Hyenas, New Friends, and Good Food: Mar Lodj

Pirogue ride to Mar Lodj

Our program has something called Rural Visits, when all the students are sent around the country to get a different perspective on Senegalese life. Despite the fact that we live with host families, and thus are constantly surrounded by unique aspects of Senegalese culture, Dakar is not an accurate reflection of Senegal’s identity, which is mostly rural. There are two types of Rural Visit, a family-stay or shadowing Peace Corps volunteers as they ago about their projects. The selection process is a little random. We were given a list of regions, and the projects for each site, and told to choose our top three. I chose Kedougou, the region to the far south and east, Mar Lodj, an island in the southern river delta, and Matam, a village to the far north and east on the border with Mauritania. Kedougou was an agro-forestry site with soaring plateaus, waterfalls, and isolated villages. Mar Lodj was an ecotourism project, set in the beautiful river delta with mangrove reserves and expansive salt flats. Matam, quite simply, was hell. The average temperature for the week hovered around 104 degrees, but it seemed like it was interesting, and boasted a reforestation project. I was given Mar Lodj, the river delta, to follow the Peace Corps volunteer for a week in one of the small villages on the island. 
 

Tessa (l) and Amanda (r)

Tessa, a girl I never really talked with before this, and I were to go together. There were 6 of us going to the same region, Sine-Saloum, so we all left Dakar Saturday morning. We were told our guide, Ass (yes, that was his name), was to meet us in front of the PDS building at 7 AM. Punctual Americans that we are, we arrived right on time, just as the sun was touching the tops of the buildings and shepherds started herding hundreds of the sheep for Tabaski to the medians of the highways to await buyers. We waited for 45 minutes before calling Ass, demanding where he was, and we were told to be patient and wait another 30 minutes. Getting swiftly bitter, the 6 of us thought fate had named this “guide” well. When he finally arrived, happy and bouncy, we gave him looks that should have peeled paint. With terse greetings we loaded up into taxis to the main garage in Dakar. Ass, ignoring our instructions to get a sept-place to Sine-Saloum, instead told us to load into a small ndiaye-ndiaye. This mode of transportation is slower, more uncomfortable, albeit cheaper, but still not what our program administrators had told us to do. He refused to get us a sept-place, however, so we threw our bags on top of the van and got in. The time was now 9 AM, but the bus did not set out until 11 AM. So there we sat, hot and sweaty, in the ndiaye-ndiaye, for 2 hours. Vendors walked passed the windows, yelling/pleading/bullying to get us to buy their wares. It only took one of us to break down and haggle for a pair of sunglasses, until all of us were haggling out of sheer boredom. If you sat in that van long enough, anything you could possibly need for travel would eventually pass your window: fruits, cookies, beverages, toothpaste/toothbrushes, shirts, pants, children’s toys, shaving razors, phones, phone credit, sunglasses, jewelry, knockoff medications, flashlights, writing supplies, random electrical gadgets, black market movies/music, bags, sandwiches, travel sweetbreads, hairbrushes. If someone had literally all their belongings stolen, they could legitimately replace everything they had lost for less than 5,000 CFA. Our haggling efforts were not just between the vendors and ourselves, however. Other passengers, just as bored as us, passionately joined in the waaxale (bargaining) process and applauded our use of Wolof. The women would sing, break into very limited dance, and cheer at our efforts. Even the vendors seemed to pick up on the mood, and theatrically played along. It’s amazing what sitting in a confined van cab for 2 hours will do to you. 

Sunset: Night 1

Neil and Tessa-with wine, water, Pringles, dark chocolate, orange wafers, and peanuts= happiness

At 11 AM, we were finally on our way, and the shuddering van bumped and stalled its way out of Dakar. After 2.5 hours, we reached the region of Sine-Saloum, and our group started to break up. Three girls got off at separate villages, doing solitary village stays. They were all nervous as we watched them walk away with host families, and in one case, loading her things on donkey cart for a ride into a more remote village. The last three of us disappeared from their sight in a cloud of dust. Ass, our asinine guide, did nothing more than sit in the van with us, and tell us where to get out, then he returned back to Dakar. What an incredible waste of our time and money, we’d all traveled around Senegal on our own, all he had done as our “guide” was slow us down. Grr. Anyway, after 3 hours we arrived at a small town on the river, seeing pirogues loaded with cargo and ready to set off. In one, was a tubaab. Guessing that this was Neil, our Peace Corps, volunteer, we headed over. He helped us get our stuff on the boat, which was so full of people that we had to walk on the very rim of the boat to get to our seats. It was a 30 minutes pirogue ride to the island, then Amanda got a sereche (donkey/horse-cart) to her village stay as Tessa and I were being led away by Neil. That first afternoon was all about getting settled and being victim to a never-ending round of greetings by local and international community members. 

