Any Road
Well, its been a while, hasn't it? I apologize for the delay, but as I said before, homework (and some fun) have been consuming a lot of my time. But enough apologies, lets get to the (hopefully) good stuff.
I returned yesterday from my second village stay, part of a weeklong trip to Kedougou, a small city in the Southeast of Senegal, off of the Gambia River. Its a 13 hour journey by bus as a result of the road conditions, so we hoped in a bus, music devices charged, and set out from Dakar into what most people would call, without hesitation, the "Real" Africa. Or at least the Africa we all have come to expect.
The land opens up only an hour or so into dusty red rock plains and brush, dotted by the massive, convoluted baobabs and the occasional village or mining operation. Each village greeted our bus with smiles, holding up food and little goods to look at, or waving at us with big, broad gestures. And the further we traveled, the more thay changed, the low concrete structures growing more and more round, the roofs more often thatched.
And it grew hotter, too. A lot hotter. Most days, Dakar is somewhere between 80-90 degrees. But the air in Kedougou slapped you across the face at 100 or more. The high the first day there was 111, and though it's a dry heat, it's a small consolation. We started a bushfire dropping an unlit match into some grass (thank god a passing motorcylcist knew what to do) But, despite the gripping, it only added to the allure -- this is the bush! This is Africa! We passed through a national park on the way and saw monkeys and wild boar! How much better could it get?
After stopping halfway at a hotel (with a pool) for dinner and a night in the air conditioning, we arrived in Kedougou and settled into a encampment on the outskirts of town for our first few days before the village stay, and for another night afterwards. Although the village stay was definitely the highlight, I'm going to save that for another post to do it justice. Kedougou has enough going on for one post, that's for sure.
To call Kedougou a city, by Western standards, is certainly a stretch. Few buildings rise about 2 stories, and you can drive through the entire thing in only a few minutes. Blackouts were a daily occurrence.
Yet the streets are bustling, and if it doesn't physically resemble a city (to my overly trained eyes), it absolutely feels like one. The market, starting on the main streets and winding through the tight alleyways off the sides, is packed every afternoon with fabrics (including the regionally famous indigo cloth), fruits, bike equipment (number one transport here, huzzah!), and thrifted western clothes. Each neighborhood has their own soccer team, and one day the field across from our camp hosted a game, and an easy 200 people showed up to watch and comment. There's even a little night club, The Black & White, in the middle of town.
Despite the mild warnings to the contrary, I headed to the river to beat the heat my last day (sorry mom, but I'm fine!). The river too was bursting with life, with kids jumping and swimming while women did laundry and men lounged in the son (though I plan on tackling it later, this gives you a pretty decent glimpse into gender relations out here, though they are infinitely more nuanced than they seem). To delighted cries of "Toubab!" I swam up the river and to the other side, occasionally meeting people in the middle to talk and tread water. Eventually I made my way up the other bank, where the village ended, and found myself in a beautifully luscious field of peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, and more. The sun was dipping low enough to make the day bearable, and in the afternoon light young men watered and tended plants, each arraigned in low earthen walled sections to retain moisture. I had left most of my clothes and shoes on the other shore, but the ground was solid, the breeze cool, and the sites irresistible.
So I continued on, picking up a walking stick and following the cattle trails through a dried up stream bed and into the beginnings of a light forest. Birds the size of crows and infinitely more attractive were everywhere, as were long-horned cows, and I even accidentally sent several monkeys out of a tree and scampering in front of me.
Like all humans, I was drawn immediately to the highest point in the area, where the view promised to be large and a feeling of grandeur awaited. So I crawled up the side with my walking stick, building up sweat and altitude. I made it to the summit to find nothing but cattle paths and rocks, and then I turned around.
Traveling somewhere as different as Africa, with the inevitable preconceptions that entails, can be something of a self-fulfilling prophesy. We all have our ideas of a "dream trip," and unconsciously or not we often seek out ways to make it possible. That's not a bad thing, especially when if goes right.
As I looked down on The Gambia River, with the huts of Kedougou in the distance and plains of Africa all around me, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel something deeply and personally profound in the moment that transcended both cliche and expectation. Staff in hand, shirtless, sweaty, and looking hard into the setting sun, I felt both bigger and smaller than I have in my adult life. This was Graceland, this was The Power of One. But more importantly, it was mine.
I descended the other side into a little, and an army man, curious at the site of a shoeless honkey walking popping randomly from the brush, came to greet me. He spoke Mandinka and no French, yet he smiled anyway, pointing all the time at my feet and laughing, and led me to meet his family before taking me back to the river. He waved as I dove in repeating the Mandinka word for thank you, which I somehow gleaned from him. He shouted the same thing back at me, took his shirt off, and jumped in as well.
