Ok so heres the fun stuff i got up to in that time frame. For whatever reason blogger wont let me post photos now so go to facebook to see them....
also clarification, ok it looks like i wrote that last blog in march, but thats when i started it and then procrastinated for about a month until i actually finished it. continue reading...
-Kevin and I also attempted to start another massive bike trip at the end of oct, we were going to bike from kgou to kaolack, then south through The Gambia for a couple days and then continue on to kolda. it would have been 'Epic' in the words of a certain kolda volunteer, but my knee crapped out the first day. We tried to rest it up in Tamba, but it was still pissed at life so we just took public transport to Kaolack and rested there for a few days. Great time, spent halloween there. Had a blast with some folk we hadnt seen in quite some time and then continued on thinking my knee was all better. made it to our first stop in the gambia no prob and kicked it with some volunteers there for an evening. Very nice people and very hospitable. the next day when we took off again, knee said fuck you and we took a 7place to kolda. oddly enough, biking through the gambia, no hassel. As soon as you put those bikes on any type of public transport, wow, stopped at every stop and asked for the papers for the bikes.... ok let me explain something about bikes here. Think china, shit tons, and no one has papers for their bikes.... We have shnazy american bikes, therefore big fucken target on our backs. But as long as you are on the bike its no big deal as they think youre nuts for biking to Kolda from Kaolack. Anyway get to Kolda, kick it there for a couple days, get to see some cool people again. Catholic bar, brochets bar, terabite harddrive full of great tv and movies. Good time. After a couple days there we take off again with my knee feeling better. Kev and I make it about 2/3rds of the way to tamba and decide to just take public transport back to Kédougou. Fun trip but left me with a bum knee for the next 3 or 4 months.
Over the month of november i did a couple trips to different natural wonders here in the region. Over the course of two weeks i went to both the biggest waterfall in the region and a very interesting group of spires that is in the far east of the region. Both very fun trips, I went with Matt and Sheila to the spires and David Jen and one of jen's friends from america to inglee. Thats the waterfall to the west of Kédougou. Both good trips, great camp outs, and a good time with different groups of people. I took plenty of pictures of both trips so if you fancy a look, check out facebook.
After the Permaculture training i went to in November i went straight to Dakar to get ready to go back to america for xmas. That was a good time, like one big party for a week. Loads of people were going back to america for xmas so i got to see lots of people while hanging out waiting to go back. Great way to get ready to go back to america really. Dakar is alot better than kédougou as its much cooler there, a very nice break from kgou.
So December was america and most of you who are reading this prob know all about that trip.
Then back to Senegal at the beginning of january. I stayed in Dakar with Kevin and his brother for a couple days before heading back to Kgou. I got back just in time for the end of another mosquito net distribution in the arrondissement of Saraya. Didnt help with that but got back in time to hear all about it. It was interesting getting back to kédougou and not having all the luxuries that i had in america. My host family here was really happy to see me and it was almost like i was never really gone after a day or so. amazing how quickly that happens.
The next big thing that happened in country was the WAIST softball tournament in Dakar. This is the highlight of the year for a lot of people in as far as social get togethers go. The whole country is there in regards to volunteers because of the All Volunteer conference, and there are different teams from around west africa that come to play, so there are even more americans in dakar than normal. Its a good time fun for me as i got to meet some interesting folk who had been evacuated from Guinea and were in Benin now. They were so determined to come to WAIST and Ian, one of kédougou's guinean refugee volunteers, organized and refugee team for all the refugee volunteers who were evacuated from both Guinea and Mauritania. Yea Senegal is just this bastion of freedom and democracy as all of it neighbors fall into chaos, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Guinea, and The Gambia. just interesting to think about as a volunteer in a country pretty much surrounded by failed or failing states!
I stayed at the Dakar regional house this year instead of a home stay as no one was really staying there anyway and the people that were there were really cool. Thats how i ended up meeting the ex-Guinean, Benin volunteers. frank form kédougou stayed there as well and he's always a fun time to be around. The ride to our first game was great, frank and a couple friends from his stage were all in the car with me on the way. Richard had kinda woken up drunk and continued to drink and was so chatty with the cabbie, it was a great time. We stop at the bank on the way there and frank ends up finding some guinean pulaars selling phone credit on the street and immediately befriends them. He ends up in the guys hat trying to sell credit to cars in the parking lot of the bank. Classic.
The games were ok, like we did last year, we played to have a good time and be ridiculous. Our theme this year was Cavemen. So everyone was dressed up like that on the softball field. It was a good time and when we lost at the end, everyone was in such a good mood from all the drinking and screwing around i don't think anyone really remembered the score! We have 2 more games and its much the same for those two as well. i cant make it to the last 2 as im feeling really sick. I am able to make it to the big party that the Dakar region puts on which was a great time.
