5 Minutes of Folly

There is an area just outside of Yaounde where the locals have an custom of ignoring your “five minutes of folly.” Apparently, they have a reputation of having ‘le sang chaud” (hot blooded), and are thus very quick to anger, but typically calm down after a few minutes.

Well, its been almost half an hour and the crowd if people behind our suv has swelled from 4 to nearly 20 and they are still screaming at each other. I’ve also heard the unmistakable sound of an open palm slap on bare skin…delivered, I’m fairly certain, by the one young lady in the group to one or several of the young men. Thank heavens no one had machetes or guns, because it was super heated.

When it was only 5…driver, guide, 2 x “not local enough” locals, and “real” local

Apparently the person my guide approached to show us how to get to these super isolated waterfalls was not “local ” enough for the young men living even closer to the falls. They started chasing after and yelling as we drive past, until finally, while we were trying to extricate ourselves from some mud, they caught up to us and the argument began between our “local” guide and the true locals. My guide and driver quickly jumped into the fray…and about 90% of the argument was in a local language…so I don’t really know what was said. What I did surmise involved the fact that they wanted us to pay THEM money because it is their town we pass through on the way. Typical. My guide actually finally made an agreement after calling the village chief which satisfied all but one truculent large young man, who continued to block our path and scream at and argue with everyone else.

And now there are 20 (though you can’t quite see them all in this pic…I was trying to be surreptitious).

We finally gave up and turned around. But not before I very calmly but sternly told the ringleader that their behavior was a very had reflection on their country and their town. It was the first time the ringleader actually piped down and got a bit sheepish in his apologies. But nonetheless, the other guy still stood in our way, so off we went. In a lot of ways I actually find that the destination is the least interesting part of the journey. I just like driving through the country-side and seeing the different areas.

The outing the day prior also did not lack for adventure. It was my first visit to a set of waterfalls (which were more like moderately threatening rapids…so a tad underwhelming really) and when we went to leave, the car alarm went off and wouldn’t stop. Whatever, right? So it will wail for a while on our way and eventually stop, right?

Wrong.

This car security system does not allow your car to start when activated. Haha…yup…so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, it was getting dark, bugs were eating us alive….and noone could figure out how to get the alarm to stop. The driver even had the circuit board out of the key fob. I was fairly certain he was going to electrocute himself, but he never did (a friend of mine later mentioned that something powered with a couple watch batteries probably couldn’t do a lot of damage anyway…fair enough).

Moderately threatening rapids…even that is being a tad generous. This is before the car alarm started.

Thankfully our local guy there had led us in by motorcycle. So me, my guide and our local guy clambored onto the moto and drove the 30 min back to the nearby village. The first 10 min or so were through jungle paths that had clearly not been driven for a while so even in the pathway the grasses were taller than me. There are also some enormous bugs around here and on the fast part of the drive (still a dirt toad though) I got whapped in the face by my fair share of them. It was almost like getting hit by a paintball, I was afraid one of them was going to leave a bruise! I also can see why families of five think a motorcycle is perfectly adequate for their transportation needs. I mean…we were totally comfortable with 3 full-size adults. Squeezing in two extra little kids would have been no miraculous feat at all. All in all, the second day of waterfalls was a bit of a bust, since the first one ended with the argument and the second one was out if reach due to bad roads. So….7 hours in the car with no success. I think I had hit my fun limit after the first 5 hrs and was elated when we finally pulled up to my hotel.

My knight in shining armor….he traded his horse for a motorcycle…it’s faster.

Oh – and I don’t advise driving 140km/hr (90miles/hr) in the dark on sub-standard African roads. But apparently, my driver does not share my opinion about that. He is no longer my driver…but I will save that story for my next blog post.

 

No Menstruating Women Allowed!!

…OR men or women who have had sex in the last 48 hrs.  Seriously…those were the instructions on the sign in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church I just visited. I SO badly wanted to take a picture of the sign (it was laminated…they were serious here!), but it was in an area where there were no photos allowed. Blast!!!

