I Can See Guinea from my Friends' House!
The day before I needed to head into Kedougou to transit to Thies for our 2-week technical In-Service Training, I had the opportunity to spend one night at another volunteer site in the region. As usual on a Tuesday morning, I biked one hour to my luumo (weekly market) town. The only things different about this ride were the (1) I was by myself on the trail for the first time, and (2) I had a backpack and my tennis shoes strapped to the rack above my back wheel with the ubiquitous thin black rubber strapping found on the back of every bike in Senegal. My black tennis shoes with highlighter yellow accents matched my black-and-highlighter-yellow Eddie Bauer packable backpack so well it looked as if I had planned it. Despite the hilly ride and bumpy terrain, my load was still solidly attached the to back of my bike when I reached the luumo. Not bad for my first abstract strapping challenge.
I greeted the teachers at their compound then went to find a bean sandwich for breakfast, one of of my favorite parts of going to the luumo. (I'll write a post about the bean sandwiches in Senegal sometime, so stay tuned). I wandered around the luumo for a while and bought some local oranges and attaya as a gift for the family I was going to visit. Bringing a gift when you arrive at someone's house is very important in Senegalese culture. Each time I come back to my village after spending the night somewhere else, I bring my family a gift. Similarly, I brought my CBT (local homestay) family a gift every time I returned to Mbour from the Training Center in Thies. My favorite gift to give when they were in season was watermelon. Now I generally bring my family vegetables as a gift when I return from the big city. Attaya and sugar is also always a welcome hospitality gift for any family.
The volunteers I was traveling to spend a night with are a married couple named Eric and Alyssa. While I was biking to the luumo in the morning, Eric was biking to the luumo to meet me and show me the way back to his village. His ride was two hours. He arrived around 10am, ate a bean sandwich, and we departed together at 10:30, just as the sun was approaching "blazing hot" intensity. We rode the two hours back to his village along bush paths, climbing rocky hills then coasting down nearly-level plateaus with beautiful vistas of the mountains to the south. Arriving in my friends' compound and standing in their "bathroom," I was immediately impressed with the stunning view of Guinean mountains visible over the bathroom fence.
After a lunch of rice with peanut sauce, we spent the afternoon resting in their hut and avoiding the heat. In the evening, we walked to the electric corn grinder and paid a few CFA for the operator to grind that evening's corn. The grinder and some streetlights in the 700-person village are powered by a large bank of solar panels. The goal for the panels is to expand their utilization, eventually providing power to homes in the village.
Eric and Alyssa's village is a Pulaar village, but I was not surprised to find a decent amount of people there who speak Jaxanke including their host father, the village chief. I had a couple good conversations with some other people we met while walking around the village, but I also did a lot of staring at people blankly when the spoke to me in Pulaar.
The next morning we biked into Kedougou from their site. The first 30 minutes of the ride was on a rough bush path with a lot of sand, gravel, and uphill sections. I wiped out for the first time in Senegal just outside their village when I approached a patch of deep sand from the wrong angle. Once we reached the main dirt road, we picked up speed considerably and made great time to Kedougou; the ride took about 2 hours. Waiting for us at the end of the ride, as usual, were delicious bean sandwiches from the breakfast lady across the street from the transit house. Just as during the language seminar, I really enjoyed spending time in another volunteer's village. Small differences in development and language can have huge impacts on the village; I am looking forward to continuing to get an even bigger picture of how villages can differ from one another as I visit other sites in my region during the coming months.
I greeted the teachers at their compound then went to find a bean sandwich for breakfast, one of of my favorite parts of going to the luumo. (I'll write a post about the bean sandwiches in Senegal sometime, so stay tuned). I wandered around the luumo for a while and bought some local oranges and attaya as a gift for the family I was going to visit. Bringing a gift when you arrive at someone's house is very important in Senegalese culture. Each time I come back to my village after spending the night somewhere else, I bring my family a gift. Similarly, I brought my CBT (local homestay) family a gift every time I returned to Mbour from the Training Center in Thies. My favorite gift to give when they were in season was watermelon. Now I generally bring my family vegetables as a gift when I return from the big city. Attaya and sugar is also always a welcome hospitality gift for any family.
The volunteers I was traveling to spend a night with are a married couple named Eric and Alyssa. While I was biking to the luumo in the morning, Eric was biking to the luumo to meet me and show me the way back to his village. His ride was two hours. He arrived around 10am, ate a bean sandwich, and we departed together at 10:30, just as the sun was approaching "blazing hot" intensity. We rode the two hours back to his village along bush paths, climbing rocky hills then coasting down nearly-level plateaus with beautiful vistas of the mountains to the south. Arriving in my friends' compound and standing in their "bathroom," I was immediately impressed with the stunning view of Guinean mountains visible over the bathroom fence.
After a lunch of rice with peanut sauce, we spent the afternoon resting in their hut and avoiding the heat. In the evening, we walked to the electric corn grinder and paid a few CFA for the operator to grind that evening's corn. The grinder and some streetlights in the 700-person village are powered by a large bank of solar panels. The goal for the panels is to expand their utilization, eventually providing power to homes in the village.
Eric and Alyssa's village is a Pulaar village, but I was not surprised to find a decent amount of people there who speak Jaxanke including their host father, the village chief. I had a couple good conversations with some other people we met while walking around the village, but I also did a lot of staring at people blankly when the spoke to me in Pulaar.
The next morning we biked into Kedougou from their site. The first 30 minutes of the ride was on a rough bush path with a lot of sand, gravel, and uphill sections. I wiped out for the first time in Senegal just outside their village when I approached a patch of deep sand from the wrong angle. Once we reached the main dirt road, we picked up speed considerably and made great time to Kedougou; the ride took about 2 hours. Waiting for us at the end of the ride, as usual, were delicious bean sandwiches from the breakfast lady across the street from the transit house. Just as during the language seminar, I really enjoyed spending time in another volunteer's village. Small differences in development and language can have huge impacts on the village; I am looking forward to continuing to get an even bigger picture of how villages can differ from one another as I visit other sites in my region during the coming months.
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