Sarah loose in Senegal: January 2009

So – it has certainly been a while since I have posted to this blog. I figure I owe an update! I don’t even think I even finished the stories from the trip…and at this point I am not sure where I left off. So, in summary the rest of the trip went fantastically! :)

We ended up only have a week in Burkina which was far too little but our visas were only for 7 days and we really did need to get back to campus! Although we didn’t even make it to Ouagadougou, Burkina was wonderful. We spent New Years with Maxime’s wonderful host family in Tougan and got to see some real greenery further south in Banfora. I rode on a moto for the first time! That was exciting! Lenny was really sick our first day in Ouaghiyah and so I went to explore the town and along the way this nice guy stopped and offered to take me to get a phone card on his moto. I hesitated for all of a second as I wondered what he would want in return or whether it was safe and then decided it was just too exciting to turn down!! Turns out it was safe and it got me hooked, so when we got to Banfora we rented motos for a day to cruise around and look at the pretty countryside! Nevermind that the motos we rented were possibly the oldest and most rickety motos in town. Within 10 minutes Lenny had lost a pedal and the front light and for the whole ride back my moto would inexplicably slow RIGHT down to a stop before deciding that it was okay to speed up again. At least we had lots of good laughs that day!!!

We also spent a day on bikes. That will be a day I never forget! It was too wonderful! We biked about 15 km to some waterfalls, through countryside, villages and herds of cows! Then we spent the afternoon hiking around, relaxing, journal writing! We hiked out to these amazing rock formations that looked like giant domes and had an amazing view over the countryside – green green fields of sugar cane! On the bike home we stopped at a little campement for the most incredible pizza I have tasted for a while. There is nothing like a good pizza and a cold beer after a long day in the sun (Torsten, I am sure you agree!) Not very West African but delicious quand meme!

After Banfora we headed to Bobo Diolasso to find transport to Bamako before our visas ran out! Our one night in Bobo we happened to stumble in on an amazing live music concert. A Russian girl we met in Banfora had recommended this particular bar for live music and so we decided to go for a relaxing evening of music. We ended up at this really incredible high energy concert by a Burkinabe group that now live and perform in France. The man drummer apparently only performs once a year and we were super lucky to be in the right place at the right time. There were all kinds of drummers and singers and dancers! Dancing like you wouldn’t believe. There were even points when people from the audience would come onstage and kneel down in front of the lead drummer for his approval and then they would start dancing like mad!!!! It was exhausting just watching them jumping and twisting and throwing themselves on the ground and….wow!

It was a nice way to spend our last evening in Burkina, mentally preparing for the long bus ride ahead to Bamako.

It was sort of nice to get back to Bamako the second time knowing that we knew the layout of the city and what to see and do. Our arrival was a bit hectic. We had called a hostel to say that we would be arriving around 2 am and needed a place to stay. We actually ended up arriving at 4 in the morning at the gare routiere. After negotiating with the cab driver for a long time, we decided on a price that was okay. At that point though the driver started loading another woman’s things into the car. Now generally shared taxis are considerably cheaper then one you take personally and so we thought the driver was taking advantage of us and the situation. So we decided to get out and find another cab. Luckily the small shared buses had already started running and so for a fraction of the cab price we made it all the way to just near the hostel. At that point we realized that we had forgotten a bag in the cab! ARGH! I figured that the bag was lost and that was that, but Lenny convinced me that we should walk to the hostel, drop off our bags and then go back to the bus station and try to ask anyone if they knew the cab driver! Given that it was almost 5 am we didn’t really want to take a room at the hostel and pay for the night anyway so…why not stay up all night and not sleep! Sleep is overrated! On the way to the hostel we got totally lost in the confusing maze like streets of the neighbourhood and at this point we were just ridiculous giddy and tired and starting to consider camping on the sidewalk. We did manage to find the hostel but since no one was awake we just dropped off our bags and a little note saying we would be back (turns out the night watchman couldn’t read but we tried!!). We then jumped on a little bus went ALL the way back to the bus station (in a little shared bus)…missed our stop….walked back to the station and LUCKILY the first person we ran into was the cab driver! He was surprisingly nice to us even though we had been a little ridiculous earlier on and to my GREAT joy returned the bag we had left. By the time we made it back to the hostel, chatted with the night watchman, and settled in it was 7 in the morning and we had finally arrived in BAMAKO!!

We stayed in Bamako for a few nights, mostly because we hadn’t been given a visa at the border so we had to go to the immigration services in Bamako to get a visa (for the country we were already in) so that we would be allowed to leave.

The bus ride home is also a story but that one can wait for another time. Suffice it to say that after 36 hours we were pretty exhausted and glad to be back in the more or else familiar surroundings of Dakar. We stayed in Dakar for a few nights to recover before heading back to Saint Louis. Masco, our host in Dakar, is a friend of a friend from UGB and was super nice enough to give up his room for us! He has an apartment that he shares with his brother and some cousins and while we were there his aunt was visiting and there were various children around….I don’t know! I certainly can’t keep track of who is who….All I know is that they are all Congolese from Brazzaville and I am officially putting Congo-Brazza on my list of must-sees because every single Congolese I have met while here have been incredibly nice and talk so highly of their home! Sounds like a really beautiful place.

And so that takes us just about to now….

Since we have been back classes have started completely and I even have an assignment to do and we have talked about exams! It feels good to be going to class and learning things again! Although, not all the classes are super fantastic. I have one professor who is teaching Sustainable Development but who doesn’t seem to quite grasp the concept. He comes to class without any notes or materials and sits in his chair and repeats the same things over and over. When students ask questions he clearly does not listen and plays on his phone or looks out the window and then proceeds to answer, or more appropriately ‘not-answer’, their questions by once again repeating everything he has already said. Some of what he says is interesting and if I could believe that he was trying to be provocative and encourage debate I would give him more credit but I think he just doesn’t care….and that’s the problem! ARGH so frustrating!

But my professor for Environmental Law totally makes up for it! Now there is a great professor. He has a lot of experience with environmental issues both locally and internationally and he continuously stops his dictée to discuss environmental movements around the world or to talk about social issues that impact the environment! He is so interesting!!

I guess you sometimes need the less-than-ideal professors to more fully appreciate the great ones!

And that is enough of an update for one blog I think! Now it is time to do some laundry. Nothing is more exciting than laundry by hand (UGH)!

Toota wonana! (Until next time, ciao!)

(I have met a guy who is going to teach me some Swahili! Because just learning Wolof isn’t enough)

First taste of photos - this are roughly posted because it is late - so they aren't in order and the captions are off :) But I wanted to post something from the trip for those of you interested...I will post an actual post soon!

But update for now - we are back in Saint Louis, safe and sound and starting course! Woohoo....

Ongie - he looks sweet but sweetness is deceiving....

He did take this picture though...

We cooked delicious chili !

I tried to do Lenny's hair but then the boys took over! Apparently they do a better job..

Masco, Alain and Prince! Our Congolese friends in Dakar....at the beach

Alain is making a sexy mermaid...

The bus from Bamako to Dakar - well to the border!

Socrat....the auberge manager in Bamako

We rented motos - they were the most amazing motos in the world...losing pedals, lights and speed left and right :)

A sacred Baobab tree that you can go inside. Apparently the tree opened up in order to protect a village from an attack from a neighbour village...and has been opened since for sacred reasons!