I have a longer layover), another four-hour flight, a night in Hamburg, and a train home to Berlin!
It's been the relaxing day I wanted - getting things in order, having mini almost-conversations in French with Marie, the friend of Kap's I'm staying with (long story, involving the actual room elsewhere not being available, but it all worked out). Getting a last pastry at the really good bakery in Ngor. Taking my last opportunity to be in the sun on the beach, while being assiduously wooed by a middle-aged Cape Verdean, who nonetheless was gentleman enough to let me go in the end (despite his protestations) and not follow me all the way back to the house, the way sellers and hustlers are apt to do. It was actually nice, being able to have a conversation with someone in English.
Now, I think I'll go get a last café touba (sweet black coffee spiced with black pepper, possibly my favorite discovery here!) and watch the sunset from the beach, here on the westernmost tip of mainland Africa.
When you next hear from me, I'll have behind me a four-hour flight, a day in Portugal (hoping to wander further afield from Lisbon this time, since I have a longer layover), another four-hour flight, a night in Hamburg, and a train home to Berlin!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Disjointed Thoughts (Mbour, Goat Farm, Sine-Saloum, Ngor)
Woi ya yoi. It's been a roller coaster.
We did finally make it out to visit the family who supplies the goat's milk Maniang uses to make goat cheese, in his small but successful self-started business. (Graham is going to buy him a bigger refrigerator, as a microloan, so he can expand production, which I think is awesome!)
Visiting the Ka family, and their goats and cows, on their compound way, way out of the way of anything, even a ways outside the nearest small village, was such a great opportunity, and one we only got through Kap, and all the friends she's made here.
Unfortunately, I was sick the day of our visit (the diarrhea you just have to expect to contract at some point, and a mysterious fever that came and went, possibly just a result of it being very, very, very hot) and spent most of it lying down and trying not to move, while Kap and Graham were sitting with the family and trying to learn a few phrases out of their Pulaar phrasebook (a different ethnicity and language from the Wolof we'd focused on so far).
I was also just exhausted after many days of living with a large, extended Senegalese family, and sharing small quarters with two fellow travelers around the clock. I want to think I'm flexible, a good traveler, and able to drop into any situation the road throws at me - and usually I am, but somehow I felt for a bit there that I'd met my match in Senegal. I need to reflect on this more, though, before I can say anything real about it.
Anyway, I went down to the beautiful Sine-Saloum Delta on my own for a few days, to recover both my stomach and my sanity, and came back much improved.
After the usual hurdles (country-wide transportation strike, room that had been reserved for me for weeks suddenly not available) I've actually made it back to Ngor (the village on the coast just outside of Dakar) where I have just one more day before I fly out! You better believe that after all that, my plan for tomorrow is to STAY PUT in Ngor and enjoy just one day that's not hectic or difficult in unforeseen ways.
Inshallah.
A few more random, extra thoughts, before my internet time is up:
Germans:
I forgot to say, when I was talking about names and being German and such: People in Senegal love Germans! I think it's a soccer thing, because Senegal is crazy about soccer, and Germans are good at it. One guy on the street proudly told me that he always supports Germany in the World Cup. And the father of the family with their goat farm way out in the countryside started listing for us all the German cities he knows - and he even knew Moenchengladbach, the small western German city where I always go for Christmas, a place no one but the Germans ever know. Again, it must be a soccer thing, right?
"Discovering":
A lot of people ask me why I'm in Senegal (or once, why there are so many white people in Senegala right now), but in the end, it seems they want to hear one of two answers: "vacation" or "discovering," in the sense of "I like discovering other cultures." Again, it seems people are most content if you stick to the script they're expecting.
Culture:
And something Kap's friend Abdoulaye said, while we were all at the Cheikh Lo concert in Dakar, that struck a chord with me: He said, "I want to keep my culture" (He's Poule/Pulaar/Fulani, one of the ethnic groups that make up West Africa), "but not all of it. I've also learned another culture."
And I thought, Yes. That's exactly why I think it's so important to get to know other cultures. Because otherwise, how will you know what parts of your own culture you agree with?
We did finally make it out to visit the family who supplies the goat's milk Maniang uses to make goat cheese, in his small but successful self-started business. (Graham is going to buy him a bigger refrigerator, as a microloan, so he can expand production, which I think is awesome!)
Visiting the Ka family, and their goats and cows, on their compound way, way out of the way of anything, even a ways outside the nearest small village, was such a great opportunity, and one we only got through Kap, and all the friends she's made here.
Unfortunately, I was sick the day of our visit (the diarrhea you just have to expect to contract at some point, and a mysterious fever that came and went, possibly just a result of it being very, very, very hot) and spent most of it lying down and trying not to move, while Kap and Graham were sitting with the family and trying to learn a few phrases out of their Pulaar phrasebook (a different ethnicity and language from the Wolof we'd focused on so far).
I was also just exhausted after many days of living with a large, extended Senegalese family, and sharing small quarters with two fellow travelers around the clock. I want to think I'm flexible, a good traveler, and able to drop into any situation the road throws at me - and usually I am, but somehow I felt for a bit there that I'd met my match in Senegal. I need to reflect on this more, though, before I can say anything real about it.
Anyway, I went down to the beautiful Sine-Saloum Delta on my own for a few days, to recover both my stomach and my sanity, and came back much improved.
After the usual hurdles (country-wide transportation strike, room that had been reserved for me for weeks suddenly not available) I've actually made it back to Ngor (the village on the coast just outside of Dakar) where I have just one more day before I fly out! You better believe that after all that, my plan for tomorrow is to STAY PUT in Ngor and enjoy just one day that's not hectic or difficult in unforeseen ways.
