Final Days

My last week in Dakar is a bit of a blur… there was a lot going on!

I had moved over to my friends’ apartment a couple of streets over from mine so that I could empty my apartment without having to live in it. Since I rented an unfurnished apartment, I had to sell everything I’d put in it, including all the appliances and furniture. I was using a combination of Craigslist and an Expat Dakar website and it was super stressful, but in the end I was able to get everything sold. Once the place was empty, I had to clean it all up for the final walkthrough.

So empty!

Once I was done, exactly a week before I was to leave, I called the landlord to set an appointment for the inspection so I could exchange the keys for my deposit. When I talked to him he said that I should just leave the keys when I was finished and he’d do the walkthrough and decide how much of my deposit he’d give back to me… hum… I was pretty sure that wasn’t right. I mean, I’m naïve, but not THAT naïve! If I left him the keys, what would guarantee that I’d get any of my deposit back? Plus, if I wasn’t there for the walkthrough, couldn’t they just decide that a bunch of stuff needed replacing on my dime? I asked him about this, but he said that’s how it’s always done, I could ask anyone, and to not be “complicated” with this. Now, I’m not so proud as to not ask for help when I know I need it, so I called up one of my colleagues and asked for his help. I know that as a female, and a foreign one at that, I was definitely a target for being cheated, so I wanted a Senegalese male to help me out. His brother-in-law happened to work in real-estate, so I let him take over and handle everything for me. He arranged to oversee the walkthrough with myself and the landlord, so I got at least some of my deposit back and that was done!

The Ladies

Fatou Kane, Myself, Ngueye Mbaye, Safietou Ndiaye

The department at the university also arranged a farewell lunch for me with the professors, my US Embassy supervisors, and the Ministry of Education English Office representative. It was such a nice day! We had lunch at the campus restaurant, people made some nice farewell speeches, and they gave me some lovely gifts! I could not have asked for a better or more welcoming work family than the one I was blessed with while in Senegal! We did some “Family Photos” for posterity, and then I went to hang out with the students for a more informal farewell. I’d gotten some soft drinks and snacks so we could casually get together and say goodbye. Much to my surprise, the students had gotten together to get me some gifts as well! I was definitely not expecting it, but it was very generous and sweet of them to offer me some souvenirs to remember them by. It was a bittersweet day of goodbyes and I’ll always have fond memories of my time at FASTEF. As I left, I shook hands with my colleagues, but this time with the left hand because in Senegalese tradition it symbolizes that we are sure to see each other again!

After my goodbye at FASTEF I had a final dinner with my host family. I was looking forward to it because I had done a little project as a going-away gift for my host mom. She has hosted so many Americans throughout the year, so I wanted to give her something to remember us by, and even some of them from last year and the year before. I contacted the Fulbrighters that she hosted over the last few years and had them send me pictures of them with Mama Soda and printed them out with pictures I had also gathered of her with the Americans that were there throughout this last year.

I had a large wall map of the US and placed the pictures of her students on the map depending on where they were from in the US. I also gave her the tape and pens that I’d used to label it so that future students could add to it. It turned out really well, and she seemed to really like it!

Of course, I was still playing guide while getting ready to leave. I was sharing Rebekah and Hildo’s apartment with a Dutch girl, Anne, who had come to Dakar to study French for a month or so, so I was showing her the ropes a bit while preparing to leave. There were also 2 new American students at Mama Soda’s, so I was big-sister-ing as well. I took them to HLM (the fabrics market) and to the tailor’s.

Anne & Jody at HLM

I was going to the tailor a lot in my final days because I had a bunch of stuff being made at the last minute. Some people had offered me some fabric as a going-away gift, so I was having dresses made. The problem with all the last-minute gifts was that I was already at my 2-suitcases limit… I was stressing out about that, trying to figure out what to do, but then a good friend from Church, Sharon, offered to take a suitcase back to the US for me. Since both my students and colleagues had offered me, among other things, full table cloth and napkin sets, I was grateful to have a way to get them back to the US without having to pay a bunch for shipping!

Friday night Sharon and I went to help some friends (Bo, Michele, and their two girls Grace & Faith) from church who were also heading back to the US pack up their house. They are a missionary family that is going to spend one year back in the US, so they’re renting out their house while they’re on home leave. We helped pack everything up that they wanted to store while they were gone.

