Alright, so I know it’s been a while since I’ve last written. What can I say? Life has been busy. I’ll try my best to recap some of the highlights.
Each year, the fourth of July in Senegal passes just as any other normal day for any Senegalese throughout the country. Well, just about everywhere in the country. For the past couple years, Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal infiltrate the town of Kedougou (about 15,000 inhabitants) for a good ole fashion 4th of July Party. Perhaps it takes being away from home for so long to bring about an extreme sense of patriotism or maybe it was five long weeks at my new site, but this epic party was something I was not willing to pass up. The party is hosted by the PCVs in the Kedougou Region (the southeastern most region of the country bordering Guinea). 5,000 fCFA ($10) got you in the door, which is actually more like a gate to an outdoor hippie commune known as the Kedougou PC regional house, and all you can eat and drink. Some of the highlights of the event include:
· Three warthogs were slaughtered
· American style appetizers
· GSaap drinks – gin mixed with bisaap juice
· Fireworks (you work with what you can get)
· Dance Party into the night
· Beer Pong tournament
· Waterguns and waterballoons
· Ridiculous American Paraphernalia that you can only find in random Senegalese garages, fukki jaays (Senegalese thrift markets) and Lumos (weekly village markets). Some of these items include “Obama, President of Space” hats, flashy American flag t-shirts, and Budweiser bathing suits.
· Speaking English
· Reuniting with some of the PCVs from my stage
· Debauchery
A shot of the entrance of the Kedougou Regional House.
Packed up for the trip.
The first day of the trip we biked from Tambacounda to Wassadou (about 70K south), where we met up with Amanda whose site was about 5K outside of the roadtown. Wassadou has a fabulous campement (hotel) right on Gambia River. We met up with Amanda and Kim (another PCV who was visiting Amanda) in Wassadou in the mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day lounging around next the river, catching a few glimpses of hippos and monkeys in the distance, and drinking Gazelle beer with lime (it’s the only way to make Senegalese beer tolerable in my opinion). Being on a low-budget, we did not stay at the campement for the night but rather crashed in the back of Amanda’s hut in her village. No major set-backs for the day expect a flat tire on the way back to Amanda’s village. Kim and Amanda decided to bike the rest of the trip with us.
Aude relaxing at the campement after day 1 of the bike trip.
Not a care in the world.
Day two was our longest day. We biked through Senegal’s only national park of Niokolo. It’s prohibited to spend the night in the park, so your only opinion is to bike it all in one day (about 120K). We stalked up on food and water for the day and made plans to stop at “campement” mid-way through the park to rest up, avoid the heat of the day, and refill on our water. The morning started off smoothly but the farther and farther we pushed on, we realized that none of us had any idea as to where this “campement” was. At one point, we were stopped and hassled by a group of park guards for not having a pass (you don’t need one if you staying the night in the park). Another time, we greeted a guard station but continued to ride on towards what we thought was our campement destination. It turned out that the guard station was the destination and respite point we were looking for and we completely passed it up in the heat of the day. The terrain was getting more and more demanding as we forwarded the mountains.
When it rains, it pours – literally and figuratively. Shortly after we passed up our chance to rest and refresh ourselves, a few of us began to experience heat exhaustion that involved throwing up, delusion, and almost the point of passing out. We regrouped and cooled ourselves just off the national road under a couple shady trees. After about forty-five minutes of rest, rehydration, and Power Bars, our presence started to attract a couple spectators. Monkeys of all sizes and a few large baboons started to inch their way closer to us to see who was impeding on their turf. The monkeys gawked in our direction (a monkey gawk sounds strangely like a small dogs bark) and the baboons started to circle around us. I really have no idea what they intended to do, but whatever it was, it was enough to make Kourtney and Aude packed up our stuff right away and seek another shady spot. This left Austin and I behind as both of us were a little curious as to what was going to happen next (the other girls had regrouped over another hill). We slowly started to pack up the rest of the stuff and back away when we heard a warthog approaching in the distance, which turned our slow pace into a quick sprint out of there!
As we started to set-up our new camp, we noticed a large black mass of clouds rapidly approaching from the southeast. We scrambled to cover our bags with the tarp that we had packed, but within 3 minutes we were drenched in torrential downpour with massive gusting winds. We huddled together under a tree to try and block ourselves from the wind and piercing rains. We went from being practically overheated to the brink of hypothermia (I’m exaggerating a bit, but it was pretty extreme). Since we were almost out of water, we attempted to catch the rain water off the leaves of the trees into our water bottles (we are so Bear Grilles). It rained for over an hour. We were soaked, cold, and out of water. We still had about 50K to go until we could rest in Mako for the night. We devised a plan to hail down the next car we see and start to put those who were to most tired in it to go on to Mako. What we got was a sept-place filled with a group of PCVs on their way to Kedougou for the 4th of July party. The car filled with PCVs that hardly any of us knew gave us bunch of water to continue on our journey. We were saved! We decided for forge on to Mako. It sprinkled the rest of the afternoon, which kept the temperature cool. The terrain became more extreme but with the group morale was surprisingly high (though exhausted) and we now had water.
We finally made into Mako around dusk. There was one campement in Mako that was open at the time. It was situated on the Gambia River and about 1K off the main road on a completely flooded muddy mess of a path. Most of us got our bikes stuck in the mud. By the time we made it to the actual campement, we were stoked from the rain and caked in mud. What a site to see! We negotiated a price for us to stay the night and have dinner. We were able to clean ourselves up and have a somewhat restful nights’ sleep.
The group getting into Mako after about 150K of biking.
Sign for the turnoff to the Campement. (The next morning. Notice the clear skies.)
Champions! Kim is wearing Austin’s t-shirt because all of her stuff got drenched in the downpour.
The next morning, we took in the beautiful view of the Gambia River and spent the morning preparing for our final leg of the trip. The facet water was out for the most of the morning and we needed it to wash off our bikes. There was no suitable drinking water available to fill all of our water bottles so we pulled water from the well and treated each water bottle. We paid our bill. By the time we finally got back to main road to find some breakfast, it was already 11:00 a.m. That heat of the day was already approaching and we kept seeing sept-places pass us filled with our friends coming from other regions on their way to Kedougou. It might have taken us all day with the hilly terrain and the heat of the day to bike the rest of way. A cold beer and a swimming pool were calling to us from Kedougou. We made the executive decision to rent out a sept-place to take us the last 30K of the trip. A somewhat of a defeat, but I don’t think so considering all that we had endured. When arrived in Kedougou, we relaxed with a beer in hand by the pool. The next day was the Fourth of July party. The day after, a few of us lazily floated down the Gambia River. It was a Fourth of July that I will never forget.
Austin walking his bike into Mako from the campement the next morning.
Aude – probably asking herself why she signed up for this.
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