Inshallah.
A few more random, extra thoughts, before my internet time is up:
Germans:
I forgot to say, when I was talking about names and being German and such: People in Senegal love Germans! I think it's a soccer thing, because Senegal is crazy about soccer, and Germans are good at it. One guy on the street proudly told me that he always supports Germany in the World Cup. And the father of the family with their goat farm way out in the countryside started listing for us all the German cities he knows - and he even knew Moenchengladbach, the small western German city where I always go for Christmas, a place no one but the Germans ever know. Again, it must be a soccer thing, right?
"Discovering":
A lot of people ask me why I'm in Senegal (or once, why there are so many white people in Senegala right now), but in the end, it seems they want to hear one of two answers: "vacation" or "discovering," in the sense of "I like discovering other cultures." Again, it seems people are most content if you stick to the script they're expecting.
Culture:
And something Kap's friend Abdoulaye said, while we were all at the Cheikh Lo concert in Dakar, that struck a chord with me: He said, "I want to keep my culture" (He's Poule/Pulaar/Fulani, one of the ethnic groups that make up West Africa), "but not all of it. I've also learned another culture."
And I thought, Yes. That's exactly why I think it's so important to get to know other cultures. Because otherwise, how will you know what parts of your own culture you agree with?
Pictures: Touba, Dakar and Mbour
Leaving Touba, passing all the cars and overcrowded trucks on their way in, for the Grand Magal pilgrimmage:
Kap, at the beach with the girls from the first family we stayed with in Dakar:
Cheikh Lo concert in Dakar:
In the middle seats of a sept place car down to Mbour (you can't tell, but there are three people behind us and two in front of us in this normal-size station wagon):
Maniang, Kap's friend and our host in Mbour, making ataaya, Senegalese tea (green tea together with fresh mint, brewed for a while, then poured back and forth to warm the glass and create the pretty foam, then drunk quickly so the glass can be passed on, because there are never as many glasses as people):
Visiting the (unusually well-appointed) preschool where Maniang's sons Omar and Tacko go (the kids here are playing Duck Duck Goose!):
Watching men make djembes while hanging out at the dance-and-drumming school in Mbour:
Kap, at the beach with the girls from the first family we stayed with in Dakar:
Cheikh Lo concert in Dakar:
In the middle seats of a sept place car down to Mbour (you can't tell, but there are three people behind us and two in front of us in this normal-size station wagon):
Maniang, Kap's friend and our host in Mbour, making ataaya, Senegalese tea (green tea together with fresh mint, brewed for a while, then poured back and forth to warm the glass and create the pretty foam, then drunk quickly so the glass can be passed on, because there are never as many glasses as people):
Visiting the (unusually well-appointed) preschool where Maniang's sons Omar and Tacko go (the kids here are playing Duck Duck Goose!):
Watching men make djembes while hanging out at the dance-and-drumming school in Mbour:
Friday, January 20, 2012
Senegal: Names and Such
Oy oy oy (or "woi ya yoi," as our friend Abdoulaye taught us in Wolof) - I'm yet again at a computer that won't let me upload pictures to go with my text, so I think I'll just write a couple general thoughts instead.
Names. Ella, which I've never thought of as particularly difficult, has proved impossible for anyone in Senegal to understand or pronounce. "Allah?" they ask in confusion, which of course would be weird, since Allah is God.
Pronouncing it very slowly, as "Ehhh-lah," has helped, but it still trips people up. Kap encouraged us from the beginning to adopt Senegalese names. (For reasons unclear and at some point when I was elsewhere, Graham ended up as Abdoulaye, even though he himself can't seem to remember the name, and it seems strange to me, since we already know the other Abdoulaye mentioned above.)
I went with Mariama, given to me by a crazy guy in the parking lot in Ngor, but I liked it, especially since it seems so close to the Jewish name Miriam (most names here seem to have a Muslim origin) and grabbed that before I could be stuck with something I didn't like. I haven't really used it, though, because it felt weird presenting this sham name that's not actually mine - until a woman in a gas station where we bought ice cream bars started quizzing us, and when Graham said his name was Graham, she brushed that away impatiently and said, No, what's your Senegalese name?
So I guess people really do prefer the half truth that smoothes social interaction to the obsessively true truth.
In that same vein, to ease my travels and slightly reduce the number of marriage proposals I receive (not kidding), I have invented myself a husband. I'm even wearing a wedding ring, which feels like a lie every time I look at it. But as Kap pushed me to understand before the trip, and I now am starting to actually understand, people in Senegal don't care so much about the truth - and definitely not as much as they want to hear that everyone fits into the social order that makes sense to them.
So, if anyone asks, my husband is working in St. Louis and I'm traveling with my cousin (that's Kap) and her husband (she and Graham are married, of course) and we're all meeting up later in Dakar. Also, my husband is German, and he's doing some kind of "research," a perfectly acceptable job description in Senegal.
(While waiting for the sept place from St. Louis to Touba, Caitlin and Kerry and I met a guy who said he was a professor, and had been to Pennsylvania to do "research." It turned out he really was a professor, of French, and had had some sort of visiting teaching post at UPenn.)
Similarly, Kap's insistence that she's German ("I'm not American, I was just born there by accident," she likes to tell people) has made it simplest for me to just be German too. So in Senegal, I've found myself in the bizarre position of being asked, often, whether I can speak English, and if so, a lot or just a little bit.
Names. Ella, which I've never thought of as particularly difficult, has proved impossible for anyone in Senegal to understand or pronounce. "Allah?" they ask in confusion, which of course would be weird, since Allah is God.
