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| "Every morning is a
fresh beginning.
Every morning is the
world made new."
~quote on the wall of Soo's hut
I've decided to return to my journals from my semester in Senegal and fill in some holes in experiences that I didn't write about while overseas. Upon my return to Hope, I worked in the office of International Education as a peer advisor to prospective students interested in studying abroad. It was a great way to continue to process my experience and share what I had learned with those that were planning to spend time off campus. I would tell groups of prospective students on visitation days that studying abroad allows you to put flesh and bones on what you learn in the classroom, to see theories in practice (and shortfalls), to live somewhere completely new, to become more self-reliant figuring out transportation systems, to learn new languages. When asked what my favorite part of studying abroad was, I would inevitably tell them about my rural visit where I spent a week with a Peace Corps volunteer serving in the Tambacounda region of Senegal. I didn't write about it much at the time (online, at least), so with help from my scribble filled journals, I'll try to describe some of the sites, sounds and thoughts that I experienced.
11/13/06
Traveling anywhere in W. Africa is a bit challenging, given the condition of the roads. The most inexpensive and fastest way to get from one end of the country to the other is by hiring a sept-place (beat-up station wagon with 7 spots rented out) to drive you to your destination. Every guy in the paved field filled with vendors and cars/vans/buses claims to be a driver who can take you wherever you want to go, making it challenge to negotiate the deal with the driver and not through a middleman who will want additional payment for his help. We were lucky to have one of the thriftiest students in the program with us to do the bargaining and make sure we stayed within our alloted price. Crammed in the back by 6 am, we hit the road, swerving around potholes and staring out at the terrain filled with the majestic baobab trees. We saw horses eating watermellon alongside the road. I never knew that horses like watermellon. A bumper crop of pasteks would be heaped up at stands. People would stand eating slices of watermelon, with all the juices gushing out it was quite the effective marketing campaign and made my mouth water.
It took 8 hours to get to Tambacounda, with a couple stops alongside the road for bean sandwiches and nescafe. Luckily there were no complainers in our car, so we filled the time with Sing Downs, 20 Questions, 90s music sing-alongs. I was the only one getting out a Tamba. I was dropped off at a gas station where we enjoyed a cold soda before they loaded back in the station wagon to continue on to their villages. For a brief half an hour, I was completely on my own in a new part of the country where I didn't know the language (pulaar/mandinka) nor one single person. Getting ahold of my host for the week, Soo, we met at the market. I wasn't too nervous about meeting up with her since I had been told that any cab driver would be able to take me to the regional Peace Corps house. Even still, it was an odd feeling to be standing in a market completely on my own. I chatted with a couple of boys until Soo arrived, going over all the usual topics of conversation (the fact that I'm not married being the most popular item of conversation).
Each region in Senegal has a Peace Corps house, where the volunteers can come to regoup and rest. There's a kitchen where they can bake banana bread, lots of books left by volunteers, etc. While there was talk that these regional houses might be shut down, they provide a valuable support system to volunteers. I quickly learned that even in villages without electricity or running water, the PC provides more support than I had originally thought. Each volunteer receives a subscription to Newsweek to stay in touch with what's going on in the outside world, albeit a couple weeks late. Shortwave radios provide another way to listen to the BBC. But the human support of other volunteers that congregate at the Peace Corps house is probably the most significant support network. The volunteers were all at different stages of their service, so it was neat to be able to hear about their projects, challenges, and learning curve.
It was too late to continue on to Soo's village, so we spent the night on the terrace of the PC house after using the internet cafe and having dinner of ramen and easy mac sent from the states (made on the stove of course since there's no microwave). The stars were much brighter and I fell asleep listening to a deafening chorus of crickets. I was bone weary after a long day of sept place travel. I was completely grimy and dirty (when I took a shower my hair was hard to touch and my green tank top was brown from the dirt of the road). Sleeping on the roof is cooler during the hot summer season, but we were so COLD. It was the first time that I slept with multiple layers. I felt like I was camping up on the North Shore in the fall under the mosquito net.
To be continued... | | |
| Over the past month or so, as paper deadlines loom, I've developed some fairly consistent "office hours" at a local coffee shop. It's off the beaten path for Holland (ie. not on 8th St.), where I am assured not to encounter any other Hope students as I sit and tap away at my laptop. This place can't make a profit, even with my steady business as I push the limits of what a bottomless cup of coffee entails, but my time is profitably spent in an environment free from distraction.