***Warning – this is not a super child-friendly entry***

Of course, I’m the one tourist that is like, “umm…why can’t a menstruating woman or people who have had sex in the last two days come in here.” Of course my guide is probably thinking to himself, “oh my gosh!! Is she seriously making me ASK the priest this question?!?!”, but he did totally did it. The answer was potentially even weirder than the rule…what came across to me was something about protecting the artifacts…possibly from theft??  What?!? I had NO idea that menstruating women or recently sexed persons were more likely to steal things. I mean, throw things…maybe (at least for the menstruating women)…so perhaps there is a case to be made for protecting the artifacts in that vein.

However, I was expecting something a little more Levitical…like…you know, we’re unclean when we are bleeding from orifices of our body…or back in the days of wandering through the desert when…let’s face it…without showers, people probably were pretty gross for at least two days after sex.  So that explanation I could have at least understood from a sort of pick-y/choosey interpretation of which Levitical laws still apply (since plenty of people have tatoos (Lev 19:28) and cut the edges of their beards (Lev 19:27) AND definitely wear clothing of mixed fabrics (Lev 19:19)), because plenty of people pick random things from the Old Testament to enforce or not enforce…but, nope…for the protection of the artifacts. Weird.

But the sex rule begs another question. My guide/driver tells me that the Ethiopian Orthodox believers go to church two times a day! Every day! If you’re doing that…but you can’t go to church for two days after having sex…when do you EVER make babies?!?! Do you just skip church for days…and then everyone is all gossip-y like “oh – well, looks like the Brown’s haven’t been to church for two days…you know what THEY were doing!!”

The quilt idea. I love it!! The picture didn’t show all the colors well, but it is beautiful.

But for real, I’m not sure I believe the protecting the relics theory…I have a sneaking suspicion that we might just be working with a bit of a language barrier here. But either way, the church was absolutely beautiful and had gorgeous stained glass (the portion up around the rotunda gave me a quilt idea).

So anyhoo – as you can tell, I am finally in Ethiopia, currently sitting in my hotel room, just me and the cockroach that has been crawling all over my laptop screen

My little friend

(ok, I finally killed him. He’s been given a sea-burial in the toilet). Pretty awesome I’d say. What was ACTUALLY awesome was the area I visited Tuesday (right near the aforementioned church), which is the source of the Blue Nile. It’s a huge gorge north of Addis Ababa and is quite possible one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It reminded me of an episode of House Hunters International (love that show!!) where a guy moved out the middle of nowhere Nepal to make goat cheese…and now I see why. I could completely see dropping everything and just building and house out there.

The beautiful Blue Nile River gorge

We also went to the Portuguese Bridge, which was built sometime in the 1600s. In keeping with the whole theme of being unbelievably beautiful, it over looked two-tiered water falls, that then opened up into a HUGE valley/gorge. Pictures to follow.

Portuguese Bridge – built in the 1600s

On a small cliff, to the left of the falls – overlooking the beautiful green hillsides and fields of the valley!

Yay for Kenya Airways!!

Kenya airlines redeemed my faith in African air carriers. Not only did I have a positive experience once I actually talked to a ticket agent, but the flight was great. I had an entire row to myself for both legs of the first flight (we made a stop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to drop off and pick up passengers), the flight attendants were nice, AND the food was actually so good that I ate my entire meal. I mean…seriously, when is the last time that you actually finished your ENTIRE meal on an airplane? I don’t think I ever have. But I did this time.

Part of the “clean plate club” during a flight…unbelievable (and yes, I’m aware of the olive, but I consider olives inedible…so it doesn’t count)

Oh – and did I mention they served some of the best red wine I’ve had in a while?! They did. It was awesome.

Would I like a free mini-bottle of the some of the best red wine I’ve ever had? Yes, that sounds lovely, thank you.

Trying to get out of the Addis Airport was a tad weird though. Just wanted to show a quick picture of the automatic doors…all of which were not working except one at the very far end.

Check out the piece of masking tape at the top of the doors…that was my only indication that the door was out of order (or purposely turned off…or whatever). Luckily, there were tons of people in the airport willing to totally boss me around…er…I mean…help me… so I figured out where to go.

Melting Down in the Dakar Airport

If I never have to see the inside of another african airport it will be too soon. Oh…wait a minute. So why is it so bad…well, first you are fighting off people trying to take your bags, sell you locks, change your money, AND mosquitoes. Misery.

