So... last night I got back from one of the best trips of my life! I went to Kedegou (South Eastern Senegal) for the 4th of July, and had an amazing experience! Kedegou is exactly what I imagined africa to be. Everything was green (it reminded me of a revamped old movie...the ground was a super bright, almost flourescent green; the roads were a rich brick colored red, and the sky a light blue- the colors were so intense and exagerated that it seemed almost fake) , there were mountains in the background (mostly from Guinea), monkeys, wild boar, rivers with Hippos...
On the 4th of July there was a big Peace Corps party at the regional house in Kedegou, and I had a blast. The kids of Kedegou cooked up a pig, and made lots of salads and desserts (just like the 4th in America). We also had plenty of palm wine, honey wine and beer to drink... a DJ, a pinata, water balloon fights, frisbee, catch with a football, trips to the river to go swimming (yes, i probably have shisto now!) and plenty of catching up with people we haven't seen in awhile. It was great!
On the 5th, a group of about 10 of us decided to take a 20 mile bike ride to go to see waterfalls... the trip was breathtaking! We rode our bikes through the jungle, then hiked for about 2 hours to the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen (it was a national geographic moment, for sure!) The hike was beautiful, we saw monkeys in the distance (apparently, in this part of Senegal, the monkeys are known to make poisonous arrows!!) and we swam in the waterfall. That night, we all stayed in a campement (grass huts that could easily get blown over from the wind) that was close to the waterfalls. It was lovely... we sat outside and talked under the stars, with noises from the jungle in the background (we were told to put our bikes in the huts with us, because there are apparently bandits from Guinea that roam that part of senegal at night!!). The next morning, about half of us decided to head back to Kedegou at 5:00am (the sun doesn't rise until about 6:30am), so we were trying to bike on extremely bumpy roads in the dark (only one of us had a headlamp, the others were trying to bike while holding on to flashlights, or with no light at all... i personally had my flashlight in my mouth while i was trying to avoid all the bumps and pot holes and large puddles. I think i ended up wiping out on my bike twice on my way back to Kedegou!).
Once we got back to Kedegou, we had to leave to go back up north almost immediately. The roads from Kedegou (where i was), to Kaolack (my regional house, where i had to go) are HORRIBLE!!! It took about 15 hours to go approximately 300 miles!!! It was one of the worst road trips ever. Our driver kept stopping on the way to talk to his friends, and we also had to stop to get food, and for him to pray at sunset.
But I made it back to Kaolack in one piece, and I think that I'm refreshed and ready to return to my site and start working again!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
So, today was the big day for me to bike from Sokone to Kaolack... it was POURING rain this morning when I woke up, but i decided to give it a try anyways. I put my HUGE backpack on (i'm guessing that it weighed over 20lbs) and put my raincoat over that to keep the contents somewhat dry. I probably made it only 3/4 of the way to Kaolack before some guy offered to give me a ride in his truck the rest of the way... I was DYING by that time!!! After the pouring rain, the horrible roads were covered in mud, and i was soaked to the bone. At one point, i pulled over to the side of the road, and (making sure no one was around), took off my pants and underwear and put on a somewhat dry pair of shorts that I had in my backpack. But by the time the nice man offered me a ride in his truck, my pasty pale legs were covered in mud (the cars that drove past me must have found it fun to drive as close to me as they could and to splash brownish/red/stinky water all over me)... but he still let me in his truck!! Senegalese hospitality at it's finest! If I didn't have such a heavy backpack on, and if I wasn't soaked to the bone from the rain, i think i could have made it the whole 30 miles....
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