The beginning of April marked a much needed break from school. Once I got my third rabies shot I was ready to take on
the world! I was very torn up about Rafiki and I wanted to just get away. It is odd how simply changing
where we are can hit some sort of reset button, but it worked. To get
down to the
Casamance, Dede and I were hoping to take the Alioune Diatta
boat (just someone's name), which had different pricing from $20-60 for
a bed and breakfast in the AM. Unfortunately, every private expat
school had off the week before Easter
and it was the week before
Easter, so the boat was full. This left us with the option to take the
7-place car down to the Casamance (8000 CFA each, $16 for a 12-hour
trip).
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| Checking to see which sept-place is next to leave. |
I planned accordingly and wore a dress for the trip. A dress is MUCH easier to use a squat
toilet in than pants, and I wore a baggy dress so I could sneakily carry
my money belt baby with me. I packed a backpack full of necessities, two
changes of clothes, a lot of underwear, basic shower supplies, a wash
cloth, and other odds and ends, and we were off! We each brought one
backpack, and it was small enough to keep under our feet. There is the
stupid rule here that if you have a large bag you must put it in the
trunk and you must pay for it to be in the trunk. Idiotic. Sometimes
every passenger has a bag crammed between their legs and the trunk is
empty because no one wants to play the extra 1000 CFA–it is the
principal of it!
We left around 7 PM, stopped once for dinner en route, and arrived
at the Gambian border around 3 AM. The first part of the trip was fine,
but the roads got worse as we continued on, so one of the passenger had
to stop the taxi a few times to puke. Ew. Once we got the border we all
got some sleep in the taxi because the border police do not open the
gate until 6 AM or so. After crossing the border we could make our way to the ferry which would bring us to Casamance! My transit VISA cost $2 on each side of the river, and it was
the Gambians who always charged $2, the Senegalese did not charge a
penny (CFA?). When we crossed the border, a
Gambian police officer who stamped my passport saluted me and said
"Americano!" I swear he was high. I
have never seen such a cracked out person in my life. I could have
been café Touba, however. I can attest that café Touba has a special
kick to it. It gives you energy that you never knew existed, which is why I drink
it every morning.
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| A feast: coconut, cashew fruit, and many other yummy things! |
I got all my papers in order before the gate
opened to cross the border into Gambia (we were right up front), but our taxi driver must have forgotten
to do the same because we had quite the episode as he frantically tried
to get his papers stamped minutes before the border opened,
such a Senegal moment, ha! Below is what I wrote in my journal just after the madness:
"We arrived at the Senegal-Gambia border around 2:30 AM, which gave
us until sunrise to catch up on some Zs in the taxi. Upon arriving, I
curled up for a while but after a few minutes of tossing and turning, I
decided to take in the sites, not very much.
(Vehicle now moving...)
A bit before sunrise I realized that I
needed to get the proper stamps/VISAs to get through Gambia to
Ziguinchor. That is when the craziness, accompanied with a lot of
giggling commenced. The police officer at the Senegal post stamped my
passport with a smile and no questions asked. We then asked where we
could find the toilet, to which he directed us to the mosque, 'behind
the Mosque, of course!' Dede and I found the bathroom and discovered
that it had a fee! 25 CFA (5¢) to pee and 50 CFA (10¢) to poop. Never
have I paid to use a toilet in Senegal before, especially one located
behind a Mosque! I may quickly add that it was a gross squat toilet, but
not quite as awful as the one I was subjected to at Garage Pompiers in
Dakar (where we found the 7-place). (In case you were wondering, I paid 25 CFA.)
Shortly after the bathroom episode I was scooting around the fence
marking the Senegal-Gambia border to pay for a transit VISA. Easily the
cheapest VISA I have paid for, only 1000 CFA. I could have spent the
morning squatting over the Mosque toilet at that price! As we were
walking back I saw the lights of the sept-place turned on (we were the
first car at the border). The car was ready to go when the border
crossing was opened. Skipping a quick egg, mayo, and bread breakfast I
hopped in the backseat so we could drive immediately. We were, of
course, missing a very important person – the driver! He had forgotten
to register his car with the Gambians at the border, just as I had had
registered my transit VISA. And
of course, in his absence the border opened and it was a legitimate car race as everyone wants to get to the ferry crossing first.