So, Saturday morning’s trip to the airport was an unmitigated disaster. It wasn’t just my flight getting cancelled, but really the ensuing chaos that left me never wanting to return. There was never actually a formal posted announcement of the cancellation. A couple hundred people were all lined up waiting to check in when one guy walked up to me and said the flight was cancelled…and he could, for a small fee, take me back to whatever hotel I came from. No thank you.

We all sort of stand there for a little while until the line splits into two and people start gathering up towards the counter. Too afraid to leave my bags unattended I stand there for a bit…naively thinking I will soon see some kind of actual information on the flat screen that is blithely still announcing our 0800 departure. I finally realize that there is just a guy standing in front of the (now) large crowd that has gathered a ways in front of the ticket counter. I decide my bags are too heavy for someone to really make off with easily and make my way up to the crowd. Just in time to hear the guy say basically…if you are not Senegalese we will help you, but if you are Senegalese, sorry, but go home. Ummmm…not really a great time to be a toubab in a crowd of Senegalese who immediately got really angry and the whole crowd started yelling at the guy and gesticulating wildly. The guy walked away and so they all sort of stormed after him, ignoring the ropes, up to the ticketing counter.

This is the point where, in the states, things would be fairly annoying, but the airline would bring in as many ticketing agents as they can and start rebooking everybody. BUT, this is Africa. And so instead of that there were NO reservations agents, and instead it was 3 guys who would only take your name and phone number down on a loose sheet of paper. Really…you’re gonna call me? No you’re not.

Shockingly, this did not have the intended effect of calming people down. After about two hours of talking to three of the guys behind the counter, trying to wait out the crowd, and chatting with another gal who had tried calling Ethiopian airlines 5 times (no answer) I gave up and went home.

I took this picture to show the moment when there was not one single representative behind the counter and yet still a small crowd (since it had been almost 2 hrs) gathered and unsatisfied.

So TODAY I was a little wary. I also decided I wanted to do the plastic wrap for my bags because I have had things stolen on flights in Africa before. The plastic wrapping guy finds me, the price is reasonable, so I follow him to the little station. Well…my bags are too heavy (of course) and so he says that the airline will charge me $7 a kg, but he can “take care of it” for $5 a kg. Note to self, when some trying to talk you into doing something that is customary but almost certainly illegal says “no problem, no problem, no problem,” in rapid-fire succession…there most definitely IS a problem.

I was 18kg over, which meant trying to take 9kg out if each bag to put in a third bag that would basically go as a carry on with someone else. This is problematic in many ways:

A) this is technically illegal

B) 18kg would not fit in the 3rd bag

C) that only gets my bag to the first stop! And then I’m stuck with two really heavy carry-ons for the last flight

I will say in my defense I did not really understand the full plan until they already had bag 3 full and were trying to figure out what to do the last 6kg. Their answer was to try to stuff it in my already way-over stuffed carry-on. So I’ve been standing there for almost 45 minutes, bags open, them walking back and forth to the airline to ask how much over the bags could be without me paying (the answer varied from 2-4 depending on which time my guy was trying to explain it to me). I finally really understand what they are planning to do and I just kept saying “no, I’m packing my things back up! I’m not comfortable with this.” And of course they are not taking no for an answer.

Then as I have my bags splayed open up against a wall some woman who is ostensibly part of the airport or their section…I can’t tell…starts yelling that I need to move because I’m blocking the pathway (I’m not.). I ignore and keep packing…meanwhile fending off the guys’ attempts to make me change my mind. Then the lady escalates to really yelling…I move my bags like a foot…point at the path that is clearly not blocked and say in a very emphatic (this could potentially be interpreted as “raising my voice”) tone of voice – “Look! There is plenty of room for the path!” (in French) Then I hear her say something that ends with “toubab” (not in a nice tone of voice), so then I basically shout back at her yelling that I know what that means and…well…I was angry…I’m sure you can imagine what that looks like, but I’m trying to keep this blog kid-friendly. At this point I am so livid about the whole situation that I am practically in tears (I am an angry crier).

I finally have my bags closed up and loaded on a cart and walk over to the check in counter, where there is thankfully no line and the customer service agents are a) actually there, and b) pleasant. Praise the Lord. Clearly I can’t go back over to the plastic wrapping station to get my bags wrapped, so I buy some ridiculously cheap locks on the outside of the airport.

