A Mother's Recollection, Part 1

Emerging from the Dakar airport into the dawning light, we welcomed the sight of two very familiar figures with whom we had communicated the last eleven months through emails, Skype, phone conversations, and texting.  As thankful as we have been for being able to communicate so readily with them, they still pale in comparison to being able to give Annē and Patrick long hugs in person. Those hugs were from us, other family members, relatives, and dear friends.  Worries about getting sick and eating new food, being in a very different culture, dealing with jet lag dissipated when we touched them in person. But that moment of family reverie ended when throngs (at least it felt that way) of taxi cab drivers and others surrounded us, and quickly we saw Annē and Patrick move into action. Soon they were arguing with them about a fair price for a taxi cab ride back to Cap Quest, our hotel situated very close to the airport. I immediately felt such a sense of relief knowing we had these two as capable guides for our time in Senegal; they definitely had adapted to this country of Senegal.

During our day in Dakar, we had several walking adventures--finding a working ATM, breakfast and lunch, going through the market, taking the ferry to Goree Island (a major departure site for slaves being sent to Europe and the states).  As we walked, Pat explained how strangers would probably come up to us, start talking, trying to help us, leading us to a store, a stall, but he would take care of it.  We should just keep walking and he would join us a few minutes later.  I would glance back during those encounters, and there Pat would be talking, smiling, shaking hands, but being firm that we didn’t need help and then catch up to us only to have to start again when a new stranger joined us. Walking felt good after our long journey from Montana, but it also provided our first sights and sounds of Dakar--yellow taxi cabs honking their horns, horse and donkey carts sharing the roads with motorized vehicles, busses and trucks bulging with people and goods, a few fancy cars filling up parking spaces, some women wearing brightly colored complet and men wearing boubou outfits, women and even some men balancing their loads on their heads, French or Wolof being spoken everywhere, trash littering the streets.  I was also surprised that day how we kept meeting other Peace Corps volunteers (even though Annē and Pat had told us they had traveled together from Kedougou and they were calling them on their cell phones to meet up with them); we also had the chance to meet Peace Corps volunteers’ parents. We would run into other PC volunteers in other places on our trip. 

 We had made our airline reservations to Senegal before Annē’s friend Kara came to visit them.  After Kara’s visit, Annē highly suggested that we hire a driver and car if we wanted to see much of Senegal.  For Kara’s visit, they used public transportation most of the time, and it added much stress for Annē to insure they got to certain places, like the airport on time since busses don’t run until they are filled up.  Ritt and I agreed to that (since we had rented a vehicle in Costa Rica years ago and driving on our own was stressful at times); plus we wanted Annē and Patrick to enjoy their time visiting new areas of Senegal.  Now I cannot imagine our time in Senegal without Pape, and he truly was a major factor in making this trip stressless.  As I told the others, Pape’s smile is as big as his heart.  Since Pape spoke French, Wolof, and several other dialects, I was amazed that Pape could barely read or write; however, he was sending his children to a private school to insure ththey received a good education.  By the second day, Pape started calling Pat, Playboy; in return, Pat named him, Michael Jackson; Ritt became co-pilot (co-pē-lōte) and he nicknamed Pape, Bobcat since we had given him a MSU Bobcat hat; Annē was a-nēē; and I was Momma. One of the main sounds that stays with me is Pape sounding the horn continually letting vehicles and donkey and horse carts know he was passing them, scattering free ranging goats and cattle off the road, urging people and bicyclists to move out of the way.  

Our second morning we started our adventure going to places where Annē and Pat had not visited. Our first destination was Saint Louis, a busy fishing port, north of Dakar.  Pape, our pilot, maneuvered us steadily through the snarled traffic of Dakar. Through this traffic, we glimpsed stall after stall selling goods; people walking through the traffic selling phone credit cards, water, fruit, and cookies; and people lining up to climb on the already full busses.  In the past, when I have visited Latin American countries and saw armed soldiers or police, I always got nervous, hoping I wouldn’t inadvertently do something wrong and get in trouble.  This day of travel, at police/road checks, we would be motioned to pull over, where the police checked Pape’s papers.  Annē and Pat said this was normal, but after the third time, they agreed it did seem excessive as each stop lasted longer. The fourth time, Pape was asked to get out of the car; now I was getting nervous, wondering what we would do if he was taken away.  I think my imagination was getting carried away.  We had given Pape some money, so I don’t know if he paid for some kind of papers he didn’t have or he paid a bribe, but finally we continued on with no further stops.  When we arrived in Saint Louis, large numbers of big wooden brightly colored fishing boats were also coming in with their catches of the day. Just as impressive as these fishing boats were the very long lines of trucks waiting to haul the fish back to surrounding countries.  In this fishing area, large poor families crammed the neighborhoods.

