Red Salt

Well, it is good to be home. It is strange how fast places can become so familiar and one can find comfort in just being there. The village stay was more or less of a success, and I am VERY glad that it is over. After spending three days with a Wolof family that was not only loud and not afraid to take what they wanted from you, I can deal with anything that family at home has to throw at me.

The day before we left for the village stay, Tristan, Eryn and I visited Ile de Madelene, and it was one of the most peaceful places I have had the opportunity to visit since I arrived in Senegal. We had to take a taxi to the area that a large theme park was located (it is called Magic Land in case anyone was wondering) and then take a small path to the building where the boats to take you to the island were located. We got there and there was a group of men sitting under a covered patio area in front of the building and they were making tea and listening to the radio. We did the usual greetings and they invited us to sit and chat until the boat came back. There was only one boat in use that day since it was the middle of the week and there were not a lot of people that were going back and forth between the island and the mainland. We waited for what seemed like forever after we paid and finally the little motor boat came back to get us. We got on the boat and they gave us lifejackets to put on, and I think I would have been better off just making a swim for it considering what they looked like. The boat wasn’t brand new and some of those waves were fairly large compared to the size of the boat, but being out on the water was fantastic. On our way out to the island, we passed two smaller boats trying to pull a large boat away from the shore, and as we got closer we realized that it must have been there a while and they were just trying to remove it from the shallow water near the base of the island. It was amazing getting to view around the island, and we saw where there were turtle nests along some of outskirts of the island. It was sad when we later took a tour and saw these from above, because you were able to see that people had come up onto the little sandy areas and disturbed the nests, which the tour guide said was something that happened quite often. The island reminded me of the aerial view of “Never land” (Peter Pan’s Island for those of you who have not caught on), and the boat took us around to the lagoon like area where we were able to sprawl out and relax in the sun. The island itself looked like a giant rock with a lot of dead bushes, but the water made up for any vegetation that the island lacked.

I had run and then washed clothes that morning and to avoid having more clothes than I needed waiting for me when I returned, I wore the same thing on the island along with my hat. The guide thought it was pretty amusing, but I am sure he has seen worse considering what I have seen some of the tourists wearing. After a brief tour of the island, we got settled across the small lagoon area, which we reached by walking though the water. I wore my sneakers to wade through the water, and it made for a much easier trip, but, well, wet tennis shoes are never a positive thing when you wear them a lot. We spent the afternoon laying in the sun and exploring the island looking for sea urchins. Those little spiky buggers are so incredibly neat and I couldn’t resist trying to get them to move. If I hadn’t known better, I probably would have picked one up. There was a giant rock there that was almost completely white, and it looked amazing from far away, but once you got close and realized it was covered in bird poop and had been bleached from this, well it was still pretty cool, but we lost the urge to climb it…

Since we were going to the village stay the next day, I didn’t have time to rinse my shoes out and then let them dry again, so I had to wear them the next few days with saltwater imbedded in the fibers. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except that during the village stay I brought minimal clothing and wore the same socks and shoes the entire time… oh wow. My shoes smelt so bad I gagged at one point when I took them off. Of course, three days in the same clothing without bathing, well, I guess I just generally was really nasty smelling, but this may have been the secret of my success to not having to share a bed!

On the way to the village we stopped at Rose Lake where they have been mining salt since the beginning of the 1900’s. It was crazy to see how much salt there was and the huge piles that were everywhere, and how much they were continuing to bring out just in the time that we were there. The water is pink because of the high concentration of salt nothing is able to live in the water except an alga that turns the water a rose color… go figure… The men were scooping it up out of the water into boats that were anchored off shore, and they would fill big buckets that the women would then carry back to the shore on top of their heads. IT was crazy and I asked one of the members of the SIT staff, Bouna, if it ever affected people’s health working in the water that was so highly concentrated with salt, and he said they had done studies and that it didn’t. But I think that is a lie and I am going to look it up so that I know. But the salt was pink too and I wanted to buy some, but a French guy in his speedo walked by, and for some reason that turned me off of the idea of buying something he may go swim in… but I cant imagine that the water was good for him in that outfit.

The villages we stayed in were closer this time and all the families, and most of the villages for that matter, met us at a central location. This was incredibly scary to pull up and there be that many people just there waiting for you and from that little moment, I don’t think I would want to be famous. I lived in a compound type are that had three houses and two central locations where people spent a majority of their time. My family consisted of three sisters and two brothers and their mom. Then ‘my uncle’ and his family lived in the house nearest ours where Eric stayed, and then the other house was inhabited by another uncle, his two wives and their families where Tristan lived. There also happened to be some really large cows with huge horns that would come in and out of the area behind the houses along with goats, sheep and chickens. It was funny to sit and eat breakfast and watch all the animals coming and going, and attempt to guess which one was going to attempt to make a break for it towards the houses that morning. The first day of our arrival, we were sitting and talking with my sisters and they were helping us figure out who was who and how everyone was related and just general chit chat when a fight broke out. Tristan and I had no idea what was going on at first, and it just appeared to be out 85 year old grandmother and Tristan’s younger sister yelling at each other. Everyone started laughing at one point and we were so confused I guess they saw it in our expressions we were not sure what was going on so they explained to us. Out Grandmother was trying to steal a chicken to take and sell, when it wasn’t hers, and her granddaughter caught her and tried to take the chicken away from her. They were literally wrestling over the chicken, and while the grandmother held steady to the legs and on wing, the granddaughter had the head and the other wing. I thought for sure it was going to be missing a limb or two by the end of everything. Eventually almost all the women were involved in the struggle for the chicken and when they finally put it back into the pin area, our grandmother kept sneaking back to try and take it again! Ah, an ice breaker if I ever saw one!

