A Senegalese Roadtrip

The group waiting for a new bus.

Last weekend our program went on a trip to the Saloum Delta, a river delta south of Dakar that is very close to the Gambian border. I woke up early, before six o'clock and caught a taxi to school where we all loaded up our bus and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of pastries and juice. Unfortunately, as we were enjoying breakfast, and before we left school, the rack that was holding up all the luggage on top of the bus collapsed under the weight of all of our bags, hundreds of liters of bottled water, and mass offerings of onions, rice, and various other foodstuffs we were bringing for the family of our program's director. So we drove the bus a whole two blocks to exchange it for another bus. It was a surprisingly efficient process. Most of us really anticipated to be in Dakar until lunch, but we managed to leave before ten.

The state of the roads. Note the large potholes.

The road between Dakar and Toubacouta is not long- about ninety kilometers I have been told- but we enjoyed every nook, cranny, and bump it had to offer. In fact, we enjoyed about six hours worth of everything that road had to offer. Such a time frame would be considered ludicrous in the United States, but that is just how long things take when the roads are full of crater-sized potholes and huge puddles.  Luckily, the drive was beautiful. It is the tail end of the rainy season, which means that everything is still lush and green. We got to take in fields of crops taller than me, baobabs, and lots of donkeys, horses, and cattle. So the drive was slow, but eventful.

Our first stop was a place we returned to a number of times throughout the weekend: the house of the mayor of Sokone, who also happens to be the brother of our program director. The house was gorgeous and the ladies there prepared us delicious food for lunch every day of our journey. They also entertained everyone with beats and songs and dancing, which was fun to watch. I couldn't dance for most of the weekend because I managed to fall ill again (yum, fever, cough, delicious!), which was very sad, but also allowed me to watch as my classmates busted a move. That was really entertainment enough.

The view from the dinner table.

After lunch we continued on to our hotel, which was gorgeous! It was nestled right on the river bank and was surrounded by mangroves. We shared little rooms between three of us, which featured AC and (I've been told) hot water. Our hot water was a total failure, but it was nice to think it existed for some people. It was really nice to escape the city for awhile, especially when we got to eat very fancy dishes overlooking the river every night. We didn't get to enjoy this little piece of paradise all that much though because our program had us doing things every second of the day.

We did quite a few things during our time in the area: visited a health clinic and maternity ward, conversed with the mayor of Sokone, met some local radio broadcasters, etc. I only partially got to see all of those things because I was sick and had to pass a lot of time on the bus, which was lame, but also better for my well-being so I guess I can't complain.

Two events stood out among the rest as really stellar. The first was attending a lutte match, which I will explain in a separate post because it is too silly/important/good to squish in here with everything else. The other was our day reforesting mangroves and taking a tour through the national park that is located in the Saloum Delta.

Saturday morning we set out on the bus, ready to plant some mangroves! I was actually being sort of a party pooper because of my fever, but I will pretend that I was actually really upbeat and excited for the sake of the story. Our bus dropped us off and we walked to the river's edge, where a few members of the group donned ridiculously oversized orange life vests. Very silly. Then we headed for the river, where a large pirogue was waiting for us (I think it was a pirogue- I guess I just call most of the boats here pirogues. It's totally possible there is a more narrow definition than I am assigning it though.). The caveat is that the pirogue was already 100 yards onto the river and we had to walk out to it. I had worn jeans rolled up past my knees thinking that would be sufficient for wading. Wrong. We went in thigh deep and had to dive into the pirogue in the middle of the river. Exciting, but also proved most people's choice of shoes to be entirely inadequate. Once everyone had made it into the boat, it made the large craft look piddly. There were probably thirty or so people, plus buckets and huge sacks of mangrove seeds in the boat. We rode the entire way about six inches out of the water. Actually, the boat was leaking right below my seat, which Waly described as “pas bon,” and some of the younger boys took turns bailing out the bottom of the boat as we rode, so I guess I should feel glad that we had even that much clearance. The boat ride was full of singing and dancing (due to space constraints only one or two people could dance at a time) and was entirely enjoyable.

We pulled up to a beach to watch crabs scatter everywhere and began to make our way across a flat expanse of mud to plant mangroves. Out on the mud flats there were thousands of crabs hurrying away in a mass exodus, trying to avoid our large group. It worked for the most part, although I would guess something like 100 crabs fell prey to various members of the group taking hostages. Apparently it was also very smelly, but I didn't know that. The mud was mostly reasonable for most of the morning, but as we moved further from our starting point it got softer and softer. Finally, I just started skating across the top of the mud. After awhile though, members of the group started sinking in thigh deep. That obviously didn't stop us from planting those damned trees, but it did mean that we were all very muddy by the time we left. Luckily, we still had to wade in the river to return to shore, so we were only wet with really muddy river water and not pure mud by the time we got on the bus.

Later in the day we got back into boats and took a relaxing cruise through the river system. Very informative and beautiful. Not nearly as adventurous as the morning's exploits, but a lovely way to end the day. Overall, the weekend was well worth the drive, even though we had to do it all over again to go back to Dakar.