Pronouncing it very slowly, as "Ehhh-lah," has helped, but it still trips people up. Kap encouraged us from the beginning to adopt Senegalese names. (For reasons unclear and at some point when I was elsewhere, Graham ended up as Abdoulaye, even though he himself can't seem to remember the name, and it seems strange to me, since we already know the other Abdoulaye mentioned above.)
I went with Mariama, given to me by a crazy guy in the parking lot in Ngor, but I liked it, especially since it seems so close to the Jewish name Miriam (most names here seem to have a Muslim origin) and grabbed that before I could be stuck with something I didn't like. I haven't really used it, though, because it felt weird presenting this sham name that's not actually mine - until a woman in a gas station where we bought ice cream bars started quizzing us, and when Graham said his name was Graham, she brushed that away impatiently and said, No, what's your Senegalese name?
So I guess people really do prefer the half truth that smoothes social interaction to the obsessively true truth.
In that same vein, to ease my travels and slightly reduce the number of marriage proposals I receive (not kidding), I have invented myself a husband. I'm even wearing a wedding ring, which feels like a lie every time I look at it. But as Kap pushed me to understand before the trip, and I now am starting to actually understand, people in Senegal don't care so much about the truth - and definitely not as much as they want to hear that everyone fits into the social order that makes sense to them.
So, if anyone asks, my husband is working in St. Louis and I'm traveling with my cousin (that's Kap) and her husband (she and Graham are married, of course) and we're all meeting up later in Dakar. Also, my husband is German, and he's doing some kind of "research," a perfectly acceptable job description in Senegal.
(While waiting for the sept place from St. Louis to Touba, Caitlin and Kerry and I met a guy who said he was a professor, and had been to Pennsylvania to do "research." It turned out he really was a professor, of French, and had had some sort of visiting teaching post at UPenn.)
Similarly, Kap's insistence that she's German ("I'm not American, I was just born there by accident," she likes to tell people) has made it simplest for me to just be German too. So in Senegal, I've found myself in the bizarre position of being asked, often, whether I can speak English, and if so, a lot or just a little bit.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Touba, Dakar and Mbour
Continuing where I last left off chronologically...
(Apologies, I can't upload photos at this computer either, but I may try to come back and add some later.)
TOUBA
Touba, the day before the Grand Magal, the yearly pilgrimmage. We dropped by to visit Caitlin's former host family, bringing them a massive bag of onions. It seemed like something of a strange present to me, until I fully realized that onions are in every dish here - and that the family is cooking for possibly hundreds of Magal visitors.
Also, Touba has its own TV channel which was showing loops of, what else, Touba's streets and the long lines waiting to get into the mosque.
In Touba I also ate really-really Senegalese style for the first time: sitting around an enormous platter on the floor with an entire family, awkwardly using my right hand to eat (I'm left-handed, and as Tapha in St. Louis said when he saw me eating with my left, "It's not good...but you should eat how you want to") and picking out the bits that were not quite meat. Eating stuff cooking with meat is not high on this vegetarian's list of favorite things, but I'm glad I had the experience of really eating with a family. And I'm definitely a little proud that I was able to do it.
When I was packed up and ready to walk out the door to go back to Dakar, our host Ibrahima motioned us into the living room, and the family served us a last glass of soda and platter of fruit. I was charmed by the "You're leaving, by which we mean, let's sit down and eat something" culture, and wasn't put out, because I already know better than ever to be in a rush in Senegal!
Nearly every vehicle in the country (not exaggerating) was driving into Touba for the holiday the next day, but Caitlin managed to flag me down a minibus headed to Dakar. For much of the ride, I was the only passenger, and there were sections where the driver veered off the road and drove in the dirt alongside it, because both sides of the two-lane road were gridlocked, complete-stand-still traffic going to Touba. Glad I got out when I did!
Road travel here is hair-raising, that's just the truth of it. The daring, skin-of-your-teeth style of driving (and even more, of passing/overtaking) is familiar to me from Thailand and India both, but I guess it bothers me more here because in those other countries, you also have the option of taking the train and avoiding the roads.
I notice, though, that the roads here do have their own sort of makeshift system, in lieu of real road rules: For example, when a bus or truck breaks down on the side of the road (and they do constantly), there's always someone who hops out to wave traffic past using a flashlight.
The part that upsets me: I do understand that, in a place where daily life holds so many risks, it starts to seem like there's no point even trying to avoid them. But why doesn't anyone, ever, bother with seatbelts? Why don't they put up a simple railing around the roof, so their kids don't fall off? Why push everything to the absolute limit at every moment, with no thought at all for the future cost as opposed to the momentary benefit, overloading the cart until the horse collapses in the middle of the road or the bus tips over, and then your source of livelihood is gone completely? Also, does it really cost so much to buy a rope, instead of dragging the goat down the road by its front foot?
The part that impresses me: People help each other like breathing, without a second's hesitation. When there's an accident, when the horse collapses in the middle of the road, before you can blink the place is swarmed with people helping, unloading the sacks from the cart and getting the horse on its feet again.
For example: The minibus from Touba dropped me off on the side of the road outside Dakar, in the dark, and just as I was really starting to get angry at myself for traveling in a place where I can't even speak the language, the other two passengers who got similarly kicked out outside of town shepherded me down the road, brought me with them onto another minibus, and told me where to get off. By my stop, they'd already gotten off, so another man took charge of me, walking me to the place where I could catch a taxi, insisting that because he works as a bodyguard, he felt he should protect me.
