Getting out of the city . . .

I've now seen more of Senegal than just Dakar! Last weekend, my friend Ellen (another Rotary student) and I were able to join a group for a trip to Toubacouta. There were 14 of us, so we filled a minibus to get there (rural transport is all paid by seat, and if you don’t fill the vehicle yourself you have to wait for enough other people going to the same town to fill the vehicle, so it’s definitely best to have a complete group). Toubacouta is a village south of Dakar, quite close to The Gambia, and it is on the Sine-Saloum Delta, a very beautiful area full of mangrove swamps. We stayed at Keur Bamboung, which is Senegal’s most successful eco-campement. All the proceeds from the campement go toward protecting the surrounding ocean reserve (boat patrols are necessary to enforce the fishing ban which has allowed some near-extinct species to begin recovering). Furthermore, the electricity is provided by solar panels and running water is supplied only from a reservoir sitting above the bathroom.

The lodging there is in traditional-style huts, with a few modernizations including concrete floors, mosquito nets, and toilets (though those toilets are open air). They also come complete with roommates! Our roommate was a lizard who proceeded to run around the room all night. Thank goodness for earplugs, I didn’t hear anything while the other girls lay there in fear of what was making the noise. Here’s a pic of the campement (that's my hut in the background):

All activities at the campement are included with your stay, and we were able to go canoeing and on nature walks. My favourite walk was through the mangrove swamps, which led us through water up to the mid-thigh (we went in the early evening when the tide was a bit too high) and mud up to the ankle. Mangroves are everywhere in the area as they grow in the salt water, their roots sticking out above the surface, and as they mature the roots form a structure allowing more mangroves to grow there. Eventually they’ll probably take over the world. The mangroves also make finding oysters easy, as they latch on to the roots and when the tide is low they can simply be picked off. Hey look, me with mangroves!

This week I started Wolof classes, and it’s been rather intense. Five hours a day of a completely new language is a bit much to absorb all at once, but I’m just taking lots of notes and will have to continue reviewing them once my week of Wolof classes is finished. My family also loves it when I bust out a few words in Wolof, so I’ll have lots of chances to practice.

I’m also starting to set up my volunteering project. I met with Gary Engelberg on Friday, and he is the head of ACI’s health activities. We discussed what I can possibly do to help out with HIV/AIDS organizations in the city and there are a couple of things I’m going to check out in the next week. First, ACI has a documentation center with hundreds of papers about the development side of the AIDS epidemic, and there needs to be some work done on organizing and updating the center. I may also begin writing summaries of some papers for quick reference purposes. The documentation center is used by many people who come to Dakar to do HIV research, so organization for accessibility is key. For more hands-on involvement, I may begin working with a pediatrician who has an NGO to support HIV-infected children. I’ll keep you posted on what I become involved in as it takes shape.

This week a number of students from the Baobab Center went to a concert by Cheikh Lô, and I stood at the back and attempted to mimic the dancers’ moves. Admittedly it was a pretty sad effort, but their dancing is insane! So, new goal: actually learn how to dance for a change instead of just faking. That said, if I learn to dance like they do here you may have no idea what I’m doing anyway. Some popular moves include flinging your legs out to the side and swinging them around sort of like your running while holding the front of your shirt out with one hand and swinging the other arm around and making an intense dancing face. Look forward to that.

There are a lot of cool students at the Baobab Center with whom I’ve become friends. But making Senegalese friends has been significantly more difficult. Of course I’m friends with my “siblings” in my host home, and I’m grateful to have people close to my age there. As far as meeting people in other contexts, most guys who talk to you just want to hit on you and most women are not interested in being friendly (most women my age are either maids or married so they don’t have the time to be visiting). Hopefully with time I can meet local friends, but I think it will come gradually as I build a network here.

Finally, in response to Emma’s request, here’s a pic of my bedroom:

I stay in a nice house; one of the few that has hot water and a guardian who sits outside of the front door of the wall surrounding the house six nights a week. Some other houses are organized as individual rooms around a central courtyard, but my house is quite similar to North American houses in layout, which makes it easier to mingle with my family. I would supply a pic of the bathroom also as per request, but currently the toilet is dismantled and laying on the floor, so it’s not really photo-ready. Perhaps later.

Ba ci kanam (Wolof for “until later”). I'll leave you with a pic of the sunset with a baobab tree that I took on the drive home from Toubacouta.