In lieu of our driver, one of the men in the backseat hopped forward
and took control! We were driving the car to our driver, ha! We
passed him to which he stopped, did a double-take, and started running
with the car until the Gambian border post where he should have
registered his car an hour ago! There were lots of limbs flying as we
did a quick Chinese fire drill and everyone settled in their original
seats. The one back seat passenger was halfway out the door when we
started to rev up to 55 mph! It was all in good humor and we laughed
most of the way to the ferry crossing because we had all shared a
ridiculous five minutes."
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| Cebbu-jën |
So there you have it, one of the silliest moments of my trip! We
arrived in Ziguinchor around noon, and just after crossing the bridge to
the city our sept-place broke down. No big deal, we walked about a mile
to the hostel we eventually stayed at for 6000 CFA/night
total.
The 10-days I was gone I really just hung out. Dede and I ate most
meals at the hostel or went up to the garage/bus station to eat where
rice dishes cost 400 or 500 CFA each. I had some good cebbu jën and a
fantastic shrimp and rice dish. I drank a lot of tamarin juice as I
found a bar that should 1.5 liter bottles for 1000 CFA, which is unheard
of in Dakar! I also drank a lot of beer, it was 1/2
the price of the same bottle in Dakar. I concluded this is because
Casamance is cheaper overall and there are a lot of Christians in Casamance. Imagine giant beers for $1.50, it was glorious! It was
also a bit hotter in the south of Senegal. During the day it was near 90˚, but at
night it would drop to 70˚.
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| Shrimp and rice–yum! |
So we arrived in Ziguinchor Wednesday, April 3 and left for Cap
Skirring Saturday, April 6. During the day Saturday we swung by my
friend Moïse's place in a village (and I mean
village) in Diakène
Djola, which is a 15-minute drive from the coast. I ate some AWESOME
Yassa Poulet (chicken, rice, and onion sauce) and tried
palm wine. Like
anything away from the city life, the village life is slow and pretty
worry-free. The worst part of visiting Moïse was the one-hour trek from
the main road to his village. I certainly got my workout in Casamance,
but I also ate a lot, so everything balanced out :P
Saturday night we found a cheap room right on the ocean, and next to
the Guinea-Bissau border, for $7/night each. I spent the next two days
relaxing on the beach, reading, and teaching Dede Bananagrams, which I
obviously
packed in my bag! After breakfast Monday we decided to make our way up
to The Gambia. The trip up to The Gambia was uneventful, but tense as
we passed through the region of Casamance that is known to have rebel
soldiers. I am
so glad that no scary situations materialized! We
spent about 30 minutes at the border bargaining for my VISA, which was
$20 instead of $40, and then continued on to find a nice hotel next to
the beach.
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| Cap Skirring. Simply beautiful. |
Upon arriving next to the beach I immediately was shocked by the old
white person-young Gambian symbiotic relationships that were
everywhere. It is a bit like sex slavery, in a way, and it is
disgusting. These old white people come to their "former" colony, pay
young people for sex and feed them, and then leave when they are ready
to go. The young Gambians would
surely prefer another line of
work if one existed, but I suppose dictatorships in small, poor West African
countries do not foster a strong economy. There was this one weird drink that I had in The Gambia, it cost
20¢ and was called "sap juice." It came in the little baggies that are
factory sealed off, but I have never seem it in Senegal, which is
strange because the terrain is exactly the same in the two countries. It
may have come from Taiwan, as the two governments are very close, but
it was so good (but freaky good)!
Two days in the Gambia was enough and I hopped in a taxi to get to
Banjul and a different ferry, which would take us to Barra and
eventually a car to Senegal. At the port we found a car that was
looking to fill its seats for 4000 CFA/person to get to Kaolack. It
sounded like a plan and we saved our seats. I thought maybe we would be
at the port for a couple of hours, but how silly I am. We were at the
port for 8 hours waiting to cross! When we finally crossed it felt
unreal, but we made it to Barra and eventually to Kaolack. We arrived
in Kaolack around 10 PM, so we ate some food and then found the crazy
cheap Catholic hostel around the corner, $4/night.
We left for Dakar the next morning and caught a bus, which was about
$3/person and upon arrival to to Dakar, I sped home and
crashed!
After that trip I had a couple days to readjust before
returning to work. Nothing all that special happened while I was at work
the next two weeks. I should mention that I was accepted to teach in the Aix-Marseille region of France next year, so that is an exciting update :D
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| Writing about all the strange and new things I witnessed! |