The first day in the village was the best one, and things didn’t really go downhill per say, but the people became more aggressive towards you with what they said and how they acted. In general people who refer to themselves are loud and pretty in your face, so to be in a village and surrounded by this all the time started to get to me after a while. The second day in the village we went to the school, and it was about two and a half miles away. Since there are not many forms of transportation that pass by all the time, most of the students had to walk. My sister didn’t have a far walk compared to some of the students that had 7 kilometers to go or more to and from school every day. It is the only second level (middle and high school) school for all of the people in Ker Sadaro, so most of the students that lived far away, often drop out because it becomes difficult to make the trek every day. It made me really appreciative not only of many ways and people that I could rely on for transportation, but also the number of schools that surround just the area that I live and how easily accessible they are for so many of the children that live in the area. There were big buildings at the school, and each one had a different class going on. They were usually full of students, by this I mean every desk was taken and there was about 50+ students in each of the class rooms. They did activities out of the books they had on the board while the professor walked around and either joked with other students, or gave the student at the front working out a problem advice or tips. I sat in on a math class… bad move. They say that math is the same in any language… lies. I had no idea what was going on. This may have been due to the fact that the last math class that I took was my junior year in high school, but I was so confused by what was considered the equivalent of middle school math in the states, I know I am doomed when I take a math class later this summer. BLAH. I am not that side of the brain kinda gal apparently!

Most of the village stay was devoted to just sitting and watching, which got real old real fast and I took to reading a book for most of the time there. There were some really cool parts and on the last day that we were there, my sister and aunt put henna on my fingers and nails. It was really cool to watch them, and it was funny (and hot) when they wrapped plastic bags around my hands. It was a weird sensation being about to see my fingers so much when I talked and I suddenly became very aware of how much I use my hands when I am explaining things to people. That same night we were dressed up in traditional clothing by our families and many people from the smaller surrounding villages along with all the other students came to Ker Sadaro and there was a giant dance party. By this I mean there were men playing music, everyone dressed up in nice clothing and a giant ‘dance circle’ in the middle of the group of people lined with chairs where the students were to sit. My mother in this village was somewhat of a ‘crowd control officer’ and carried around a large stick to hit little kids with if they tried to run in the middle before she was ready. Do not get on this woman’s bad side, I thought I had seen tought love, but, whew. It was a lot of fun and the people were all great at teaching us how to dance, but eventually the number of people wanting to dance in the middle, especially the number of children, became over whelming and the circle was, alas, lost to the crowd.

Before we had left, there was a large fight in the compound like area where I lived, and my older sister was running around trying to kill my uncle with a giant hoe. Apparently he had made an statement along the lines of “Your mother doesn’t know who the father of her children are,” only imagine it a little nastier, and, well, not a good idea to tell that to anyone. She had to be restrained, and took out her rage the rest of the evening on a giant bull that kept trying to go into the area with the female cows. Do not piss these people off.

I was glad to get to the hotel and shower, and even though I ended up getting sick, it was nice to have a quiet place to sleep, with no mosquitoes buzzing in my ear all night. We left to visit the giant mosque in Touba, and it was cool, but not my cup of tea. The women had to cover arms, legs, head and neck when they got into the city and the guys seemed to think it was funny that most of us had to wear pieces of cloth over our pants like a skirt (called pana) along with other layers when it was so hot outside. HARDY HAR HAR. After that we went to visit a marabou (religious teacher for Muslims) and, well, I know this is supposed to be some fabulous person, and maybe it was the excess of heat, layers, and bitterness I had towards men combo I had going, but I thought he was a obese man who was not only really high, but didn’t want to touch the ‘impure women.’ Can we tell how Amber is doing with some of the men here people? AH.

We made it to Saint Louis and ended up staying in a beautiful hotel along the water that was probably the nicest place I have stayed in Senegal. It was beautiful, and there was HOT water. AH. Give me hot water from now on to shower and you will be on my good side pretty quickly. The area smelled like the sea with a strong side of rotting fish, but after the initial shock my nose got used to the smell pretty quickly. Saint Louis is made up an island and an area of the mainland and you have to take a big bridge across to the island. Unfortunately the people there are so used to tourists, that it makes it really hard for other people to be there, especially since we had to do a history project about a specific area within Saint Louis. Most people were pretty nice once they got pass the initial you are a tourist what do you want or give me money thing, but at times it was frustrating. I got to see the celebrations that they had for their day of independence the last day that we were there, and that was pretty cool. There were decorations of Senegalese flags and colors all over the place as well as a parade that most of the people in the area came to watch. It was really hot and most of the kids crowded towards the front, but it was nice to see the beginning!