Nonetheless, I was very glad to be back with Kap and Graham in good old Ngor, the beach-side village just outside Dakar, after the chaos and anxiety of African road travel. The trip from Touba (normally maybe three hours, I think?) took six hours, thanks to all the Magal-related traffic, and when I wrote Caitlin to let her know I was finally back, she wrote that everyone was impressed how fast it had gone! Kerry's boyfriend had the misfortune to be traveling the other direction; he left Dakar at 8 a.m., and when I left Touba at 6 p.m., he'd just arrived.
That night, falling into bed after Kap and Graham and I exchanged stories of our adventures, I realized: Only then had I finally been in Senegal a full week.
DAKAR
After all that hectic-ness, we took a couple slow days in Ngor and Dakar. Played on the beach with the kids from the first family we'd stayed with. Went out food shopping without Kap to hold my hand language-wise, and actually managed it. Found the woman in the village who sells chakry (one of the specific ways of preparing millet) fresh, right out of a room in her house - I'd just been saying that it's probably one of those things that you can't get in a normal store, you have to just know who sells it - and then we asked everyone we passed, and actually found it, down a little lane, just before the mosque.
Went to a bizarre party hosted by the international school, held at a softball field, with oldies played by a band of enthusiastic middle-aged men, truly terrible export beer served, everyone danced. Kap's friend Abdoulaye joined us there, and we said, Welcome to America.
Then, even better, an amazing concert by a singer called Cheikh Lo - I didn't know until afterward that he's world-famous, and we had seats at a table right up front, for just the price of our dinner.
MBOUR
Now we're a bit further south, staying with Kap's friend Manyang, who she met because he sells goat cheese, and the last time she was here, he took her out to meet the goats.
We're staying with his family, which means four different, mostly-related families sharing a big house (and a goat pen kept on the roof? with one turkey in with the goats?) and kids running around everywhere.
We are definitely the bizarre toubabs (white people) with the odd vegetarian habits and the strange proclivity for sleeping outdoors on the roof ("It's so cold in Germany! We never get a chance to do this!" Kap kept explaining), and the first day, the kids just stared wherever we were. But they're warming up - especially to Graham, who chases them around and throws them over his shoulder, while they giggle madly.
Today we visited Manyang's kids' preschool, then spent a while at a school for dance and drumming. Kap just wanted to ask there about possible future dance courses, but finding out this information involved drinking several rounds of tea, then finding outselves served breakfast, then hanging out for a while and watching the men build djembe drums, before eventually there was an opportune moment to talk to the proprietor...with the answer being that Kap should come back on Wednesday and try out a class and theoretically, at that point they may actually tell her if there's a class in February. Senegalese style!
Okay, we're off to rustle up information from an odd Frenchman with a massive beard, who's said to know the ins and outs of the Sine Saloum delta, where we're headed next.
We'd wanted to visit the goat farm that supplies Manyang's cheese business, but first we wanted to go today, then tomorrow, and now Manyang says it would have to be Wednesday, because the goats are currently grazing too far away, and they'll be back on Wednesday. Maybe.
We'll see!
Next time, mes amis, samma hari, I promise pictures.
(Apologies, I can't upload photos at this computer either, but I may try to come back and add some later.)
TOUBA
Touba, the day before the Grand Magal, the yearly pilgrimmage. We dropped by to visit Caitlin's former host family, bringing them a massive bag of onions. It seemed like something of a strange present to me, until I fully realized that onions are in every dish here - and that the family is cooking for possibly hundreds of Magal visitors.
Also, Touba has its own TV channel which was showing loops of, what else, Touba's streets and the long lines waiting to get into the mosque.
In Touba I also ate really-really Senegalese style for the first time: sitting around an enormous platter on the floor with an entire family, awkwardly using my right hand to eat (I'm left-handed, and as Tapha in St. Louis said when he saw me eating with my left, "It's not good...but you should eat how you want to") and picking out the bits that were not quite meat. Eating stuff cooking with meat is not high on this vegetarian's list of favorite things, but I'm glad I had the experience of really eating with a family. And I'm definitely a little proud that I was able to do it.
When I was packed up and ready to walk out the door to go back to Dakar, our host Ibrahima motioned us into the living room, and the family served us a last glass of soda and platter of fruit. I was charmed by the "You're leaving, by which we mean, let's sit down and eat something" culture, and wasn't put out, because I already know better than ever to be in a rush in Senegal!
Nearly every vehicle in the country (not exaggerating) was driving into Touba for the holiday the next day, but Caitlin managed to flag me down a minibus headed to Dakar. For much of the ride, I was the only passenger, and there were sections where the driver veered off the road and drove in the dirt alongside it, because both sides of the two-lane road were gridlocked, complete-stand-still traffic going to Touba. Glad I got out when I did!
Road travel here is hair-raising, that's just the truth of it. The daring, skin-of-your-teeth style of driving (and even more, of passing/overtaking) is familiar to me from Thailand and India both, but I guess it bothers me more here because in those other countries, you also have the option of taking the train and avoiding the roads.
I notice, though, that the roads here do have their own sort of makeshift system, in lieu of real road rules: For example, when a bus or truck breaks down on the side of the road (and they do constantly), there's always someone who hops out to wave traffic past using a flashlight.
The part that upsets me: I do understand that, in a place where daily life holds so many risks, it starts to seem like there's no point even trying to avoid them. But why doesn't anyone, ever, bother with seatbelts? Why don't they put up a simple railing around the roof, so their kids don't fall off? Why push everything to the absolute limit at every moment, with no thought at all for the future cost as opposed to the momentary benefit, overloading the cart until the horse collapses in the middle of the road or the bus tips over, and then your source of livelihood is gone completely? Also, does it really cost so much to buy a rope, instead of dragging the goat down the road by its front foot?