Michele, Me & Sharon

We whirl-winded through their dining room, living room, and kitchen, getting everything boxed, plastic wrapped, and up 3 flights of stairs to the attic for storage. It was a fun evening with friends! Saturday Anne and I spent most of the day packing (for as much as I travel, I really hate the packing part, ha ha!), and then we went out to a fancy and expensive sushi dinner to celebrate my last Saturday in Dakar!

The Sunday before I flew home I moved from Rebekah and Hildo’s apartment in Mermoz, since they were coming back from their honeymoon, to our friend Lisa’s apartment in Almadies, closer to the airport and the US Embassy. Monday morning we had a farewell lunch with the other ETAs who were in Dakar in order to fly out. The other ETA in Dakar had left early, as well as the two who were stationed in Thies, so it was only myself, the two from Ziguinchor, and the two from Saint Louis who were leaving on the departure date that had originally been scheduled.

ETA Farewell

During lunch we talked about saying goodbyes, our experiences, and how much we had loved Senegal! Monday night Lisa invited those people from our church’s small group that were still in town (Sharon, Rebekah & Hildo, and Jojoh) for a goodbye dinner. It was a lovely end to my final week in Senegal.

Furry Friends

Rokko

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’m an animal person. More specifically, I’m a horse-person. As I mentioned in my Christmas blog, I went out to one of the local equestrian centers and found a horse to lease. At first, I was doing a full lease of Rokko, a white Spanish warmblood. That meant that I was fully responsible for how much he was exercised. I thought I’d be able to go out at least 4 times a week, but it ended up being too much. My schedule at the university was constantly changing, so I wasn’t able to go out as consistently as I wanted. Another problem was the fact that it would take me between 30 and 90 minutes to even get out there on the bus. Often the traffic was so bad that I could walk faster, and sometimes did even though it’s quite far.

Because of that and my changing schedule, I went down to a half-lease, which meant sharing him with someone else and only riding 3x a week, which was perfect. I rode him Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while a 15-year-old French girl rode him the other days of the week. I loved going out on Mondays because the center is technically closed that day, so there aren’t so many people around and I could just enjoy myself without having to worry about people. I was also using Mondays to give my friend Faith beginner riding lessons because I didn’t have to compete with other lessons.

Wednesdays I’d usually go out before I’d go to the US Embassy for the conversation and film clubs, so earlier in the day. That was my day to go out into the park and talk to all the kids. It seems that Wednesdays are popular days for school outings, so sometimes there’d be hundreds of kids in the park.

Rokko loves, loves, loves kids! We drew quite a bit of attention to ourselves because of three factors: most horses aren’t ridden, but pull carts; even as what we in the West would consider a mid-sized horse, Rokko is quite a bit bigger than Senegalese horses; and both Rokko and I are white! He doesn’t mind the attention, and I found it fun to answer the kids’ questions about him while letting them come up one or two at a time and pet him. It was a lot of fun! I ended my lease with him at the beginning of July because of my impending departure, so that was a bit of a bummer. It was great to be able to ride so much while I was in Senegal!

Tera

Day 1: Fuzzball @ 2 weeks old

The other furry friend that I had was Tera, a kitten I rescued off the street in mid-January. I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and almost stepped on this little fuzzball in someone’s driveway. She was so little, but looked to be in good health, with a clean, fluffy coat, and clear, but barely open eyes. I asked the guard that was across from the driveway and he said he’d seen the momma kitty that morning, but not since about 7am. At that point it was about 4pm, so I knew she was hungry, but hadn’t been that way for more than 8 hours or so. I decided she needed to be saved, so I picked her up and brought her to my new apartment.

Then I spent some time looking up how to make kitten formula from scratch, since that’s not something that can be found in Senegal! There weren’t any baby kitten bottles available either, so I had to get her to drink on her own. From what I could tell by looking up what kittens look like at certain stages, she seemed to be about 2 weeks old. I was able to get her to drink out of a jar lid, and continued to feed her every 2-3 hours, gradually increasing the time between feedings over the next couple of weeks. At the beginning it was hard to get her to eat and I was sincerely worried that she wouldn’t make it. Then I had a stroke of luck and found some wet kitten food at one of the large grocery stores, so I started mixing that with her formula, and then some dry kitten food until I finally got her weaned.

