Rhinos, Zebras, and Giraffes, oh my!

On Thursday afternoon we renewed our adventurous spirit and went to the Village des Arts in Yoff, the northern side of the Dakar peninsula. We had been slacking a bit with sight-seeing since we’ve had more homework recently. Village des Arts was started during Leopold Senghor’s presidency as a community for artists. We toured through a gallery then walked thorough the surrounding studios talking to the artists who displayed their work in the gallery. They were all very interesting, some were self-taught but many had gone to the art school in Dakar. It was mostly modern-style art in all forms, paintings, bronze statues, limestone, and a giant sculpture made of magazine pages. One of the highlights was the little boy who lived there who took us to feed the resident goat. A lot of people pay good money to feed them at petting zoos in the US, I considered myself lucky.

This past weekend we went to Popenguine, a picturesque town south of Dakar on the ocean. A few French people own vacation homes there, the president Abdoulaye Wade has one there, too. We got there in a sept-place, a station wagon with a hired driver. There are a few gare routiers in Dakar where you can just walk in and ask someone to take you anywhere in the country. You have to know the price though, or you’ll get ripped off, just like every other situation, since most anything can be negotiated. We stayed in a house right on the gorgeous beach. We cooked all of our own meals since we had a fully equipped kitchen we were very excited for. We even pulled together grilled cheese for lunch one day, I had missed that terribly. Once we got there we dropped off our belongings and went to the Reserve de Bandia. We had to hire a 4x4 and a guide to take us through, but it was amazing. We saw rhinos, giraffes, impalas, zebras, ostriches and a huge turtle. Since most of the animals are not native to Senegal, but instead they are imported, we first compared it to Disney world, but that’s where the similarity stopped. For one, they have no idea where the animals will be so you drive around until the guide gets a sense and steers the driver through brush to get the intended animal sighting. Also, since there are very few enforced laws and rules in this country we got to get out of the 4x4 and get just a few meters away from the giraffes and the rhino. Even on safaris in southern Africa they only let you look from a great distance. It was a great experience, but it just reinforced how uncomfortable we feel as tourists in this country now. Each time we return back to Dakar from our weekend excursions it feels more and more like home.

It's mid-October, let's hit up the beach?!

This past week was pretty normal by African standards. We went to another gallery opening in hopes of free food, but weren’t completely satisfied so we went to a restaurant. The artwork was great, though, an artist did some abstract interpretations of places and things around Senegal and painted on traditional African fabric. The restaurant, called Chez Louca that advertised African and European food. While it wasn’t quite what we were expecting they had a great spaghetti dish with a curry tomato sauce, peas, carrots, and tuna. It was delicious, I promise. We also went to a reggae club on Thursday night called Pen Art, a local hang out, with a few of our Senegalese friends. We had to leave early, i.e. 3am because a few people have internships on Fridays. I have discovered that despite my limited dance skills I can still dance to reggae music since it only requires moving back and forth.
Saturday we went out to Ile de N’Gor which is off the northern coast of the Dakar peninsula and rented a house for the night with some of our Senegalese friends from the night before. They aren’t in school yet so they wanted to celebrate their last few weeks of vacation with a house party Senegalese style. The next morning we went in search of breakfast and went to both beaches on the island before finding a restaurant with both egg and bread to make us egg sandwiches. Finding a restaurant with everything on the menu is quite a commodity here. We spent some time soaking up the sun on the beach since rumor on the street is that the middle of October gets cooler. Yesterday, when the temperature dropped to 85, I started to believe these rumors. When we returned to Dakar via pirogue and taxi we took a much-needed nap since we had plans to go out Saturday night as well. The party didn’t start until 1am and I’m not really sure when it ended, although it was long after 5:30am when the last of our friends left. We’re going to have to better prepare for such events in the future.
Yesterday, I interviewed with Aid Transparency for an internship. It’s an organization run by Habib Sy, the former Minister of the Interior and a lot of its work relates to government budget transparency in Africa. He has a conference for the next two weeks so I’m not starting until he gets back. Just like any Senegalese person, he isn’t all too anxious to get things going.
In other news, our family has scolded Cecilia and me for not being able to speak Wolof after two months of residing here and all utensils at meals have completely disappeared. The grace period is over.