The part that impresses me: People help each other like breathing, without a second's hesitation. When there's an accident, when the horse collapses in the middle of the road, before you can blink the place is swarmed with people helping, unloading the sacks from the cart and getting the horse on its feet again.
For example: The minibus from Touba dropped me off on the side of the road outside Dakar, in the dark, and just as I was really starting to get angry at myself for traveling in a place where I can't even speak the language, the other two passengers who got similarly kicked out outside of town shepherded me down the road, brought me with them onto another minibus, and told me where to get off. By my stop, they'd already gotten off, so another man took charge of me, walking me to the place where I could catch a taxi, insisting that because he works as a bodyguard, he felt he should protect me.
Nonetheless, I was very glad to be back with Kap and Graham in good old Ngor, the beach-side village just outside Dakar, after the chaos and anxiety of African road travel. The trip from Touba (normally maybe three hours, I think?) took six hours, thanks to all the Magal-related traffic, and when I wrote Caitlin to let her know I was finally back, she wrote that everyone was impressed how fast it had gone! Kerry's boyfriend had the misfortune to be traveling the other direction; he left Dakar at 8 a.m., and when I left Touba at 6 p.m., he'd just arrived.
That night, falling into bed after Kap and Graham and I exchanged stories of our adventures, I realized: Only then had I finally been in Senegal a full week.
DAKAR
After all that hectic-ness, we took a couple slow days in Ngor and Dakar. Played on the beach with the kids from the first family we'd stayed with. Went out food shopping without Kap to hold my hand language-wise, and actually managed it. Found the woman in the village who sells chakry (one of the specific ways of preparing millet) fresh, right out of a room in her house - I'd just been saying that it's probably one of those things that you can't get in a normal store, you have to just know who sells it - and then we asked everyone we passed, and actually found it, down a little lane, just before the mosque.
Went to a bizarre party hosted by the international school, held at a softball field, with oldies played by a band of enthusiastic middle-aged men, truly terrible export beer served, everyone danced. Kap's friend Abdoulaye joined us there, and we said, Welcome to America.
Then, even better, an amazing concert by a singer called Cheikh Lo - I didn't know until afterward that he's world-famous, and we had seats at a table right up front, for just the price of our dinner.
MBOUR
Now we're a bit further south, staying with Kap's friend Manyang, who she met because he sells goat cheese, and the last time she was here, he took her out to meet the goats.
We're staying with his family, which means four different, mostly-related families sharing a big house (and a goat pen kept on the roof? with one turkey in with the goats?) and kids running around everywhere.
We are definitely the bizarre toubabs (white people) with the odd vegetarian habits and the strange proclivity for sleeping outdoors on the roof ("It's so cold in Germany! We never get a chance to do this!" Kap kept explaining), and the first day, the kids just stared wherever we were. But they're warming up - especially to Graham, who chases them around and throws them over his shoulder, while they giggle madly.
Today we visited Manyang's kids' preschool, then spent a while at a school for dance and drumming. Kap just wanted to ask there about possible future dance courses, but finding out this information involved drinking several rounds of tea, then finding outselves served breakfast, then hanging out for a while and watching the men build djembe drums, before eventually there was an opportune moment to talk to the proprietor...with the answer being that Kap should come back on Wednesday and try out a class and theoretically, at that point they may actually tell her if there's a class in February. Senegalese style!
Okay, we're off to rustle up information from an odd Frenchman with a massive beard, who's said to know the ins and outs of the Sine Saloum delta, where we're headed next.
We'd wanted to visit the goat farm that supplies Manyang's cheese business, but first we wanted to go today, then tomorrow, and now Manyang says it would have to be Wednesday, because the goats are currently grazing too far away, and they'll be back on Wednesday. Maybe.
We'll see!
Next time, mes amis, samma hari, I promise pictures.
Senegal Impressions
Okay, it's weird to write this with a kid in the internet cafe looking over my shoulder... but I guess it's no different from journaling on trains in India with whole crowds of curious women gathered around me?
That segues neatly into one of my more general thoughts: That even over a week into the trip, I still catch myself almost thinking I could be in Thailand or India, instead of in Senegal. I guess I somehow expected Africa to look more different than everything I already knew. And it is different, but the first visual impression was one of baffling sameness: same building materials (concrete, concrete and more concrete), same product materials (cheap plastic), some general landscape (palm trees &co.)
In truth, of course, the culture is very different from anything I knew: there's the deeply felt hospitality ("But you can't leave! You should stay at least a month!"); the extensive culture of greeting (sometimes you're still muttering, "How are you? Fine, thanks. How are you? Good, good," as the other person's voice fades into the distance down the road) and so much shaking of hands, both when you arrive and when you leave (even tiny kids know they're supposed to do it!); and the slow pace of things, where you're lucky to get one major errand done a day, but also you actually get more done when you're willing to slow down and drink some tea, or just put in that sitting-around time that people here value so much, and which then opens the doors to finding out whatever it is you need to find out.
Then, of course, there's the omnipresent mbalax music, a sort of blending of traditional drums and modern instruments, that pulses from every taxi and every street-side stall and just makes you want to dance all the time. And the stately, massive baobab trees once you leave town. And the boys playing soccer absolutely everywhere on the beaches and in the dusty streets. And the horse-drawn carts... Clearly, I could go on.
