Sorry for the long gap between blog posts... I have actually been busy, meeting with artisans, attending a regional training in Kayes, and working on a funding proposal, amongst other things. More on that later, but first, my awesome trip to Senegal in February:
Last month, a big group of Peace Corps Volunteers from Mali took a 24 hour bus trip to Dakar, Senegal, to participate in the West African Invitational Softball Tournament, or WAIST. There were a lot of teams participating, including US Embassy workers, missionaries, high school students, and even a Senegalese team. They were in the "competitive" league; the Peace Corps teams from Senegal, The Gambia and Mali participated in the "social" league. We had a really fun time playing our games. I actually played pretty well, got a hit each time I was up, but my fielding was sub-par. It was fun to play softball with other Americans and feel "at home" again, if only for a weekend!
Dakar is a beautiful city, set on a peninsula right on the Atlantic coast. After being in Mali for 7 months, I felt like I was in a European city. Dakar is so much different from Bamako, the capital of Mali. It is much more developed and there is a lot more investment going into the infrastructure. In Bamako you're often walking down a road with open sewers, domesticated animals (like goats and sheep) roaming the streets, and no sidewalks! The neighborhood where we stayed in Dakar was the exact opposite, and it was right on the ocean, a nice bonus!
We also ate really well in Dakar. Not only were the concessions during the games good (hot dogs and pulled pork sandwiches!), but the dinners were out of this world (at least my world in Mali): steak with Roquefort sauce, thai food and tapas. It was so much better than rice and sauce! Not to mention the ice cream from N'Ice Cream in downtown Dakar, some of the best I've ever had. The three scoops of Strawberry Tiramisu, Ferrerro Rocher, and Passion Fruit ice cream were AMAZING. I happily took on the challenge of eating all of this ice cream in one sitting!
After the weekend of softball and fine dining in Dakar, some of us headed down the coast to a little beach town called Toubab Dialaw. We stayed at a cool hotel right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. I was lucky enough to be in the first cab to arrive at the hotel, and got to stay in a fun little house that opened up right on to the ocean. Check out the photos:
It was so nice to spend a few days here, relaxing on the beach, reading some books, hanging out with friends and enjoying the great weather. One morning we walked up the beach to a fishing community and helped the men pull in their catch. They dropped a huge net about 1000 feet into the ocean. They were happy to get our help pulling it in; it was a lot of work! It was fun to see what we caught... lots of sea snakes, an octopus, and a bunch of little fish and jellyfish were in the net. We also ate well in Toubab Dialaw; there was a great little creperie down the beach, and we got some delicious snacks at a little grocery store, like gruyere cheese with sausage and bread, green olives, and BBQ Pringles.
After our stint on the beach, I split off from my friends who headed back to Mali, and continued to the Kedougou region of Senegal to visit a friend of mine from high school who is a Peace Corps Volunteer there. He's the same friend who came to visit me in Kenieba in January. It was a great visit; we spent a night in his thatched hut and hiked out to a 300 foot tall waterfall. He has a huge host family of 20 people, most of whom are little kids. There's rarely a dull moment around his house! It was neat to visit a Peace Corps Volunteer working in a rural village, too. It is such a different environment than the one I am working in, a town of 15,000 people with cell phone service, electricity, and running water. I'm living in a six room concrete house with a tin roof and wooden ceilings. My friend's house is literally a one room hut, about 8 feet in diameter. He has to fetch his water from a well a few minutes away from his house. There's no electricity at night, just solar panels to charge his cell phone battery, and lanterns and head lamps to use at night. He does have cell phone service, but there are not many places left in the world that are out of range!
I also got to spend a couple days at the Peace Corps house in Kedougou, the regional capital, before going back to Kenieba. I got to meet the volunteers there and check out some of their projects. My friend has a radio show on the community radio station once a week, so I got to sit in on the show and introduce myself on the air. They played some American music and a recording they had made of the Princess Bride in Pulaar, the local language there. They even invited the community to call in and talk to them on the air! It was pretty impressive, and well received by the community. I also got to talk to a volunteer about a shea nut and peanut sheller machine that he helped build. It is pretty inexpensive and very efficient, so I think I might try it out with some associations I am working with in Mali.
The trip back to Kenieba was pretty easy, since Kedougou is only 150 kilometers away, and most of the trip is on a brand new paved road! The trip that I usually take to get back to Kenieba, from Kayes, the regional capital, is 250 kilometers away on a dirt road. So this made for a much better and more relaxing trip back. All in all, it was a great vacation, a real escape from work and life here in Mali. I have a good feeling I will be back to Senegal again in the future!