It was a bit stressful, but she was such a nice companion to have when I was all alone in my apartment. For the first couple of weeks, she was too little to be up on my bed, which was pretty tall. I didn’t want her to fall off and hurt herself. At about 4 weeks, she was big enough not to hurt herself on too much, so she had free run off the place. At night, she would come curl up on me, snuggle real close to my neck and fall asleep.

Once I was sure she would survive, I decided to stop just calling her Fuzzball and give her a real name. My original plan was to take her back to the US with me as my ultimate Senegalese souvenir, so I wanted her to have a name connected to Senegal. I decided on Teranga, after the Senegalese culture of hospitality: Tera for short. What a fun little thing she was to have around, as kittens usually are. She was always happy to see me when I got home and would come running to greet me as I walked in. Tera would sometimes earn herself the title of “Tera the Terrible” with her kitten antics, but she was cute and a lot of fun. Her playfulness often had her standing on her back legs swiping at something with both front paws, coupled with her ferociousness she earned the nickname “Pterodactyl” as well.

She loved to sit on my friend Brenna’s shoulder when she came over for dinner, always wanting to be in the thick of things. When I would work at my table, she would run around, bouncing off the leather couches and causing general mayhem in my living room until I realized that she just wanted to be able to hang out with me at the table, but there was nowhere for her to go. I realized that if I just put her PillowPet up on the table, she’d snuggle right down and watch whatever was going on. This worked like a charm even when I had 3 people over for a French lesson… I’d forgotten about her PillowPet , and she was being a bit crazy until my friends asked me why she was so hyper. Then I remembered that she just wanted to be next to us, so I put her PillowPet on the table and she snuggled down for the rest of the 2-hour lesson, not leaving her spot until everyone left! They were amazed!

I started questioning my plan to take her home with me when I realized just how much travel that would entail, especially without knowing exactly where I would actually end up. No matter where I was going to be, I would have to drive my car long-distance to get there, not to mention a 5-hour flight, followed by a 4-hour layover and then an 11.5-hour flight. For a 6-month old kitten, that would be asking a lot! So I decided to try finding her a family that would keep her in Dakar and if I didn’t I would make the best of it and take her back with me. I’d remembered that a friend of a friend had mentioned wanting to get a cat for her two little boys, maybe 5 and 7 years old. They’re an embassy family that still has 3 years left at post in Dakar. I ran into her (Koki) one Sunday in May and asked if she was still looking for a cat. I thought she’d be a perfect kitten for boys because she’s super playful, but also fairly snuggly. Koki said they were very interested and could they come that Wednesday to meet her.

Tera with her new family

When they met her, they fell in love with her (of course!) and asked if they could take her that weekend. I was very happy to have found such a good family for her, but I was slightly devastated to have to let her go so soon. I’m sure they would have let me keep her a little longer, but I didn’t want something to happen that would change their mind, so I let them take her that weekend. They really are the perfect family for her, making being without her, alone in my apartment for the last two months, worth it. I was able to visit her at her new home a couple of weeks after she moved out and she seems to be very happy.

Such a good friend and blessing for a little while!

Les Retrouvailles

One Tuesday I get a surprise message on Facebook from my French host mom Blandine: “Hi Shane, are you still working in Senegal? We leave on Friday for a week-long vacation in Saly, 80 km from Dakar with Flore and Sixtine. It would be great if we could see each other!” This is the family I lived with in 2008 when I first went to France! While I wasn’t going to be able to take a whole week off, I was able to arrange a couple of days free, so I quickly booked a room at the same resort as them, which happened to be the same one I stayed at for the conference the first week I was in Senegal!  

I took a taxi down on Saturday and met them poolside. It was go great to see them after so many years! I saw Yves, Blandine, and Sixtine when I passed through Lyon 5 years ago, but Flore wasn’t home when I was there, so I hadn’t seen her in about 9 years. When I got there they were just finishing lunch, so we lounged poolside for a few hours before heading out on a short excursion to the fish market not far from Saly.