Senegal doesn’t have many road signs, but luckily Pape knew the way to the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary not too far from Saint Louis.  We bounced and swerved as Pape drove between the main road and secondary side roads (formed when the main road was too bad). The expansiveness of unnamed roads stretching off in many different directions reminded me of many years ago when we had driven on the Navajo reservation searching for the home where Ritt stayed when he lived with the Navajos for a short while. This bird sanctuary is an important resting area for migrating birds to and from Europe. Also this park sanctuary gives local communities some needed revenue as well as the chance to practice conservation. Five thousand pelicans are born yearly.  What a sight and feeling to be in the boat as we slowly motored through huge groups of pelicans. Disappointed that the flamingos weren’t in this body of water, we were surprised when our guide told us to look up and we watched a flock of flamingos flash their pink against a vivid blue sky. 



Saint Louis showed me that the fight against Al-Qaeda in Mali is still very real.  We saw Senegalese armed forces after a celebratory send off soon to be joining other West African forces and French forces in neighboring Mali.  Another reminder had been in Dakar, when we had had lunch at a French restaurant; our bags were searched and a security person ran a wand over us. 

From the city of Saint Louis we headed to Lampoul, an area of sand dunes, several different Bedouin camps and camels. Pape’s truck could not make it to the camp; the 4x4 truck which picked us up could not make it all the way to the camp either.  After a wild ride through hilly sand tracks, the truck stopped, and we were told we had to walk the rest of the way.  In short time, a few guys from the camp showed up to help us carry our bags. As we walked out of the trees, the sand dunes rose in front of us and at the base of the dunes were two different groups of the tents.  After getting settled in our specific tent, we waited in the shade of the trees until it cooled down for our camel ride.  The camel gets up in two stages, and by the time it is fully standing, I sat really high up in the air.  With flowing robes, I would have felt like I was in Lawrence of Arabia.  The lighting was wonderful as we crossed the dunes but hard to imagine that the Atlantic Ocean was only several kilometers away although Ritt said he could hear the ocean.  Nighttime included dinner and dancing.  Pape showed he really had the dance moves. We left early the next morning since we had a long day’s drive to Campement Hotel of Wassadou on the Gambia River. Using head lamps and flashlights, we hiked back to the truck saw they were trying to fix a flat tire.  Annē said this is more typical of travel in Senegal, but as they worked digging out the sand and trying to change tires before the sand refilled the hole, we again had wondrous lighting as the day began. 

As we got closer to our destination, the gas stations were out of gas or only allowing limited amounts.  Soon we would find out that an international car rally from Budapest to somewhere in Guinea was in the area and would be staying at the same place as us. Luckily we arrived early enough to get our huts because they had forgotten about our reservation, and the ralliers were arriving also. On a short walk from the hotel, we came upon our first baboons. Having fun watching them around dusk, we decided to go out before breakfast and see if we could find the baboons again.  At first we saw them up in the trees trying to break off palm fronds or running through the underbrush. Then our baboon show became even more fascinating as around forty baboons arrived on the trail, playing, scampering, preening, eating, leaving and coming back. During this morning walk, we also heard the hippos making their loud low noises, so we hoped we would see them on our boat ride.  However, by the time we did get on the river the day was warming up, so we only saw the partial heads of two, but we sure had heard them calling earlier in the morning. 

             Our last day before we arrived in Annē and Pat’s village of Saraya took us to a quick stop at the Kedougou Peace Corps Regional Center to make lunch, and then we headed to Ségou from where we would hike to Dindéfélo Waterfalls.  Pat and Anne have hiked to this waterfall and others in the area, only their mode of travel to the trailhead are their bicycles on a road with a gradual grade but filled with huge potholes and then jutting out rocks towards the end of the road. (Kara, hats off to you for making it on a bicycle.) This is an area of chimpanzees, but we only thought we perhaps heard them as well as some local women washing their clothes in the creek. That evening at the Ségou Campement we met some volunteers with the Jane Goodall Institute who were studying the chimpanzees in the area, and Pat was able to talk with the region’s coordinator about their Roots and Shoots environmental education program for young people. The morning we left, Pape pointed out the highway to Guinea; a dirt road with the similar jutting rocks  and such a steep grade that passengers got out and walked the hill to make it easier for trucks to make it up the incline. 

To be continued...

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