Please don’t ever make me do this again. Until next month (to Cameroon). And then the month after that (home). And then two months after that (to Mauritania). I might die.

Move It!

People here are fitness crazy. It’s kind of awesome actually. Almost everywhere you look there are soccer fields with teams of all ages practicing at any given time of the day. On my daily commute to the embassy I drive along the corniche, which is the road along the ocean, where there are always tons of people running. But my favorite part is a little section the corniche we call “Venice Beach.”  It has some makeshift weightlifting equipment – by which I mean…car wheels, hubcaps, etc. welded on to metal bars. They have benches under them. There are pullup bars, cement blocks for people do use for pushups – or whatever else they can imagine. Every morning as I pass by – this area is generally full of guys (very few women seem to exercise in public…but some). Just a hundred meters or so past that area is an open beach area that also is FULL every morning of people doing kalisthenics…sometimes in a group, sometimes just on their own. You can also find individuals stopped along the corniche adding some extra push-ups or sit-ups into their work out. There are even extra workout obstacles added periodically along the route.

Venice Beach

Additionally – the heat does NOT seem to faze anyone here. I pretty much have a strict no earlier than 7:30pm workout rule here because of the heat. But a lot of folks are out at 9 and 10 in the morning (when it is already sweltering), and early afternoon (the WORST time of the day in my opinion).

Interestingly, even though there is such an emphasis on fitness here – just about the ONLY time that I get weird looks or cat-calls around here is when I’m running.  Sometimes it’s just people oh-so-helpfully calling out “faster, faster” or “run, run!” But a lot of other times it’s the catch-all Senegalese attention-getter, which is the hiss. It really is a hissing sound. And I HATE it. Most often it’s used to hail a cab, get the attention of a waiter, someone trying to get you to buy something, or getting the attention or someone you know. And in those cases it’s not rude. Although I still frankly cannot stand it, and cannot bring myself to call over a waiter with a hiss.  But, when a Senegalese guy hisses at a woman he doesn’t know, it’s just to hit on her. Senegalese women don’t acknowledge it, and so neither do I.

And this is one of the things that makes running around my neighborhood a bit of an obstacle course

That’s all for this post – just wanted to share the fitness craze and some photos.

A bientot!

The List

Apparently after 4 years I still don’t know how to use my Mac appropriately – because I wrote an entire entry about things I love and hate about Senegal…and it has disappeared. *le sigh* So I guess I will have to rewrite it.

 

So there have been a lot of things that I really love about Senegal:

• Super cheap cab fares
• Baobab and bissap juice
• The gorgeous fabrics
  

  Buying some fabric at the market

• A tailor who charges $6 to make a dress (and can make pretty much anything I can draw!)
  

  At the tailor’s

• My host family!!
• The mangos – I don’t know how or why – but they are SO much better than ANY mangos I have ever had in the states. Like melt in your mouth good. I will miss them.
• My housekeepers…who talk to me more in French more than almost anyone and ALWAYS hassle me if I don’t eat (what they consider to be) enough. Poignant story-time to follow.
• The super spicy food
• The ability to get a ride to a city 6 hrs away for $9 per person. Yes, seriously (ref: trip to St Louis).
• Sand-roasted peanuts from the side of the road.
  

  Lady roasting peanuts

• Horseback riding through the country in Toubab Diallo
• The beach of Lac Rose (even though I have yet to go back)
• The turtle that lives in our yard that only comes out when it rains (I saved him the other day after a night-time storm had toppled him on to his shell outside of my window!)
  

  Our very shy turtle

• Zoos where you can feed the monkeys!!!! OMG!!!!
  

  Bryan getting the awesome photo!

• The King Fahd Pool!! An escape from reality around here.
  

  Hot pink toes ready to jump into the Pool at the King Fahd Hotel

Now for the things I am NOT as crazy about:

• Taxi drivers that don’t really know where they are going, or actually speak French and I end up getting yelling matches (in French) with after they tell me they know a place and then don’t and we got lost and they try to charge me more for THEM getting lost!! ARGH!!!
• The heat…and humidity. I will never take A/C for granted again.
• The open/flowing sewage in the roads, that is both gross to look at AND smell.
  

  Yah, that’s not a rain puddle…that’s raw sewage, from an overflowing sewer main. Bleh!