One more thing that's strikingly different: Except for the very most downtown part of Dakar, the cities don't feel like cities. Even the largest of them are pretty much sprawling collections of village-style streets, with two-story buildings and wide, dusty lanes. It's nice, very un-hectic. Oh, but so much dust!
That segues neatly into one of my more general thoughts: That even over a week into the trip, I still catch myself almost thinking I could be in Thailand or India, instead of in Senegal. I guess I somehow expected Africa to look more different than everything I already knew. And it is different, but the first visual impression was one of baffling sameness: same building materials (concrete, concrete and more concrete), same product materials (cheap plastic), some general landscape (palm trees &co.)
In truth, of course, the culture is very different from anything I knew: there's the deeply felt hospitality ("But you can't leave! You should stay at least a month!"); the extensive culture of greeting (sometimes you're still muttering, "How are you? Fine, thanks. How are you? Good, good," as the other person's voice fades into the distance down the road) and so much shaking of hands, both when you arrive and when you leave (even tiny kids know they're supposed to do it!); and the slow pace of things, where you're lucky to get one major errand done a day, but also you actually get more done when you're willing to slow down and drink some tea, or just put in that sitting-around time that people here value so much, and which then opens the doors to finding out whatever it is you need to find out.
Then, of course, there's the omnipresent mbalax music, a sort of blending of traditional drums and modern instruments, that pulses from every taxi and every street-side stall and just makes you want to dance all the time. And the stately, massive baobab trees once you leave town. And the boys playing soccer absolutely everywhere on the beaches and in the dusty streets. And the horse-drawn carts... Clearly, I could go on.
One more thing that's strikingly different: Except for the very most downtown part of Dakar, the cities don't feel like cities. Even the largest of them are pretty much sprawling collections of village-style streets, with two-story buildings and wide, dusty lanes. It's nice, very un-hectic. Oh, but so much dust!
Friday, January 13, 2012
Pictures: Senegal, la Première Semaine
Kap and Graham, ready to go, on the train platform in Hamburg. Most of that luggage is gifts for people Kap knows in Senegal:
Ngor beach (sort of in/by Dakar, the capital) and boys playing soccer:
Getting situated in the kitchen of our room in Ngor:
Kap, visiting with her friends Alexa and Mbegane, who now live in D.C. and brought their toddler son back to visit family in Dakar for the first time:
The "secret goat" Kap's friends (where we rented a room the first days) keep in their back courtyard. It's practical to keep a goat for obvious food/money reasons, and apparently it's also practical not to tell people about it:
Caitlin, cooking mafé (peanut sauce) at home in St. Louis:
Game of checkers outside Djoudj, the bird park:
A small, small fraction of the pelicans:
"Mauritania's across the water, but alas I cannot swim":
Dump truck to Touba:
Crowded street in Touba (but it will be much more crowded tomorrow) and the mosque seen from a safe distance back in the crowd:
Lunch with Ibrahima, Caitlin's friend and our host in Touba. Caitlin and Kerry are wearing matching-set Senegalese outfits, because ankle-length skirts are de rigeur in the devout city of Touba, and breakfast is omelette sandwiches inside baguettes. Everything in this country gets put in a baguette sooner or later!
Ngor beach (sort of in/by Dakar, the capital) and boys playing soccer:
Getting situated in the kitchen of our room in Ngor:
Kap, visiting with her friends Alexa and Mbegane, who now live in D.C. and brought their toddler son back to visit family in Dakar for the first time:
The "secret goat" Kap's friends (where we rented a room the first days) keep in their back courtyard. It's practical to keep a goat for obvious food/money reasons, and apparently it's also practical not to tell people about it:
Caitlin, cooking mafé (peanut sauce) at home in St. Louis:
Game of checkers outside Djoudj, the bird park:
A small, small fraction of the pelicans:
"Mauritania's across the water, but alas I cannot swim":
Dump truck to Touba:
Crowded street in Touba (but it will be much more crowded tomorrow) and the mosque seen from a safe distance back in the crowd:
Lunch with Ibrahima, Caitlin's friend and our host in Touba. Caitlin and Kerry are wearing matching-set Senegalese outfits, because ankle-length skirts are de rigeur in the devout city of Touba, and breakfast is omelette sandwiches inside baguettes. Everything in this country gets put in a baguette sooner or later!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
St. Louis and Touba
Caitlin, sister of a good friend from Ithaca, studied abroad in Senegal a couple years ago and is now back, doing research on a Fulbright grant. She invited me to stay for a couple days in St. Louis, up north near the border with Mauritania, with her and her boyfriend Djibo, and two other friends who were visiting them, Kerry and Tapha.
After Dakar, my first impression of St. Louis was: so chill. Neighborhood streets are just sand, not paved. Caitlin and Djibo live in an apartment that could also be described as a collection of rooms off a central courtyard that's open to the sky. (Hard to describe, but a living arrangement familiar to me from Thailand.)
After Dakar, my first impression of St. Louis was: so chill. Neighborhood streets are just sand, not paved. Caitlin and Djibo live in an apartment that could also be described as a collection of rooms off a central courtyard that's open to the sky. (Hard to describe, but a living arrangement familiar to me from Thailand.)
They cook in the living room/courtyard over a single burner on a propane canister and eat from one shared serving platter on a mat on the floor, Senegalese style. Caitlin cooked a Senegalese dish (mafe, peanut sauce) and even made a vegetarian version for me; we also made some Western food like noodles and scrambled eggs, but still ate Senegalese-style from a shared platter on the floor; and I got to try lots of other Senegalese things, like this very certain type of millet you eat with a certain type of yogurt, and this other kind of millet you eat with milk, and you can't do it the other way around; and that's just how it is.