We took a horse-cart out to the market and saw all the different types of fish. There were a ton of people around because a few of the large, deep-sea fishing pirogues that go out for a month at a time had come in that day. There were fish and people everywhere! Some of the fish were in containers, but some of the big ones were just sitting on the ground with a bunch of other fish. One type that really stood out to me were the very large sea-snails… mostly because they were just on the beach and obviously still alive and pulsating. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten one of those, and I’m not sure I’d be very interested… I guess it’s all in how it’s prepared?

We stopped in the area where they build the large pirogues and learned a little about how they’re made. It takes about a month to make a large pirogue, but only if all the supplies are available, which is rare, so most of the time it takes 3-6 months. We asked about how someone gets enough money to buy one/get one made and whether or not people take out loans to finance the building of a large pirogue. Loans are not really a part of their culture, so that’s not an option.

The money has to be saved up, and the people who end up buying boats are those who have worked on someone else’s boat long enough to have the money saved up, say, about 25 years or so. Family patriarchs will eventually save enough money to pay for their own boat, on which their male family members will work. If well taken care of, the boat can be used by the family for a few generations until enough money is earned by the son/grandson to buy the next pirogue. It was super interesting to learn about how the fishing industry works in that area.

The next day we went to Joal-Fadiouth, which is an island not too far from Saly that is made completely out of shells. We decided to go out there for Sunday morning Mass, since the population of the island is predominantly Catholic. It actually has the opposite percentages compared to the whole of Senegal, which is 95% Muslim and 5% Christian. The island’s population is 5% Muslim and 95% Christian, and is the most known for their cemetery, which is an entire island itself, connected to the large island by a beautiful wooden bridge.

When the tide is low, you can reach both islands by just walking across the sand that is usually covered with a couple of feet of water. The guide told us that at the lowest tide, the boys play their soccer games on the exposed land, but the games can only last a short amount of time before the tide starts rising again.

We started out our visit of the island by going to Mass, then visited various areas of the island. There are a ton of pigs running around, as well as chickens, donkeys and horses in makeshift shelters. We walked around the island, then over to the cemetery to see all the graves, which were mostly Christian. There was a small Muslim section of the cemetery, but it was only a very small corner. After we visited the island, we stopped and had lunch (fish of course) at a nice spot on the water.

Our next stop was just a quick one to see the open-air fish smoking area, which was huge. Probably a few acres of huge troughs or raised platformsfull of fish being smoked. The fires were located underneath the troughs, and were fed whatever trash they could find to burn. When we got out of the car, the smell was overwhelming, what with the trash in piles all around, plus what was burning, and the smell of the fish… we didn’t stay very long, but it was interesting to see how they cook/smoke the fish that then gets packaged up and sent all over West Africa. I think that experience made Flore and Sixtine decide to never eat packaged fish from Senegal…

The rest of that day was spent poolside, but the next day we took a trip out to the Somone Delta where we did a boat tour of the delta. We saw a good amount of pelicans, as well as people fishing, as we floated around the shallow delta in our little boat. The mangroves there are the same as those I saw while in Martinique, as they’re trees that grow in the mixed salt/fresh water of the delta.

At one point the water wasn’t deep enough, so we actually got out and walked around in about a foot of water. We were able to get close to some birds, and see a sacred, mini-baobab up close. We stopped for drinks at a Rastafarian place at the end of our little boat tour, and the owner/server wanted Flore to be his 3^rd  wife… technically he’s allowed to have four, so he wants at least one of them to be a Toubab. Not sure that explanation was working in his favor, ha ha!

Shhhh.... the rhino is sleeeeeping

Our last day together was spent seeing the animals out at the Bandia Reserve. I had just been there with Angela, but you can’t get too much of rhinos and giraffes, can you?? When we saw the rhinos this time, they were sleeping, so that was cute!! We also tasted Warang liqueur, which is locally made from Bissap (hibiscus), ginger, or another local fruit. I ended up getting some Bissap liqueur, and then my taxi driver was waiting for me to continue on to Dakar while the Emerys were going to head back to Saly. It was amazing to get to spend a few days with them, catching up! I hope it’s not another 5 years before I see them again.