• The flies and mosquitoes. As I type I have nearly shredded my lower legs from scratching after one night of not lathering on the bug spray. And mosquitoes with potentially deadly diseases are way scarier than US mosquitoes (excluding West Nile of course).
  

  Flies. One of which decided he wanted to share my wine. *le sigh*

• People begging everywhere. Every street corners. I can’t reconcile how much my heart hurts from all of this and how utterly futile my handing over $1 to these folks is. Interestingly – most Senegalese, upon noting my discomfort almost always say “oh, they are all Malians/Gambians/insert non-Senegalese country here.” I have no idea if that is true…but I kind of doubt it.
• Talibés. These are students from the daras (Islamic schools – think of Madrassas but generally without the extremist commentary), whose Marabouts (teachers/spiritual guides) have sent them out to beg on the streets for their living. It’s extremely discouraging.  Though it’s not the same for all kids that go, basically these kids are sent to daras in a sort of boarding capacity – they have to bed for money to then have food and clothes, and they learn to memorize the Quoran. That’s it. They don’t learn French, math, history, science, or even Arabic. So at the end of the “school” (some at age 18) they have memorized the Quoran, but they don’t even know what the words they are saying mean. What future can they possibly have? My professor said they end up being the ones who are trying to sell you sunglass or sim cards on the side of the road…or driving cabs and not speaking French. This is why I cannot give the child beggars any money – they are the talibés – and supporting what their “teachers” are doing is absolutely unacceptable to me. If anything, I will give them a coke or some snacks. But never money – that will just go to their marabout.
• The terrible, no rules, try-not-to-die driving around here. DC does not hold a candle to this place as far as bad drivers. I cannot believe I am not dead yet.

Alright – I think that’s it for my list for now. I have lots of topics I keep meaning to right about – so hopefully I’ll be have several more blogs soon!

Quelques choses

So, I’m sitting here in the dark, typing by the light of my computer screen, because we’re having one of our near-daily power outages in SICAP Baobab (where I live). I haven’t really figured out a pattern, other than to note that our SICAP seems to have more outages than others, and that they often occur for several hours in the evening. It’s irritating because we can’t get internet, but worse because it means the fans don’t work. Fans are what keep me sane around here…so without them, things move to grumpy-town pretty fast.

I’ve been trying to figure out why the internet is so important to me here. Am I really THAT dependent on surfing the web? Is that healthy? But I realized that here I am probably more dependent on it than anywhere else because I just feel so isolated and cut off from my friends and family, and the internet is truly my only real connection to everyone.

A new friend of mine kindly showed me her tailor here (he has made some beautiful things for her)…so after a little hectic shopping at Marché HLM, the local fabric market, I made my way there and *might* have gone a little crazy on the clothing order. But when you can get a custom fit dress for $6 plus the cost of fabric…that just happens. So, I’ve ordered like 3 skirts and a top for me, and then matching dresses for my sister and her four girls and two button down matching shirts for the two boys.

Oh Wait! I said I would talk about Mauritania!! Ok – so I am going to be the Chief of the Office of Security Cooperation in the capital – Nouakchott. I should be there sometime in Feb (there are a bunch of other training requirements I have to fulfill even after this 6 month immersion). Anyway – I’m super excited for the job, but of course a bit nervous to being going to a place that is sooooo conservative. The government has adopted sharia law, so it’s going to be very different from what I am experiencing here in Senegal, which is a very moderate/progressive form of Islam.  From what I understand, I think I’ll probably be living on the embassy compound (to be seen for sure I suppose), and I think life on the compound will be reasonably normal. I also have already heard from the team of folks at the embassy there who have been super welcoming to me and are making me feel much more comfortable about the whole deal. So that is all positive.

Alright – enough trying to be cheery and positive, I can’t even focus. I just want the power to come back on!!! I need a fan!!! AAAGHHH!!!!

Egg Huggers!!!

Ok – so they are technically called “egg coddlers” – but the Dutch translation (courtesy of our new friend Stijn) is “egg hugger” which I think is way funnier. They are my new obsession…and all my foodie friends – be prepared to potentially receive egg coddlers for your next gifting occasion because they are my new obsession.

My new obsession with egg coddlers comes from a weekend trip we just took to St Louis, Senegal – the ACTUAL subject of this blog…so I will get to the egg coddling in a little bit. St Louis is the French colonial capital of Senegal and retains a great deal of the historic charm and colonial architecture of the time.