Tessa and I's shared bed

Tessa and I were to stay in a small house right on the river about a 20 minute walk outside the village, owned by the daughter of Neil’s host mother. However, this sister lives with her French husband in Mbor, so they rent out the space to whoever needs it. Currently in residence: several Spanish women working for an NGO, which supports the Women’s Group on the island. A couple of them spoke English, but we decided to keep conversations in French so we would stay in practice. The village was predominantly populated by those of the Seereer ethnic group, so not many of them spoke Wolof, but the languages were similar enough that I could understand a little of what was going on.

That first day, we dropped off our things at the small house, and took some gifts into the village to give our host family. We had lunch with the family, a delicious chicken yassa, though Neil said it was rare that they ever ate rice. Eat lunch was a traditional Senegalese meal eaten around a communal bowl (and were a lot more balanced than Neil said was normal. Normally their dinners were just millet and a little water. However, that night we returned to the river house before it got dark and one of the sisters cooked us dinner there: onion omelets over spaghetti noodles.

Colorful laundry

Village homes (the nice ones)

That evening, and every evening, we watched the stars come out while sitting on the porch, counting all the falling stars. It’s amazing how close and fast friendships can form when you have literally nothing else to do but talk, especially after a couple bottles of cheap wine shared with dinner. One pertinent conversation covered the 3 dangers of the island.

1.     Hyenas. Some live on the island, others live across the river, but are seen swimming across the water at night. We could hear them making their creepy distinct barking noise every night.

2.     People wielding machetes. Though this is scary to se at first, you get used to it. People carry machetes everywhere with them, even Neil had one. At night, they are used as weapons against possibly hyena attacks. During the day, they’re just sort of around. If people get all riled up (usually when discussing snakes or hyenas) machetes are waved in the air with lots of shouting. Also a little scary.

3.     Spitting cobras. Neil said he was walking in the woods one day, then noticed something out of the corner of his eye. 5 feet away was a black cobra, hood out, raised up, and watching him. He backed away slowly, and the snake slid away (all 2 meters of it). Neil said it had just killed a 3 foot long monitor-like lizard. 

Good to know.. all one needs to know is to stay in after dark, always have a machete, and never take a stroll in the tall grass...

The days swiftly of blended together. Neil had been on the site for about 3 months, so he was still at the community integration and language building stage, since he was going to be living there for 2 years. He was an economics graduate, hoping to building up some ecotourism projects in the area. His counterpart owned a small campement on the island (like a hostel), who also rented space out to the Women’s Group for group meetings and small class sessions. We helped him when we could but in reality, there just wasn’t a lot we could do for him.

The mornings found us waking up at about 8 AM, and eating the local tapalaapa (a dense country bread) with a little Skippy Peanut Butter Neil saves for special occasions. We then accompanied him to Limboko, the campement he was working with. If we couldn’t help Neil with his work, which was the usual, we read in hammocks with our feet in the water (hard life..). For lunches, we walked into the village, eating anywhere between 1 and 3 PM. The meals ranged from Yassa (a spicy onion sauce over rice), to Mafé (a spicy peanut sauce over rice), to something that was the color o Mafé but was in fact made with heavily boiled pork…over rice. The time after dinners kind of faded away, as we spent time with the family and walked around the village. One afternoon we walked over to another campement across the island, bought some cold drinks and spent the hottest part of the day (each after noon hovered around the upper 90s or low 100s) swimming in the river and jumping off the docks. Dinners we had with the Spanish women that lived with us. Together we cooked some amazing meals, always accompanied with wine we got from a small shop in the village. Fresh cut tomatoes with basil, cooked chorizo (heaven), bacon and ham pasta, fresh garden salad. It was dream-like. The women were in their late 20s, and extremely chatty. One was terrified of hyenas-and whenever she heard one, would do this funky fear dance and hide behind the nearest person. The week was relaxing, but told me that I could never be a Peace Corps volunteer. I could totally live in a small village, taking bucket showers and having no electricity for 2 years, but the Peace Corps pace of life would kill me. Before projects begin (and even then, the projects are all self-run and funded by your own efforts), there is a period of family integration. This can sometimes last for up to 6 months. Having literally nothing to do, and being surrounded by different languages with no one else to talk to would drive me insane.