Maison Senghor

La Maison Léopold Sédar Senghor

I’ve visited the Senghor Museum a few times now. It’s not really a museum in the traditional sense of the word because it’s actually just the Senghor home preserved exactly as it was left by the president and his wife. So, about Senghor: he was the first president of an independent Senegal. He is widely known as the “Poet President“ and the father of modern Senegal. I learned about him and read some of his poetry as part of my masters in French literature. This post isn’t really about the life of Senghor, but about the house/museum, so go here if you want to learn more about him.

The visit of the house takes about 45 minutes. Barthélémy Sarr, the man who does the guided visit actually worked on Senghor’s security detail while he was president, which was from 1960 to 1980. This house was built for the Senghors as their residence for after they left the presidential palace in 1980. Mr. Sarr actually oversaw the building of the house and everything that had to be done in order for the former president, his wife and their son to move in. The house was built on the Corniche (the road that follows the coastline of Dakar).

Senghor was passionate about architecture and had the house designed following a concept he’s credited for inventing: asymmetrical parallelism, which is why it’s such an interesting shape. The people of Dakar called it “The Sea’s Teeth” after a film of the same name that had been released in 1975, just 3 years before the building of the house. The architect was French, Fernand Bonamy, as was the interior decorator that they used, Jean-Pierre Brossard.

The Senghors moved into the house in January of 1981, the moment he handed the reigns over to Abdou Diouf, the 2^nd president of Senegal. We learned that Senghor didn’t spend all his time living in Dakar, but also spent time at their property in Normandy, where his wife Colette was from. While he was very involved in the design of the home, tragedy struck in 1981 that left them little affection for the home they had so meticulously created: their son Philippe, who had moved with them into their new house, died in a car accident that June. The Senghors spent less and less time there as the years went on, especially after 1983 when he was the first African to be elected to the Académie Française. After a heart scare in the late 90s, his doctors in France advised him not to travel by plane anymore and he never returned to his home in Dakar, which was practically abandoned. When his wife and eldest son decided to donate it to the Senegalese government, a Senegalese company, Eiffage Sénégal, donated their services in order to restore it to as close to its original state as possible so it could be opened as a museum. None of the interior decorations were changed, and even the books, which were all cleaned a restored, were returned to the exact place Senghor left them.  

As I stated earlier, they commissioned a French designer by the name of Brossard to design their home, which is very interestingly designed. We started out our tour on the ground floor, to see the formal dining room, salon, and Senghor’s larger office where he met with people. The whole formal area is done in muted beiges, pale pinks and off whites, with a beautiful marble table and white leather couches. The book shelves are full of the gifts he received as a head of state, and interesting titles in multiple languages that show the widely varying interests of the poet president.

What I found amusing was how much the décor, the look, and feel of the house changed as soon as we left the formal ‘presidential’ section of the house. The ‘Salon Vert’ was the first private part of the house we saw, where the president and mrs. Senghor entertained their personal guests, friends and family. No more beige and white! A bold, beautiful green covered the walls and the upholstery. Apparently green was Colette Senghor's favorite color, which would be apparent when we went upstairs and saw the other rooms.

But before we went upstairs we stopped at their son Philippe’s room, which was cobalt blue. The walls, the bed, the curtains, the art. It is an ode to the 70s, with graphic art on the walls, a rotary dial telephone and a large stereo system as the centerpiece of the room. The bathroom has a sunken bathtub the size of a public pool Jacuzzi!

We also visited the two guest rooms, one statelier than the other, with beiges and whites, and the other more striking with a burgundy floral pattern adorning the walls and bed. Apparently Mrs. Senghor would show both rooms to her guest and have them choose which they preferred. I think I’d choose the beige room, just because it’s on the corner of the house and therefore has 2 walls with large windows, making it much brighter. After the guest rooms, we saw President Senghor’s room and that of his wife. The funny story that goes along with this particular part of the visit is the stipulation that Colette Senghor put on this part of the visit. You see, when they were decorating the house, Mrs. Senghor gave President Senghor the interior design book Brossard had containing all the options and had him choose his room. Being the head of the household, she felt it was important that he have first choice of the type of room he wanted. He chose the one he liked the most, which happened to be the simplest of the options.