Faidherbe Bridge

It also hosts an extremely old bridge (which you would not know from looking)…I believe it just celebrated its 350^th birthday.  We stayed at the Hotel de la Poste which is where the aeropostal pilots from back in the day would stay on their route from Europe to Africa to South America and back. While I’d like to say the history drew me there…that would be a bald-faced lie. It was the air conditioning, and the pool. And it was so worth it. 

We left Dakar Friday evening from La Gare Routier, where you can catch what are called “sept-places” (or seven seats). They are Peugot station wagons from…maybe the 70s…that fit seven people…allegedly. We decided that two people in each of the two rear seats was plenty, thank you very much, and we would just pay for the extra two seats and basically take over the whole car. La Gare Routier in itself was a crazy experience. One of the guys from our school, Samba, offered to go with us to do the haggling. We declined…a decision we immediately regretted upon arrival at the gare where we were instantly swarmed by people trying to give us WAY too high a price for the trip. I started in bargaining for what I knew was a reasonable price – and the primary sept-places guy basically ignored me and only seemed to want to talk to Bryan (a trend I’ve noticed several times so far…where men merchants will bargain with me UNLESS there is a guy around and then they default to him and will barely even speak to me, to the point of almost being openly rude (which gets my egalitarian-feminist panties all in a wad)).

Anyway – we finally get onto the road…and promptly come to a complete stop. It takes 2.5 hrs just to get to the next major town after Dakar, which is like 1/8^th of the journey. Awesome. Six hours and A LOT of inhaled fumes later we arrive in St Louis and go straight to our rooms (but with glorious glorious air conditioning!).

We spent the first half-day popping in and out of different shops along the main roads and walking all around the north side of the island, where we found… primarily…goats.

A BABY goat!!!! LOVE!!! (and trash)

A few sheep. But mostly goats. And they were stinking adorable. It must be baby goat season, because almost every mother goat had one or two TINY baby goats in trail and I wanted to pet every single one of them. Unfortunately, they have enough sense to keep away from humans (which I can understand, since many of the little kids we saw had sticks with ropes tied onto them and were mainly engaged in whipping things…the dirt, the sidewalk, the water…and probably the goats if they had gotten too close). 

Oh! AND BOATS!! We saw lots and lots of boats. Pirogues to be exact – which are all varying sizes of the same ornately colored shape of boat. As you can imagine, this is mostly a fishing community.

After getting broiled by the sun, we decided it was time to take a dip in the pool that had originally brought us to that hotel. It did not disappoint. It also had a fully stocked bar – and I gotta tell you – gimme a gin fizz by the pool and I am a happy girl. We had the place to ourselves for almost two hours. With how hot it is, I cannot believe there are not more pools around here!

That night we had the best dining experience I’ve had in Senegal, and frankly, the best dinner out I’ve had in a really long time. If you’re ever in St Louis – go to La Kora – owned by awesome, friendly, French lady – who took the time to explain everything on the menu that we couldn’t understand (which, by the way, was everything…seriously?!?!). But anyway – it was beyond awesome. I even wrote my first tripadvisor review ever because we were so impressed.

And HERE is where we discovered the egg huggers (although I didn’t know their name until today). There was some unknown dish on the menu (Egg Manchester – although – if you google that it shows something that is not even REMOTELY like what we had), so we asked about it. Sounded good. It showed up in this quite small porcelain cup/pot with a metal screw top lid (you can also google those exact words and STILL not find what you’re looking for). So, the premise is – you crack an egg into the pot, dump in some chicken (pre-cooked I’m assuming), cream, cheese (we think swiss), and a little pepper – screw back on the top, and set the whole thing in boiling water for 7 minutes. What you get is a “coddled egg”, sort of like a soft boiled or poached egg really, with all these other ingredients cooked into it. OH LA VACHE! (that is “oh my gosh” or rather – “oh the cow” in French) It was AH-MAY-ZING. So, of course today after Stijn found “egg hugger” in dutch, and I realized that was “egg coddler” in English – I spent nearly an hour research egg coddlers, recipes, types, blah blah blah. I am ridiculous. But talk about a super speedy breakfast!!! And you can put practically anything in there! So I’m hooked.

