Becoming an Outdoor Girl

ADVENTURE!!!!!

I recently went on another adventure, which was a lovely little respite from the intense (but good!) work schedule I’ve committed myself to lately.  I’ll write about my work here sometime, I promise.  It’s just such a constant thing that I always feel like I can do it in the next entry.  So for today, TAMBACOUNDA-KEDOUGOU ADVENTURE!

Last year, I went to Kedougou for the 4^th of July, and it was a rollicking good time.  Obviously, I wanted to return this year, not only to catch up with my far-flung friends again, but also to do a few things I missed last time, like hiking to the glorious waterfalls or doing something exciting, like sleeping in a tent.  I resolved to go to Kedougou and DO THOSE THINGS. 

On my way to DOING THOSE THINGS, I stopped by Maleme Niani, a roadside village in Tambacounda that my good friend Nicky calls home (NICKY'S BLOG HERE!).  While I live in a house with ten other people, Nicky lives with 80.  While my family doesn’t seem to care if I even say hi to them in the morning and often shuts my door for me, Nicky routinely talks to all 4,000 people in her village, and I’m pretty sure they all legitmately know her.  I realized how adapted I’ve become to my fancy city life when I found the level of social interaction required of her slightly overwhelming.

But on the plus side, I got to have a few memorable encounters.  For one, a handful of women on Nicky’s compound started fighting over whose husband would get me as a second wife.  We also got repeated, alternating confidence boosts and defeats as everyone, seeing two toubabs together to compare, would call one of us prettier than the other, but then follow that by saying the pretty one was pretty because she was so fat.  We were both pretty and fat during those two days.  I got a taste of village superstition when Nicky’s little siblings warned me in horror that “two crazy women are wandering around the village... they will ask you to hold their sheep... DO NOT DO IT! If you hold their sheep, YOU WILL DIE!”  It was just like a spam email, but it was real-life and delivered by Senegalese children!  And at night, Nicky’s room was invaded by rats the size of small dogs who, in a bizarre yet hospitable gesture, always poop in the same pile in the corner of her hut.

Nicky, on the left, was my host.  She has a great positive attitude despite living in a rat settlement and being friends with me.

Perhaps my favorite encounter came with one of Nicky’s most surly neighbors.  Upon arrival, the woman seemed to take a liking to me.  Through the course of conversation, she asked me, “Where’s my present?”, which is a typical (although occasional annoying) demand of any visitor or returning friend.  I tossed her the line I’d been using all day, which made most people laugh: “Present?  I’m your present!  Look at this face!  I’m a beautiful present!  And I’m your new friend!”  But this lady didn’t laugh.  She stared at me.  Then she told me that she hated my present.  I said, in the sassy way that usually makes a Senegalese person laugh, “Well, if you don’t like this present, it will leave Maleme Niani and never come back!”  The woman stared at me.  “Go then,” she said.  “Leave.  Leave my house.  I hate you.  I never want to see you again.  I hope you never come back.”  Nicky later told me that that woman has made her cry more than once.

In our effort to get to Kedougou, a city that lies roughly 4 hours southwest of Tambacounda, Nicky and I proceeded to make some of the worst travel decisions of our lives.  I still really do want to devote a blog to transportation in Senegal, and when I do that, this story will be explored in more detail.  But suffice to say, instead of being the first two people in a seven person 7-place, we decided to commit to the cheaper, 18-25 person car that seemed to only have four spots later.  Fast forward a bit – after sitting in the hot sun, being charged to pee, skipping lunch, and watching numerous 7-places happily head off to our destination, our car finally left 6 hours later.  It then promptly broke down about 15km outside of Tamba.  We reached our destination 8 hours later, which means our car averaged about 30km and hour for the 260km drive.  It was the kind of experience that people justify by saying, “Now you are so much stronger for it!”  No.  In no way did I ever need to know that I could survive on a Senegalese car from hell for 11 hours.  I was fine living without that knowledge.  It did not change my live at all.  I in no way needed that experience.

The impossible dream that fed our hope during the worst ride of our lives: KEDOUGOU.

But luckily, Nicky and I remained friends during it!  And then we made it down to beautiful Kedougou, where we had the privilege of...

• -       Hiking numerous hours to waterfalls!  During this hike I got discover how outdoorsy my friends are and how prone I am to slipping on rocks and falling into creeks.  But I felt like I really used my whole body on this hike.  It felt human.
• -       Camping in the great outdoors! I did it.  I slept in a tent, one night even by myself, which is a huge accomplishment given my past of being afraid of crickets in my room.  The downside of camping was that I spent about five days sleeping on damp clothes and blankets, and despite washing my stuff, all of my clothes still smell like mildew.
• -       Stalked by monkeys! There were a few baboon fights in my midst.  A lot of my really progressive friends tried to have encounters with monkeys, which usually failed, but often resulted in a Jurassic Park-loaded silence that included all of the humans looking at each other and quietly whispering, “They’re watching us.”  And they were, from the trees.  And then we’d hear them run away from us.  Monkeys.  98.something percent human.  A + humans.
• -       Seeing old friends!  Everyone who’s anyone was in Kedougou, and I got to see them all, and we ate pizza and danced in the rain and the mud and went swimming and it was GREAT.  In many ways, our lives imitated Rihanna’s “We Found Love” music video, especially the sparklers and mud part.  The soundtrack to our party had a lot of Hall and Oates and Robyn though, which meant I could never leave the dance floor.
• -       Celebrating America! No one does the 4^th of July better than a bunch of ragtag ex-pat hippies!  NO ONE.  And check out this picture of the girls in my stage.  SO PATRIOTIC.  So patriotic that this makes me feel like we’re in a DAR sorority.

Yeah girls.  Too bad we posed in front of a cornhole board that read "I love nuts on my face." (because the beanbags here are full of nuts... get it?)  Classy ladies.  Ignorant, classy ladies.

I returned home incredibly content.  It’s super fun to travel around Senegal, because I almost feel like I’m working while I’m on vacation, especially when I return to site and have the opportunity to enlighten my Senegalese friends and family about these crazy, wondrous parts of their country that they’ve never seen.  They tend to stereotype regions with one word, I guess not so differently than we do in America. Tamba – hot!  Kedougou – waterfall! Georgia – peaches!  Oregon – drugs!  But yeah.  Vacation success.  And until the next adventure, I will continue grappling with LIFE SKILLS, GIRLS CAMP, and transportation in Senegal.  

And here's a picture of Mohammad, because EVERYBODY LOVES A CUTE BABY