Crazy Kaya's house

  Speaking of insane, there was another American living on the island. About a year ago, the local people saw something extremely disturbing: and old white woman, living on the beach, completely naked. She spoke no French, no Seereer, no Wolof. Just English. She lived naked on the beach for a month before local authorities made her put on some clothes and move into a small hut in the village. Her family was contacted (she was from Alaska, but had flown down from Italy after living there for a while), but they wanted nothing to do with her, or her with them. Now, she goes from house to house for dinner, never contributing, only taking. She approached us one day while we were on the beach. Maybe it was because she was so used to silence and foreign languages, but when she spoke English, it was broken and sounded strange. She found out where I was from, told me I “looked like an Oregon girl” (what does that even mean?) and informed me that we have “water cold up there” (I can only assume she means the ocean). Through lots of awkward silences and waiting for her to pay attention, we discovered that she came to Mar Lodj for “simple living with simple people.” She had no desire to leave, and was waiting for “either a disease or the villagers” to kill her. Despite her determination to stay, she hated the village and the people who lived there, without giving us any reasons (and they are the ones giving her free meals without expecting a return). If this wasn’t bad enough, Neil said that one time, he was hanging out with the owner of the boutique in the village when Kaya stumbles over, drunk out of her mind. She proudly shows a 500 CFA coin (a little over $1) and says, “I just jacked off a Senegalese guy for this.” …and proceeds to order another beer. Disturbing much? Needless to say, it’s sad. She’s crazy, legitimately off her rocker. Neil offered to help her, maybe get her home, and she refused. Tessa and I started to hide down side streets of the village whenever we saw her coming, because each talk with her got more and more uncomfortable. I guess she’s the ultimate example of abandoning the system, because she has no money, no passport, no way of contacting her family. She’s stuck on this island out of choice.

Village Mosque

Another of the nicer compounds

Village center: market/wrestling match/kids soccer field

Man making ataaya in the background

Village church

Little boy drawing water from the well. 

So! Moving on from the Crazy Kaya story. The week spent with Neil was relaxing, and gave us a refreshing view of rural settings, a slower pace of life, and really appreciating electricity, of which we had none. How “rural” it was is debatable, since we were on a bed surrounded by cement walls, with a nice river-view verandah. But we did spend every afternoon in the village, so it still merits some appreciation. The following Friday after our arrival, Neil was heading back to Dakar for some microfinance meetings and some Halloween festivities. So Tessa and decided to come with him, then get off the bus early in the town of Sindia, and head west to the coast for a night in Popenguine. We weren’t quite ready to return to Dakar, and wanted to take advantage of being in the region. Popenguine appealed to us because it was beach-side, had cheap campements, and a national reserve known for incredible bird watching. So we bid Neil and one of the Spanish women good-bye, and caught a bush taxi to the coast. Once in Popenguine, we wandered around until we found our campement, it was run by a local women’s group, with the offices for the national reserve right on site. We got there just in time for lunch, then we headed straight for the beach. From about 2 PM we slept, read, played with the beach’s pack of local dogs, or swam...until the sun set over the ocean. A family of French tourists was sharing the beach with us-complete with their immaculately white rat-dog and refusal to speak with Senegalese unless it was to order a drink. For dinner, we went back along the road, looking for a little Italian place we’d heard about. Alas, it was closed until November, so we found the nearest open resto and went it. They had no menu, just asked us what we wanted. We felt in the mood for pasta and grilled fish...not a problem, not a problem, anything for the lovely American girls. And it was produced in about 15 minutes, along with a delicious (wait for it…) spicy onion sauce. For dessert we visited a beach-front café and ordered chocolate mousse and something I can’t name, but it might have had flambé in the title. We were in bed with lights out by 10 PM, and it was fantastic. 

Road to the Campements in Popenguine

 

7 AM nature walk, small lake

Looks a lot like Lake County, huh, mom?

We were up by 6:30 AM, however, and out the door by 7, determined to do some hardcore bird watching. We wandered in the reserve as the sun came up, and for me, it looked remarkably like the high desert of California, with the exception of the massive Baobab trees and the scary spider. We then turned to the beach, and explored the rocks by the water and might or might not have climbed a small cliff. We returned to the campement by 9:30 AM, just as a woman was setting out our breakfast. Score. “Typical Americans,” she said, “already tired by the we give you breakfast.” One night, plus lunch and a breakfast was $13. Double score. 

Hillsides

Scary (and hungry) spider the size of my palm

Breakfast..

Baobab tree

Our path

Beach of Popenguine

Beautiful cliffs

So many colors of stone

Scary cave-tried to explore it, but it was full of bats.. no thank you

Partner in Crime

Cliff view-one sweaty 8 AM climb later

The sea and fishing boat

We headed back to Dakar at 11 AM, arriving at 3 PM (due to heavy traffic). Oddly enough, when I walked back into my house, I felt like I was coming home, especially when I threw my things on my bed and my brother ran in to give me a hug. I went downstairs and my host family all broke into smiles and Wolof greetings after one has returned from a long journey. They politely implied I needed a shower, then insisted I sit down and have one of the biggest lunches of my life, then shooed me off to take a nap. Gotta love a host family that knows what do to with a tired traveler.

Home sweet home. 

 

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." --J.R.R. Tolkein