She told him he had to look again and choose a ‘nicer’ room because it wasn’t fitting for a former president to have such a basic room. He told her that she had told him to choose what he wanted and that was what he’d chosen, so that’s what he’d have thank-you-very-much!! Her room, on the other hand, is a bit more luxurious, with the walls covered in a beautiful green floral wall paper and white-lacquered wooden furniture, including a cathedral-esque headboard. Her stipulation to Barthélémy Sarr when the museum opened was that he explain very clearly to people, lest they think badly of her, that she had not chosen a lesser room for her husband, but that he had made that decision himself!

I think my favorite room in the house is actually the one they call ‘La Chambre de Mamie’ because it’s where Colette’s mother stayed when she came for Philippe’s funeral. It is done simply, in various shades of lighter greens. It has a sliding glass door on one wall that leads to a terrace, which makes the room very bright. The sole painting above the bed is of two horse-back riders on a trail in a modern, geometric forest, a nod to Colette’s Normandy roots. The whole house was really interesting and definitely worth the visit, especially when the person giving you the tour is like a museum himself!

Statue of Senghor outside his house

Adventures with Angela: The End

After our unsuccessful day trying to get out to Gorée Island, we took the next day to go out to Madeleine Island (which you can read about here if you haven’t already). The next day was Saturday, our only other chance to get out to Gorée Island, which we did in the morning (you can read more about Gorée here). In the afternoon we went to Rebekah and Hildo’s wedding, friends I met through church.

We are in the same small group at church, and Rebekah & I are both English teachers, so we have a lot in common. They had a nice civil ceremony at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and an outdoor, evening reception at a restaurant near where we live (they live down the street from me). It was a lovely celebration and I’m so glad we could join them for it!

For Palm Sunday we decided to go out to the Abbaye Keur Moussar for Mass. My friend Lisa joined us, so that made for a change of pace. Our morning started out a bit rough because I had reserved a taxi with a driver Lisa knew, so when we got there, a taxi pulled up to us at the meeting point (not just on the road, but at a specific meeting point in a parking lot) and I asked him if he’s the driver we had reserved to go out to Keur Moussa, and he said yes. Lisa wasn’t there yet, so I just told him we were waiting for one more person. Lisa pulled up in a taxi and jumped in the one we were going to take. Off we go… but then she realizes it’s not the driver she knows. I ask some more questions, and he has trouble understanding French. Eventually we figure out that it wasn’t the right driver, he wasn’t the one we’d reserved… We call the other driver and he’s back at the meeting point waiting for us. I make the other taxi driver turn around and take us back and we take our actual taxi out there! We’d scheduled a pretty early departure, so we weren’t even late!

The Benedictine Monastery is about an hour outside Dakar and was founded in 1961 when 9 French monks arrived to start the monastery. It earned the title of “Abbaye” in 1984 and is known for its Gregorian chants with African influence. Because it was Palm Sunday, there were a lot more people there than there normally would have been. We did the precession with our palms, then headed to the stairs to see if we could get a seat upstairs and we were lucky enough to get the last few seats, albeit not together. Good thing too, because Palm Sunday mass is the longest one, and they sang the whole thing, which made it even longer. It was pretty cool actually! When it was over we went into their little store and bought a bunch of stuff, including their well-known artisan cheese and CDs of their famous music.

Friendly tortoise coming to say hi to Lisa

Afterwards we decided to stop by the Turtle Sanctuary and see what Fulbright the Tortoise was up to. He’s doing pretty well. Because I’m an adopted parent of one of the tortoises, I get in for free, and Guillermo was nice enough to let Lisa and Angela go in with me. I introduced Lisa and Angela to Bill Clinton as well (you can read more about the Village des Tortues here in my Birthday Blog).

The next day we went out to the Bandia reserve (I went on Christmas morning with the gang, so you can read more about that here). The only major change that happened since Christmas was the horns being removed from the two rhinos. The morning after some poachers broke into a French zoo and killed the rhino right there for its horn, they decided to shave down the horns of the two rhinos out here. They then widely advertised the fact that the rhinos on their reserve have no horns.

Rhino horns are kind of like horse hooves in the sense that they can be shaved down to a certain point without causing harm to the animal. They will also eventually grow back, but it does take a while. Since these rhinos are on a reserve, they do not need their horns for defensive purposes, so it’s safer for them not to have the horns at all.