Caitlin also took me to visit the prison where Djibo works - totally laidback, with many of the prisoners going out to work for the day and then ambling back inside in the evening, and relatives stopping by to drop off food for family members in prison. Apparently, some prisoners even get permission to leave for Magal, the big yearly pilgrimmage to Touba.
Saw the full moon from St. Louis, in a clear sky over peaceful, sandy streets.
My second day, we went to the Parc National des Oiseaux du Djoudj, a.k.a. the famous bird park. Djibo organized a driver/guide for the day, who also took us on a boat ride through a seriously bird-populated lake: egrets, cormorants, herons, other birds whose French names we didn't understand, but definitely some species familiar to me as the ones that migrate south from Germany in the fall - how cool to find out where it is they end up.
But beyond all that: pelicans. Pelicans beyond number, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pelicans, almost all of them standing all squeezed together on this enormous concrete slab that serves as their nest: Pelicans, apparently, don't mind close quarters. (And our guide said whenever you see a pelican alone, it's because it's sick and doesn't want to infect the flock.) Words don't do it justice - I'll try to get a chance to post pictures at some point.
After the pelican lake the guide said, Now we're going somewhere else. Okay. None of us really understood where. (Well, Djibo probably did, but he didn't share.) It turned out where we went was... the Mauritanian border. To look at a dam that keeps salt water out of the Senegal River, which marks the border.
We walked up to the river and Djibo said, That was the Senegal border back there. What? But we don't have visas! Well, Mauritania doesn't start until the other side of the river. We were in a sort of no man's land between, but nobody at the Senegalese border station cared, and we wandered around for a bit looking at some really huge lizards.
Next day, we headed out "after lunch," which in Senegalese life turned out to mean 5 p.m., for Touba, to visit Caitlin's host family from when she studied abroad, and to check out the Grand Magal, a yearly pilgrimmage in which most of Senegal piles into Touba to visit the mosque and pay their respect to the founder of the Mouride Sufi brotherhood, to which a large percentage of the country belongs. (Sorry, vague because I have no time to look up statistics right now, but I do know that he was simultaneously a religious teacher and an important leader in the resistance to the colonial French.)
Mysterious 2 1/2-hour wait at the garage (bus station), where lots of people wanted to go to Touba, and lots of "sept place" cars were standing around, but no one was going. Mystery. Finally we banded together with a group of four Senegalese adults and managed to get a car.
Okay, I heard the phrase "sept place" (literally "seven seats") a lot before coming here, but no one warned me that a sept place is in fact a normal station wagon (generally in an impressively battered state), converted to seat a driver and seven passengers. Eight people in a station wagon! But at least we weren't in one of the overcrowded minibuses with people hanging off every which way - or the things that looked like dump trucks, but were packed to spilling over with people. Oh good lord.
Arrived Touba after midnight, hot, sweaty and exhausted, traffic crawling nearly to a standstill as we got into the city. Like I said, pretty much the whole country comes in time for the holiday on Thursday.
Touba, so hot, so full of people. Even the horse carts that generally seem to tansport goods were given over to transporting people. And everywhere, cows tied up to posts, just prior to being slaughtered for feasts. I even met a camel, who was also imminently to be slaughtered. Which was weird.
We stayed with Caitlin's friends Ibrahima and Adji, some of the most hospitable people I've ever met. Ibrahima just kept telling Cait and Kerry (and me, by the end) that this is their home, and they're part of the family. And not in a way like some people might just say that, but like he really meant it.
I'm out of time for now, but I'm going to try to come to the internet cafe one more time before we leave Dakar, and write the rest... Leggi leggi (see you later)!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Le Sénégal
My friends, I will now attempt the impossible: namely, to sum up my first almost-week in Senegal in my few remaining minutes of internet time, on the horrendously illogical French-layout keyboard, with everything still a jumble in my head and without the benefit of pictures.
First, January 3 departure from Berlin, a sudden and complete cut-off to the weeks of hectic preparation that preceded it. Train to Hamburg together with Kap (American) and Graham (Irish), my travel companions for the next three weeks. Lugging eight suitcases and backpacks (Kap brought tons of clothes and useful things to give to people she knows in Senegal, which I thought was great of her) through wet Hamburg streets, where a friend-of-a-friend very kindly put us up for the night.
Flight the next day with a layover in Lisbon, where we had time for a lovely afternoon of wandering the Alfama (convenient - only part of the city I'd heard of beforehand) and sampling many of Portugal's pastries, with a crash course delivered by a proud employee at an upscale bakery.
Landed in Dakar after 2 a.m., getting through passport control and out of the airport uneventful, despite the airport's reputation as awful and hectic. Friends of Kap's had sent a taxi to meet us. The driver was someone she had only a passing acqaintance with, but was effusively friendly like everyone here. Kap was so excited to be back, too, (she's lived in Senegal at points in the past) and she was up front next to the driver, practically bouncing in her seat as he fired questions at her and she answered, "Wauw wauw! Wauw wauw!" ("Yes yes, yes yes"; I asked afterward, and his questions were mainly variations on, "How are you? I missed you! How are you? The city missed you!")
The next days were a whirlwind - we tried to take it slow, but just kept getting invited places. We stayed with some friends of Kap's in Ngor, a village on the beach at the tip of the peninsula Dakar more or less fills, and visited other friends of hers, and of course every jaunt through the village to buy a bottle of water or a pastry turned into a social event, with so many people here who know Kap.
