Wonderland at last: Dakar Craziness

A couple weeks ago I head north to Dakar, Senegal to play some good ol' fashioned softball at the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). The event is hosted by the large ex-pat community in Dakar and PCV's from Mali, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania as well as several teams of ex-pats gathered for a big weekend of American-style fun. We stayed at the homes of ex-pats and it was nice and a little surreal to be back in an American-like house, thinking in American prices and being a tourist again. The weekend was a lot of fun and I got to do a bit of sightseeing in addition to playing softball (Team Gambia A came in 4th!) and meeting other PCV's and people working in the foreign service and at NGO's.

I thought Dakar was an awesome city and I loved being back in the hustle and bustle of a big city. Dakar, and Senegal in general, is a pretty stark change from The Gambia even though the two countries share the same geography and essentially the same culture. French and infrastructure seem to be the two major differences. As soon as we crossed the border into Senegal (a mere 12 k from my village) you immediately notice the smooth, lined roads with electrical lines everywhere as opposed to the Gambian side with it's huge, crater-like potholes in the roads or dirt paths to the side of the original road that drivers have carved out as a better option then destroying their cars on the hopelessly uneven pavement and vast darkness only to be interrupted by dots of light on the horizon from private generators. To be fair, Gambia is gearing up a rural electrification project and slowly paving roads and I am sure rural Senegal is darkness as well. It was a five hour ride to Dakar from the border so I got the chance to see a lot of the countryside of Senegal, which is essentially the same thing I see everyday now that it is the dry season - endless expanses of brown grass with few trees highlighting the dangerous levels that deforestation has reached in this region. Related to the infrastructure disparity, I noticed that Senegal had towns much more frequently with actual concrete buildings, where Gambia just has a lot of small villages and no big regional cities like a Koalack - a city we passed through on the way that rival's Gambia's national capital in size comparison. Seeing how large Koalack alone was, was a bit of a shock since I have been living in such rural conditions for the past 7 months, despite only living 10K from the country's capital.

Koalack has nothing on Dakar though - the population of Dakar alone is more then the entirety of The Gambia! The traffic in Dakar was crazy and it took us almost an house to navigate through the city to our destination along the coast. As disorienting as it was, it was also great to be back in the big city atmosphere I love so much. I don't know what my fascination with cities is - maybe the vibrancy, architecture, sharp contrasts, culture, non-stop pace, diversity - who knows, I just know I thrive being in that environment. I actually enjoyed sitting in the traffic as it let me absorb more of what was going on around me, then having it all whizz by. The city was teeming with people - most trying to hauck their wares off on tourists like me. Dealing with the same sort of interaction almost everyday in The Gambia allowed me to be a lot more patient with them hen I probably would have been and I even got to joke with a few in Wolof - which thoroughly confused them: a white person that can speak Wolof but not French?! Some actually laughed at me when I said I didn't hear French.

While in the city, I got to see a lot of cool colonial architecture, eat delicious non-African food (including french pastry and bread!) and feel a bit more American then I have been had the chance to in recent months. It was a nice break from my reality here and a good re-charge. Even though I loved my time in Dakar, I was glad to return to my village and the peace and quiet. It was also nice to see everyone in village again, as I had been gone the week before traveling to Dakar to attend a workshop for the NGO I work with. It was a nice feeling to be missed by my host-family, kids at school and teachers - it makes me feel like maybe I am actually a part of this community and not always an outsider. I shift between moments of feeling fully included and fully isolated - it's a strange existence, confusing and it's unlikely to be remedied any time soon, if ever. One of the goals of being a PCV is, of course, cultural integration but sometimes cultural and racial (value being placed on you because of the color of your skin) differences seem so vast I think true inclusion s just a naive fantasy. A great goal but not something I will ever achieve because I can't change the privilege that my country of birth and skin color has granted me in this world. Despite this feeling, I still think that what I am doing in the village and in this country as value and is a worthy endeavor. Just slap a sticker on my forehead that says "Idealist", I'm okay with that. Plus, nothing worth doing is ever easy.....right? I am learning a great deal and also teaching a great deal about realities of life in the West and here and how the two worlds collide. An almost nightly ritual in my compound is to play "20 Questions about America/The World" as we sit around the fire and chat. Even though we play this game on almost a daily basis, the answers I give never cease to amaze and shock the listener whether I am insisting that Americans do indeed work for their money or that the Earth rotates around the sun and while it's dark in The Gambia, it is still daytime in America. I don't think the people asking these questions are unintelligent, I just think the misconceptions or misinformation stems from years of speculation and tall takes. On the contrary, the majority of the people I know here are extremely intelligent and I am humbled over and over again by the fact that 7 year-olds can speak three languages fluently (adults usually six) while I still struggle to form coherent sentences in Wolof after 7 months! And my heart is overcome with warmth when my host-father returns from the village bantaba proclaiming to me that today he was a teacher, clasping a scrap of paper with french scribbled on it. Today, he taught the other old men of the village about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. Hearing him explain the methods of transmission to me in his broken by Gambian English, I almost hugged the man but resisted as that would break about 7 taboos. His recent leap into the non-formal education sector is also great in light of the recent news in from the The Gambia's fearless commander in chief. Google for details, as it is to political to get into here.

So, all in all, Gambia continues to be awesome, confusing, challenging, growth-inspiring, fun, and enlightening experience and I'm thankful weekly, if not daily, for my oppurtunity to be here, doing this work, meeting awesome, inspiring people and experiencing life.

Jamma rek/Peace only!