The next day was Angela’s last, but her flight was very late at night, so we went to the Senghor museum (the subject of my next blog) and hung out on the beach. All in all it was a great time hanging out in Senegal with Angela!!

Adventures with Angela: That Day!

Back in Dakar, we decided that Thursday would be the best day to go out to Gorée Island because there are always less people on a weekday than the weekend. We decided not to rush the morning and take the 12:15 ferry out, have lunch and spend the afternoon on the island. Although it’s only a 15 minute drive from Mermoz to the port, we decided to grab a taxi at 11am so we could get our tickets early and walk around downtown a little bit while we waited for the ferry. We hail a taxi and off we go, but then the taxi turns away from the Corniche (the road that follows the coast and has almost no traffic). Hum… maybe there’s an accident or something? Then he doesn’t take the other road that goes straight downtown, which would be faster than the Corniche if there wasn't a huge market halfway down that always impedes traffic. He heads towards where I teach… Hum… well he can technically turn right just after the university and get downtown from there, but then he doesn’t do that either. I finally ask him why he’s going the wrong direction, but he just says everything is fine and I’m thinking it’s a good thing we’re not in a hurry. Then he continues going the wrong direction, heading out of town? 10 more minutes go by and I ask him again why we’re going the wrong way and if he could please turn around. He refuses and we end up in the notoriously bad traffic at the HLM market. I’m thoroughly annoyed at this point, especially because he’s still going the wrong way, so now we’re sitting in traffic waiting to go farther in the wrong direction! Then I hear him ask another taxi driver going the other direction where the port for the ferry is! I was super annoyed at that point because he had said he knew where it was, and then when I suspected he didn’t know and tried to guide him, he refused to listen to me, still pretending he knew where he was going. We get all the way to the other side of town and he finally decides to go towards downtown, taking the highway, which is bumper to bumper traffic.

It was quite hot out, the fumes from the big trucks were killing us, and a trip that would normally take 15 minutes ended up taking an hour and a half, so we missed the ferry. This was the first time I’d ever done it, but I refused to pay him what we had negotiated and only gave him half while lecturing him on why he shouldn’t lie and say he knows where something is when he doesn’t, nor refuse to listen to his passengers (he was obviously quite young).

Because the ferry takes a break at the lunch hour, we weren’t going to be able to go at all that day because we wouldn’t have time to visit everything before they started closing. That meant we’d have to go on Saturday when it’s super busy. Oh well, we decided to hit a couple of museums. We went to IFAN: Musée de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire or IFAN Museum of African Arts, one of the oldest art museums in West Africa. The building it is housed in was converted to a museum by Senghor in 1960 when the IFAN (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire), which was founded by the French in 1936, was transferred to the University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD). Because it is one of the most prestigious centers for studying African culture, it houses some of the most important collections from Francophone Africa.  While we were there we saw masks, statues, clothes, jewelry, tapestries, and weaponry from all over West Africa.

Pre-colonial West African Empires

They labeled everything saying which people group/ancient kingdom the piece came from; the Wolof, Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, Kangaba, The Kingdoms of Mali and Ghana, etc. and the corresponding modern-day country; Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal, The Gambia, etc. The collection was very interesting and I’m glad we had the time to go!

At that point we hadn’t had any lunch, so we decided to go to a well-known western café not too far from there for a bite to eat and to decide what to do next. Over a hot turkey, cheese, and bell pepper wrap we decided we should stop at the Senghor museum, then go to the small mall across the street and get some bissap gelato before having dinner on the water. We taxied to the Senghor museum, just to find that it was closed because a pipe had burst… darn. It just wasn’t our day! Oh well, we had bissap gelato to get to, so we walked across to the mall just to find that the gelateria didn’t have half of their gelato that day and the bissap was one that they were missing L Man! 3 strikes, you’re out! We decided that our best bet at this point would be to throw in the towel, go downstairs to the restaurant on the water, have a cocktail and go home! Oh well… every trip has to have that one day when everything goes wrong!

When all else fails, go for cocktails!