People are so friendly, and there's that whole culture of having to give a lot of appropriate greetings that you've maybe heard of as typical to Africa. But rather than being overwhelming, as I halfway expected, it's easy - you basically just say "How are you?" over and over in different languages (mainly Wolof and French). Caitlin (who I'm visiting now) says she thinks people here don't like silence - even if you've already been there 15 minutes, if they run out of things to say, they'll ask again, "How are you?"
Our very first evening, a friend of Kap's invited us to his father's birthday, where we ended up being invited to join a Thursday evening Muslim prayer meeting in the street (everyone is Muslim here, but in a way that seems pretty laidback and tolerant, and everyone belongs to a specific "brotherhood," which I think just means a certain branch of Islam -- UPDATE: Islam here is specifically Sufi, and the brotherhoods are the branches that follow different spiritual leaders) and then fed birthday cake and a sampling of Senegal's amazing fresh juices, complete with explanation of names and source fruits.
Everyone was impressed that we weren't more overwhelmed, in our first 24 hours, but it just wasn't overwhelming. Friendly and easygoing.
Next day, early morning swim at Ngor beach, exhausting trek to downtown Dakar to do some errands. Kap keeps reminding us that if you can get one thing done a day, it's an accomplishment. Lots of ice cream, lots of pastries. This country is bizarrely full of French patisseries. Dinner with friends of friends, an expat world that felt surreal, stepping into an apartment that could have been in Europe, in Dakar.
Then a lazy day, where all we "accomplished" was walking to the other side of the peninsula and watching the surfers, then in the evening met up with Couchsurfer friends of Kap's, somehow ended up at a party at some random Spanish guys' house, then went out dancing to fabulous mbalax music with one Senegalese friend of Kap's and one random traveling Irishman.
Got back to Ngor about 4 a.m., grabbed a pastry, then I got straight in a taxi to St. Louis (four hours north) to visit Caitlin, an acquaintance from Ithaca.
More anon about that, and the thousands of pelicans. Right now, headed to a major religious pilgrimmage in Touba!
First, January 3 departure from Berlin, a sudden and complete cut-off to the weeks of hectic preparation that preceded it. Train to Hamburg together with Kap (American) and Graham (Irish), my travel companions for the next three weeks. Lugging eight suitcases and backpacks (Kap brought tons of clothes and useful things to give to people she knows in Senegal, which I thought was great of her) through wet Hamburg streets, where a friend-of-a-friend very kindly put us up for the night.
Flight the next day with a layover in Lisbon, where we had time for a lovely afternoon of wandering the Alfama (convenient - only part of the city I'd heard of beforehand) and sampling many of Portugal's pastries, with a crash course delivered by a proud employee at an upscale bakery.
Landed in Dakar after 2 a.m., getting through passport control and out of the airport uneventful, despite the airport's reputation as awful and hectic. Friends of Kap's had sent a taxi to meet us. The driver was someone she had only a passing acqaintance with, but was effusively friendly like everyone here. Kap was so excited to be back, too, (she's lived in Senegal at points in the past) and she was up front next to the driver, practically bouncing in her seat as he fired questions at her and she answered, "Wauw wauw! Wauw wauw!" ("Yes yes, yes yes"; I asked afterward, and his questions were mainly variations on, "How are you? I missed you! How are you? The city missed you!")
The next days were a whirlwind - we tried to take it slow, but just kept getting invited places. We stayed with some friends of Kap's in Ngor, a village on the beach at the tip of the peninsula Dakar more or less fills, and visited other friends of hers, and of course every jaunt through the village to buy a bottle of water or a pastry turned into a social event, with so many people here who know Kap.
People are so friendly, and there's that whole culture of having to give a lot of appropriate greetings that you've maybe heard of as typical to Africa. But rather than being overwhelming, as I halfway expected, it's easy - you basically just say "How are you?" over and over in different languages (mainly Wolof and French). Caitlin (who I'm visiting now) says she thinks people here don't like silence - even if you've already been there 15 minutes, if they run out of things to say, they'll ask again, "How are you?"
Our very first evening, a friend of Kap's invited us to his father's birthday, where we ended up being invited to join a Thursday evening Muslim prayer meeting in the street (everyone is Muslim here, but in a way that seems pretty laidback and tolerant, and everyone belongs to a specific "brotherhood," which I think just means a certain branch of Islam -- UPDATE: Islam here is specifically Sufi, and the brotherhoods are the branches that follow different spiritual leaders) and then fed birthday cake and a sampling of Senegal's amazing fresh juices, complete with explanation of names and source fruits.
Everyone was impressed that we weren't more overwhelmed, in our first 24 hours, but it just wasn't overwhelming. Friendly and easygoing.
Next day, early morning swim at Ngor beach, exhausting trek to downtown Dakar to do some errands. Kap keeps reminding us that if you can get one thing done a day, it's an accomplishment. Lots of ice cream, lots of pastries. This country is bizarrely full of French patisseries. Dinner with friends of friends, an expat world that felt surreal, stepping into an apartment that could have been in Europe, in Dakar.
Then a lazy day, where all we "accomplished" was walking to the other side of the peninsula and watching the surfers, then in the evening met up with Couchsurfer friends of Kap's, somehow ended up at a party at some random Spanish guys' house, then went out dancing to fabulous mbalax music with one Senegalese friend of Kap's and one random traveling Irishman.
Got back to Ngor about 4 a.m., grabbed a pastry, then I got straight in a taxi to St. Louis (four hours north) to visit Caitlin, an acquaintance from Ithaca.
More anon about that, and the thousands of pelicans. Right now, headed to a major religious pilgrimmage in Touba!
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