No Problems in the Gambia

We embarked on our vacation dreaming of drinkable tap water and air conditioning, but we had a few obstacles to overcome before checking into our ‘five star’ luxury resort in Kololi on the Atlantic coast of the Gambia. After pulling an all-nighter since I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go out with some locals on the first weekend after Ramdan we embarked on a bus trip of unknown duration. Usually when you begin a journey you have a general idea of what time you’re going to arrive in your destination. Due to the nature of the roads between Dakar and Barra we didn’t want to even try to speculate our estimated time of arrival. The bus trip that should take only 3-4 hours took 7 hours, but the view out the window was pretty amazing. One of my fellow travelers referred to it as driving through the lion king; only the wildlife we saw was limited to donkeys, goats, horses, and cows. After the bus ride we took a ferry from Barra to Banjul and then got in a cab to take us to the Kairaba hotel, our final destination where we would remain for the next 8 days. So this was enough African adventure for us and it saved us a boatload of money considering it cost each of us about $12 to get there. The rest of our vacation mostly involved us sitting by the pool trying to escape Africa, but we soon discovered that even while staying in a five star resort locals still hassle you and the power still goes out every once in a while. It's just something we're going to have to come to terms with. We did thoroughly enjoy the free breakfast buffet and tea time. We ate dinner on the Senegambia strip every night and despite choosing a different restaurant each night we had the same options available at every one. Each menu had pizza, pasta, Lebanese food, and local dishes (which of course we avoided since we get enough of that at home). We became convinced that all of the restaurants shared a kitchen at the end of the strip.

As a group of young American students we were an oddity in the Gambia. Most of the tourists are European middle-aged men or women seeking out prostitutes. We were usually mistaken for Peace Corps volunteers. It was interesting because we are so jaded from our time in Dakar that we feel as though anyone trying to help us is also trying to take advantage of us. While this is still true in the Gambia most tourists don't have the same negative attitude so a few of the locals were very turned off by our chilly demeanor. One even said "White monkeys go back to your country." Funny how you pick up on all the insults when it's in your first language. So you can understand our reluctance to leave the resort. We did go to the market in Banjul and to the Katchikally Crocodile Pond to take some pictures. According to legend anyone who takes a picture of the crocs in this sacred pond faces imminent death..we took our chances. The Lonely Planet guide claimed there were over 80 crocodiles but since it was the rainy season there were about three and a baby. We've come to learn that tourist attractions aren't always what they seem in Africa. We've become grateful for the experiences we have in Dakar since the Gambia is so centered on tourism it's true African-ness is almost lost. We had a great break (in the true sense of the word) and I'm reluctant to return to classes tomorrow.

Korite

Yesterday was the holiday marking the end of Ramadan which, from what I gathered mostly centered around food and new clothes. It seems that the central focus was celebrating the end of a month of sacrifice, that I had not partaken in anyway, but I still got to reap the benefits. The date of Korite depends on the moon so we had to wait until 10pm on Tuesday to find out that the Muslism brotherhoods in Senegal declared yesterday to be Korite or not. To add to the confusion the brotherhoods sometimes decide that Ramadan will end on different days. The Senegalese pay little attention to the Muslim world and instead focus on their brotherhoods and the Muslim culture within Senegal. We didn't eat rice or fish all day, in a pleasant turn of events. Aside from the good food we had some delicious fruit juices and bonded with the little kids in our family. A lot of children get dressed in nice clothing and go around asking for money Hallmoween-style, but the children in my family are too wealthy to partake in this tradition. Family members from all over Dakar stopped in to say hi and at night everyone went out to hang out with their friends and drink for the first time in a month. Drinking alcohol is still frowned upon in the Muslim religion, but the Senegalese don't seem to pay much attention to this. (We're anxious to see what going out is going to be like post-Ramadan; not having the whole club or bar to ourselves.) From a Western part of view this holiday is very difficult to describe; we attempted by comparing it to New Year's, Christmas, and Thanksgiving combined. I'm not sure if that gives you a decent picture, but I lived through it and I'm still a bit confused. Well I take off for the Gambia tomorrow morning so I'll update you on my travels when I get back!