The people that come in, intermintently, make me look up and smile from time to time. Kids from Blackriver come in to brag to the owner about their latest skateboard stunt they've mastered, or brag about how late they stayed up the night before because they were playing video games, but really because they need someone to talk to and more importantly listen to their six grade anxieties. She won't give them bossy advice and doesn't even tell them to be quiet when they bang at the out-of-tune piano in the corner.
Then there are the muffin men: middle age guys who come in just for a muffin, no coffee. Who knew such a category of people exist! Women with book recommendations are frequent customers, along with spanish tutors reviewing irregular verbs with timid students.
One research paper done, 40 pages written of another. It's coming. My paper writing write-a-thon will not last forever, despite how it feels some days. NPR keeps me company and there's always a place to go to get work done. | | |
| The wind chill is negative seventeen.
Seventeen steps below the bare
minimum. perpetual snow falls
covering frozen footsteps,
icy slips and slushy, salted sidewalks
Sometimes planting bulbs
is the only way to get through
the bleak midwinter month,
when hope seems buried
below the vision of endless
winter, world without wonder
land. Four inches below the topsoil,
dormant bulbs await
Pouring herself another steaming
cup of coca – or is it tea?
Sipping caffeinated, calculated warmth,
she trods through the day in
layers of cuddle dud underwear
thinking about what must be,
has got to be, underneath --
humbly hibernating.
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| Mauritania agreed to let the boat of immigrants land .
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| According to the national weather service, it will feel like between -5 to 1 degree today with snow on the extended 10 day forecast. Every day. I know that living on the lake is the main culprit behind this perennial snow due a phenomena unbeknownst to be until coming to Western Michigan called "lake effect." Schools have been closed on Monday and Tuesday, roads are treacherous, and even the heated side walks of 8th street cannot keep up with the sheer amount of snow. I'm beginning to idolspize anyone with one of those coats that goes down to your ankles and looks like being wrapped up in a sleeping bag. Maybe I'll make my own out of an old sleeping bad by cutting arm holes.
In contrast, it will be 75 in Dakar today and sunny. It's only been a little bit more than a month since arriving back in the states. Sometimes it feels like I've been back forever, but then I'll have moments that will take me back to Mermoz and I can see it so clearly in my mind. I find myself getting frustrated hearing other returning students talk about how much they miss Paris or London. Not to invalidate their experience at all, but mine was different. And so I guess that I miss it differently. How can I describe it? I'm not suddenly putting on rose-colored glasses, but any time I hear Senegal come up in the news, my ears perk up like oddie's when he expect to get a treat after being a good dog and not a bad dog outside.
Hearing depressing news can accentuate the February funk that's going around. Yesterday, I read in the BBC about another boat of immigrants trying to leave from West Africa to get to the Canary Islands. Not even just Africans make this dangerous journey by pirogue (wooden fishing boat), but it's also a common route for many Asians trying to reach Europe. Why the Canary Islands? The Canary Islands are considered to be an "autonomous community" (ahem, territory) of Spain, so once you reach the Canary Islands, it's considered to be a launching point into Europe.
Since Dakar and Nouakchott (the capital of Mauritania, located above Senegal) are geographically the most westward ports in any relative proximity to the Canary Islands (and I do mean relative proximity because if you look at a map this is not a close distance at all to travel by pirogue). I just looked it up in fact, it's over 800 miles away.
So here we have a boat of 300 migrants, coming from Asia and unnamed African countries, who have traveled all the way to Nouakchott and then by boat before running into rough seas. Now the two governments, Spain and Mauritanian, are bickering about who should deal with the "problem," which right now means that the boat remains off shore of Mauritania while the people aboard starve. Spain says that it's Mauritania's problem and that they should be the ones to repatriate the immigrants, meanwhile Mauritania says that Spain should help and really probably doesn't have the resources to deal with it, either.
It frustrates me that no one will help (albeit the Red Cross who is delivering food). It saddens me that this route is seen as a viable option for so many. Can you only imagine just how shity your life must be to consider this the best option for a better future? It probably also really says something about how secure border between African countries are when people are coming all the way from places like Pakistan (again, not the most direct route).
Even having been in Dakar last semester, and hearing stories about people leaving -- including one of my friend's host cousin who disappeared for a month only to call from the Canary Islands after having journeyed by pirogue -- I didn't realize the scale of the issue: last year 30,000 people were caught trying to get from West Africa to the Canary Islands. And that's just the number of people that got caught, not who made it.
Read the article if you so choose, but I'm warning you that it may add to the February funk factor.
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