Beach and Dakar

It has been almost two weeks since I last updated this blog, life has gotten itself into a routine so there weren’t too many different things happening. The weekends are what have changed because now we are allowed to leave Thiès. We weren’t allowed to leave for the first three weeks in Thiès because they wanted us to get to know the town and our host families instead of running off to have fun in other cities or at the beach.

That weekend after Korite, all of us trainees went to the beach together. It so beautiful there. The beach is called Popenguine and it is one of the less touristy beaches. It also helps that the tourist season hasn’t quite started. Tourist season in Senegal is usually Nov-Mar when the weather is cooler (still warm compared to most of the Northern Hemisphere… in the upper 70s or so) and dryer which is essential for making the roads in the southern regions passable. It is also when the birds migrate south from Europe. In Northern Senegal, near the coast, there is the Parc National des Oiseaux du Djoudj (Djoudj National Bird Park) which is the first major freshwater stop over for birds flying south for the winter. It gets visited by hundreds of species of birds. The most spectacular are probably the pelicans that come in huge numbers and all gather on this one little island. January is also when the Paris-Dakar Rally is… that’s the huge car, truck and motorcycle race from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. It goes through France, Spain, Morocco and all through the Sahara region and then final ends at the Lac Rose which is right outside of Senegal’s capital. My dad says he wants to come watch the last stage while I’m here.

Anyways, the beach was a great respite from Thiès, which is a great place but we had been in the town continually for over three weeks and in class almost everyday of those three weeks. We still were only at the beach for a day and a half but it was very refreshing. We rented a huge house on the beach and people ended up sleeping with mattresses all over the place. The water was nice and warm and the waves big enough for a bit of body surfing. Its also nice being on the west coast of the continent because then you actually get to see the sunset.

Last weekend I finally visited Dakar. It was so nice to be back in a huge city in a developing country. They have this certain feel that I am so comfortable with. I think it has something to do with the heat, the noise, the differences in wealth, and the energy you feel. After living in Manila and also visiting the family in Jakarta every winter break for my first three years of college, it is almost first nature to me. I went with about 14 other trainees and we stayed at place that is very much like a youth hostel in Europe except you get don’t have to share you room with strangers. It is not too expensive… With four people in a room you pay about $8 and with two people in a room you would pay about $10 per person. We had dinner at a little ramshackle seafood place on the western most point of Africa which is on the Dakar peninsual, its called Pointe des Almadies. While we were there, I was given a necklace for free from a souvenir vendor because I think he thought I was the wife of this other trainee who had been talking to him in Wolof and had the same Senegalese last name as him. They like giving little gifts in this culture too.

This past week was also the counterpart workshop. Our future work counterparts and our supervisors came to Thies for it. My supervisor is also going to be my host mother in Sokone. She is very sweet but doesn’t speak much French. Her children do so we should be able to cope during my first few weeks while my Wolof is very, very basic. My counterpart does speak French and very clearly too which is very important. Some people have very thick accents here and I have a very hard time understanding. I am really excited now about getting to site and getting to know people. It is such a wonderful thought to think I’m not going to have to move all my stuff for two years. In college you move so much and it’s really exhausting and unsettling. Moving three or more times a year is too much!!!

Oh I’ve forgotten to mention my Senegalese names. In Senegal, we are given a Senegalese name. During my demystification my name was Aïda Ndieye. In Thies my name was Ndoumbe Sall and in Sokone my name will be Adema Diallo. In Thies I was named after my host mother’s sister and in Sokone I am named after my host mother’s grandmother. It can all be quite confusing. You do get used to be called that name but the hard thing will be after I’m used to being called Adema to switch back to Ndoumbe during Inservice Training (IST) when we go back to Thies for three weeks in Jan/Feb. This custom also becomes confusing when you don’t know other volunteers’ Senegalese names so when you try to talk about them to a Senegalese national, they don’t always know who you are talking about even if you know they know them. For instance, when I was talking to my host mother from Sokone, I was trying to tell her which volunteers I’d already met whom she knew and I was having to describe what they looked like because she didn’t know their American names and I didn’t know their Senegalese names.