Adventures with Angela: Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

We rose bright and early Wednesday morning in order to get breakfast before our 7:30am departure for the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary. The hotel had it posted that their continental breakfast started at 7am, so we figured we could get a quick breakfast in before having to head out. Unfortunately, that sign was apparently just for show, because when I went for breakfast, no one was even stirring and nothing had been set up. I was not a happy camper. I mean, I don’t blame them for not setting breakfast up until later because it’s very rare that people are up that early and want to eat, but don’t have a giant sign in the lobby saying that breakfast starts at 7am if it doesn’t! Just post a sign saying it starts at 8am so people know not to be able to have breakfast. Humph.

Moving on. Our guide was there to pick us up at 7:25am and we were off to the famous bird park, a 45 minute drive from Saint Louis. Djoudj is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (and so is the old colonial part of Saint Louis, so that’s two checks off my list!!!!) and, encompassing 16,000 hectares (40k acres), is one of the largest bird sanctuaries in the world. It is in the northernmost part of Senegal, with part of the park actually located in Mauritania. It’s the most famous for the flamingos and pelicans, but in the high season 350 different bird species can be seen there. We were at the very end of the season so there weren’t very many birds there at all. The park is the first migration stopover after those that are migrating down from Europe cross the Sahara, so the high season is of course in the fall and winter. Throughout the migration season, the park will host about 1.5 million migratory birds! The guide told us that the park would be closing in two weeks because even the small amount of birds that were still there would be gone. We almost didn’t go because I had been told there wouldn’t be much to see, but we decided to go anyway, even if just for the nice boat ride through the wetlands.

The reason we had left so early was because the boat tour is two hours long and by the time 11am comes around it’s pretty hot and miserable, so we’d wanted to be done by then. We arrived at about 8:45, which was perfect timing because the first large boat was going to leave at 9am. We were just behind a small busload of French tourists, so when we pulled up our guide rushed us to the boat so we’d get on before the group. We took the front bench and our guide sat with the park rangers/guides at the very front of the boat facing us. The guide we brought ended up being the guide for the whole boat. He did a pretty good job of sighting birds and explaining everything to everyone, and I translated for Angela. One of the rangers heard me translating and was listening in because I think he tries to do some of the tours in English. The hard part about translating in this particular setting is that I don’t know what all the birds are called in English… I needed my cousin Morgan, who is a bird expert and would have been able to give us all that information in English! I did the best I could with the pelicans, egrets, cranes, and the different non-aviary animals we saw on the shorelines as well.

The stars of the show are of course the pelicans, although the park is also famous for its flamingos, but they had all already left. The huge pelicans were the first thing we saw when we pushed away from the dock. I didn’t know that pelicans fished together in groups and that they synchronized their movements while doing so, so that was such an interesting thing to witness! We learned that they live and fish in groups like that and that if you see a pelican off fishing on its own, it’s most likely because it’s not feeling well and doesn’t want to get the rest of its flock sick! Smart birds! I also loved seeing their take-offs and landings on the water. They hop along the water with their giant feet as they’re taking off/landing, which is fun to watch. In some spots we could look up and see a whole group of them flying in circles high above us. Apparently they do so to aide in digestion.

We also saw other birds including some egrets, cranes, and smaller golden eagles. One bird I found pretty cool was what they called the “snake bird” because when it was in the water, all you could see was its long neck that looked like a snake. Along the shoreline we saw a couple of large lizards and crocodiles and a bunch of warthog families enjoying the water. The female warthogs all had about 4 babies with them when we saw them, and the males were huge! Besides the warthogs, lizards, and crocodiles, the only other thing we saw on the banks were some long-horns. The weather was perfect, with clear skies and not too much heat, so we enjoyed floating around trying to catch a glimpse of different birds that were still in the area, but mostly watching the pelicans!

Our boat tour finished about 11 as we’d planned and we headed straight back to Saint Louis. We had a 3pm shared taxi back to Dakar, so when we arrived back into Saint Louis we had the driver drop us off at a restaurant on the water so we could have a leisurely lunch. We originally planned to have lunch back at the hotel, but after the breakfast fiasco, I wasn’t inclined to give them any more of my money, so Angela and I shared some different seafood pasta dishes in town before we headed back to the hotel, then back to Dakar.

 

Mmmm.... Lunch!