The second day was mostly limited to walking around and then getting back into another sept-place to take us home. Thankfully, Sunday traffic is nothing like Friday traffic and this driver new some of the back roads (which occasionally made us nervous…especially when at one point he took us down a dirt road in the middle of a town, stopped the car, got out, and just walked away without saying a word…ummm…..hmmmm). BUT – he got us home in only 4 hrs, which was incredible. So…that’s Lt Louis. I’ll probably be there multiple times over the next 2 years while I’m in Mauritania (oh yah…I’m moving to Mauritania in Jan for probably 18 months – more to follow).

The bridge at night, from the bar at the pool

The water wasn’t exactly what I would call “pretty”

La Lutte!! (Senegalese Wrestling)

La Lutte means “The Wrestling” and it seems to be the national sport of Senegal. It’s a bit like normal wrestling in the states, but you can punch and kick (and even throw sand…what????), and it also involves a major portion of mysticism. The mysticism seems to be played out in the 3 hours it takes for the wrestlers to make their grand entrance, which involves a LOT of dancing (the group of men dancing with them seems to grow larger as the evening goes on), and pouring some sort of white gooey liquid all over their faces. I have a suspicion that is the Baobab tree juice…which does sort of have a milk-like look…but thicker (and is delicious…but that’s an entirely different blog).

The entire lutte is a total cacophony of noise. There are at least 2 to 3 sets of drums playing music that do not appear to be coordinated with each other. There is also a “chanteuse” or singer of the lutte…to which I could discern NO apparent melodic structure. It sounded like a lot of really loud wailing. It was also all in Wolof…the indigenous language of most of Senegal. Since I can’t even get through an entire greeting series in Wolof (in my defense…the greeting alone is like an 8-set question-response series) I had absolutely ZERO idea of anything going on during the entire Lutte.

I was ALSO rather distracted by a little side show of a totally crazy lady in the stands full on yelling (and almost physically attacking) the team of lutters (as they are called) that was sitting right in front of us. And these guys are humongous. Verbally assaulting them right after some of them have been wrestling seems like REALLY REALLY stupid idea. Two of the guys actually lunged at her and were held back by their friends (I’m sure that was all for show…who hits an old crazy lady who only has 2 teeth??).  She ended up wandering off to yell at some other teenagers…but it was really weird. Once again – NO idea what it was all about because it was all in Wolof.

OH! And the other weird part about it is the girl-fight slapping that goes on before anyone makes a move. We happened to catch a particularly cat-fight-heavy match…and let me tell you – it was totally boring.

Until the end, at which point, immediately following the abrupt end to the fight (called based on an illegal punch by one of the guys…apparently you can punch them in the face, but not the neck??? Or something???), when our guide practically threw us headlong towards what was NOT actually an exit. But instead was an 8-foot drop down into the little moat between the stands and the field where we could get to the exit. I guess when 20,000 people are all trying to get out of the same stadium, an 8 foot drop is way less of an issue than being crushed. So that was exciting.

I have to admit that the whole day before we went to the Lutte I was totally dreading it. As hard as I try not to be a princess, the idea of being in a car for 3 hrs (w/o AC) already that day (this was the same day we went to Lac Rose), spending the whole day in the sun, and then coming back and spending the entire evening sitting on concrete stands, in the sun, bombarded for 4 hrs by dissonant wailing and drumming, really had me anxious. But – it ended up being REALLY fun…we had our first taste of Baobab juice (in the form of a little baggie of ice-cream…so freaking delicious), and had one of the few shady (in the sense of having clouds…not being like “shady”) days we’ve had since getting here.

So…crazy day…but worth it.

I’m going to try to put a few links to some Senegalese wrestling videos here…totally worth checking out so you can see what I’m talking about. Writing does even REMOTELY do it justice!

This is a video of the lutte we were actually at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCq-yNE2a2Y

This guy had better dancing (same day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCXWW8UttUs&feature=relmfu

Slaptastic…(an actual match)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APByyV1sUHU

 

Some catching up

This gallery contains 13 photos.

Oh my. I have been neglecting my blog. SOO much has happened since I last wrote. I finally started working out, put my feet in the water at the beach (since I didn’t have a swimsuit, dangit!!), visited “Lac Rose,” … Continue reading →