10/3

So Today we headed off to Kagougou from Cees. We left at 730ish in our PC Land Cruiser. It was crammed full of stuff as we were acting as a pack mule for a couple of the regional houses along the route, like a computer, absentee ballots, med's, and other miscellaneous stuff. All this on top of all our bags and 5 bikes. It was quite a fit! Somehow i missed the memo saying that id need a bike and didnt get one yesterday, and all the other people who did get bikes got new helmets, a pump, patch kit, oil, tool kit, and saddle bag. Luckily the compound manager showed as we were loading up the land cruiser and i was able to get the helmet, and gear as there was a couple bikes we could use at the regional house in kadougou. i was really happy to get all this as i was relying on the one that i brought from home for all this.
So we eventually get everything all loaded up and everyone crammed in. Its all the kadougou volunteers minus aaron who was going somewhere else because of his language. So that makes seven total with the addition of hayes and lindsey who are both learning french. The journey starts off fairly uneventful as everyone is kinda tired and trying to sleep or listen to music. About 20k in a truck has gotten itself stuck almost literally completely across the road. I have no idea how it got to this location if you saw it youd wonder what on earth the driver was thinking positioning himself like that. Ah well welcome to Africa! there was a gap on the far left where we squeezed through and carried on. That should have been a hint for the type of journey it was going to be. We have a driver who blasts along, which makes sense as weve a lot of kilometers to cover but he really zips along.
So at about Kaoloack is where things start to get a little bumpy. At first its kinda a thought that this cant last that long. tsk tsk tsk thinking like an american, this lasts basically till we get to tambacounda. They are working on it its just kinda weird and sporadic the locations that are being worked on. The streatches that are done, like leading into tamba are really nice they just need to get the whole road done. Maybe by the time i leave. But to demonstrate the speed at which our fearless drive was zipping along at, we are all hanging on bouncing around the back of this land cruiser, and its fairly steady all things considered. Kevin is getting ready to drink some water when all of a sudden BAM everyone is air born water all over the roof of the car and shit all upended, we must have hit a huge pot hole or something that no one in the back was ready for. Its not like we were really going that fast by american standards, it was maybe 50mph or so but for the terrain, that sort of thing is the risk. After that everyone is wide awake and paying attention to what is coming next, craning their necks to see the road ahead. After that though nothing that big happens again. I will give momadou his dues cause nothing feel off the roof he really knows how to tie shit down, even if hes using one rope!
Once we get to tamba the road get a lot better as were driving through a national park for most of the rest of the journey. We stopped in Tamba at this place called best burger, no joke. NO one there looks like its closed but a guy comes running out to try to get us to come in. Were all in the mood for burgers or any food so we settle on it. Now the thing that most people are thinking is a burger and some fries sounds good right? yea but were in Senegal, not how they role here. So here in Senegal they put the french fries on the burger and for good measure toss a fried egg on there as well. Its delicious! I guess thats what they consider an american burger. After Lunch the drive was ubber nice in comparison. We got to see chimps and monkeys while driving through the park which was really cool. They were just hanging out on the road and all ran of when we drove by. It was really cool.
We ended up getting to the regional house around 645ish and were greeted by pretty much everyone from the region. They had come down to inspect the replacements. About half of them were getting ready to leave or leave in 6 months or so. All in all there is about 8 or 9 volunteers down there right now and were bringing 8 more so were doubling their numbers if only briefly. They had a great greeting for us, a nice home cooked meal of taco meat, spanish rice, salad and cold beer. It was cool meeting everyone and just chilling after that loverly car ride. We crash in the open air sleeping area after hanging out for a while.