The day I lost feeling in my butt...

The day I lost feeling in my butt…

The Sept-Place Experience:

Eight People Deep 

After being in Dakar for almost three weeks trying to regain my health and strength, I finally got medically cleared to go back to my site. It was bittersweet knowing I could go back. The rest of my Stage stayed (or attempted to stay) at their sites for five consecutive weeks, but that was not the case for me. I was “present” at my site for two weeks before I started to feel sick(er), and then I stayed in my hut for the third week before my “long” stay in Dakar, where I lost all the language that I learned and ate all the food I started to “forget,” needless to say, going back to my village was daunting. I bought an insane amount of food to bring back to Kolda, so much that I needed to buy a huge duffle bag to transport it. I couldn’t even carry the bag by myself it was that large/heavy. I knew that I was going to have to barter the price of my baggage on all fronts. There is typical a set price to  buy a seat in modes of transportation, but baggage is up in the air. 

Going back to Kolda from Dakar is a huge ordeal. 

I had to get up at 3:30am, leave the Peace Corps Medical Hut by 4am, and get a taxi to go to the “Garage” where people get a “sept place” to travel to certain cities throughout Senegal. To get to Kolda, we travel through The Gambia and it is necessary to leave super early in order to get to Kolda in one day AND not have to wait for HOURRRRRRSSSS at The Gambia River to get a boat to cross over to the other side. Once I got to the Dakar Garage, I had to wait until seven (7) people bought a seat in the car, including myself. (P.S. Sept is Seven in French, ahh haah!!) When I say car, think station wagon with a bench seat in the middle and an elevated bench seat in the back and a front passenger seat plus the driver;s seat, totaling eight people in a tiny, broken, barely drivable/ridable, station wagon. It is rough. It is the most uncomfortable 13+ hours one can have. My butt and legs literally went numb and/or were throbbing to the point of extreme vein popping pain. I’ve decided that the WORST seat to buy is the middle bench, middle seat. The second worst seat is back bench middle. Both middle spots have the hump in the ground where the people have to straddle either side and/or raise their feet/legs to the level of the hump putting even more pain on the lower back.

Once we get to The Gambia, because I am an American/Non-Senegalese, I have to get out a total of four times to get my passport stamped at each location—exiting Senegal, entering The Gambia, exiting The Gambia, and reentering Senegal. Once we arrived at The Gambia border, we have to buy a ticket to get on a ferry boat to cross the river, that costs 200 CFA. Depending on the time of day and the amount of trucks/buses/cars arrived before you, you can wait a very long time (I’ve heard people waiting over eight (8) before!), but we only waited two hours. It was pretty interesting because the Pulaar people heard their cattle and one ferry had pretty much was filled with all cattle to cross the river. (You can bet that I was the “tourist” taking the pictures!!) 

Ferry at the Gambia River

After getting out of The Gambia it only takes about another three hours until reaching the Kolda Garage. It is so, so hot right now that by the end of the ride it is a putrid smell of body odor. (Just FYI, my solar radio reads upwards of 130 degrees, plus humidity on some days) Since it was almost dark upon my arrival, I had to stay at the Regional House one more night and return to my village the following morning. Because I live in the “Bush” a taxi from Kolda to my village costs 5,000 CFA (it is only about 10-12 Km drive) whereas the sept-place from Dakar to Kolda costs about 9,500 CFA (which is 672 Km, but in actuality probably longer because of the windy roads). That doesn’t seem quite right, does it? Oh well… 

I asked a cab to take me to my site, he said he would so I loaded my stuff up and we were on our way. The issue was, he didn’t know my village, and I had only driven there during the day time once and in the night time once; plus, I don’t have the greatest directional sense in new places with no road names and the only landmarks are sand, trees and huts (that ALL LOOK THE SAME!!), so I also didn’t know exactly where to turn off to get to my village. I knew that I had to turn left into a smaller village, but I forgot the name and I wasn’t paying attention to all the recognizable landmarks that I told him to turn into a village, I thought could be the through village… it wasn’t. It was, however, another village I knew and I knew that the next village was the through village. What I didn’t know was that Sare Samba had a back road that took us to Santancoy and not to the road we previously left, so I told him to turn down the wrong road. Once I noticed that there was no way back out to the other main road, I tried to figure out how to tell him that he had to turn around. Finally, we reached another village, the village preceding Santancoy, where my dad’s family lives, and they told my driver to turn around. Once we got back to Sare Samba, one of the men there ran out to the taxi and told my driver how to get to my village. My driver was M.A.D. at me, but I honestly don’t think he should have agreed to the trip if he didn’t know how to get to my village himself. He just wanted the money. But, once I arrived at my village, I had a great reunion with my kitten, counterpart, and my family. I am, however, a big gossip piece about how I didn’t know how to get home and I got my driver lost… oh well, there could be worse things that people said about me. 

Now, I am trying to reintegrate into my community and figure out how to speak Pulaar again,  but I am currently in Kolda for my “language seminar” and will be posting a few more blogs within the next few days. I go back to my site on July 5th.