After that big party, its the playoffs and final for the tournament for those that were actually trying to play. Just kinda take it easy and go shopping with Sheila in the market in dakar and meet up with meg and colleen, a friend of megs who is a volunteer in Mali, for ice creme at the best ice cream place in Dakar, Nice Cream. Doesn't sound ubber cool, but when its that hot and you can never have ice cream, its really one of the highlights of the trips i take to Dakar! For dinner that night we go to the point of allmedies, which is the furthest point west in africa. They have great fresh seafood and a beautiful view of the ocean at sunset. We got a huge plate of clam/molusque type things that are really good. I get them every time i go there.
WAIST always leaves me a much more refreshed/recharged volunteer. Sheila and I head back to Kédougou the day after everything is done and have a nice ride back via Tamba. Sheila tells me about her adventure going to the spires and the subsequent bee attack on top of the spires. Its a good trip because we catch up a lot on stuff from when i was in america.
When i get back its the pepinere training for the villagers of Sintiou Roudji and Syllacounda, and then sheila's birthday. I ride out to tjibedji to bring sheila some food for a nice-ish bday dinner and hang out with her for the day. Her host sister and her talk me into staying for dinner and leaving the next morning early. It was a good dinner with plenty of meat and onions for everyone. Sheila's host mom was in charge of cooking or something so it turned out ok, not as good as if Dalanda(her host sister) had cooked it.
So the next morning, as i said i would, i took off at 530ish to get back to kédougou for my pepinere training. This ride was great as i got to take off in the dark and ride into the sunrise. Very pretty watching the change occur. I got to use the bike light that i bought in america to great effect as well which was very satisfying. My headlamp definitely helped out as well though. The morning time is very interesting time to be biking around as all the creatures are getting up and when you hit villages, all the people are still just stirring. Very nice ride with glowing eyes in the trees lighting up from my bike light. That was probe the best part of the trip. When i got back to Kédougou i told my host family that and they were a little taken aback that i had ridden in that early. It was really fun though and i got to see sheila on her birthday as well as participate in my pepinere trainings.
The pepinere trainings went well and when they were all done and taken care of, i took a little bike trip to visit my friend Meg in Kolda on her Birthday. I took the niokolo transport form kédougou to tamba in the morning and biked down to velingara to stay with another volunteer the day before and then on to megs site. It was a great ride minus the 50odd km of construction side roads i had to ride on before i got to a decent road! Lucky for me once i made it to the nice road, my tire swelled up and started to tear at the seams. I had to patch and re patch it several times before it held air. Evne in the end i ended up limping into Velingara having to stop every couple kilometers to pump up my tire. When i got there i immediately went to the market and bought a new tube! Make it out to Amber's site and crash the night there. Very nice family, Kevin and I stayed here when we biked to Kolda the last time. I take off the next morning and make good time getting to Madina Abdul. I stop in another volunteers site on the way in cause i like visiting people and seeing how they live in comparison.
I about rode past the turn off to Madina Abdul with meg sitting there waiting for me. I guess i kinda zone into the biking sometimes. Madina Abdul is a interesting village. It reminds me of Tougé in that it was very small. Meg's host family is very nice and hospitable as most senegalese people are. I mean they did immediately make fun of me for being a Diallo. They are Balde's which is kinda the joking cousin of the Diallo's. So basically ill call someone i meet with the last name Balde or Bah a thief and a liar as soon as i find out that they are a Balde or Bah. It works in reverse as well. If they find out im a Diallo they'll do the same. Yay african culture!
The next day we go up to the road to try and hitch a ride with a passing minicar type vehicle. Im assured that this never takes very long, but sure enough an hour and a half later were still sitting there. We make the call to bike the 40k into kola and try and flag down anyone that passes us. Oh yea no one passes us going the right direction either. Im happy to do the ride as it complete's my ride, tamba to kolda! Kolda is fun, we are able to kick it with a bunch of folk who are in town. Catholic bar, movies and relaxing are all we do. Kolda is a fun place.
In the end we spend 3 days or so there, and then head out with the Peace Corps car that is taking materials for a well project that meg has working in her village. We also take a bunch of material to another girl from my stage's site. So in the end i get to see 3 more people's site. Always a plus. After dropping meg and her well material off in her village i take off with Pape Djakaby, the Peace Corps all purpose man for the regions of Kolda Tamba and Kédougou, for Velingara and then on to Tamba with public transport. I take a 7place back to Kédougou the next day after staying in Tamba the night.
The next time i was on the road again was going up to Thies for a permaculture training before heading to Kolda for the Ag/Fo Summit. We got to hang out in the evenings in Thies at this great little bar right next to the training center. its called the catholic compound. Well thats what we call it cause its catholic woloof/sarere's that own the place. It was great hanging out with some folk i hadnt see in a while on the roof of this place drinking Gazelle's We also got to watch some of the NCAA tournament there as well because they had a projector.
After the training i took the Peace Corps car that was going back to Dakar to meet up with Meg and take the direct car down to Kolda for the ag/fo summit. The ride was very interesting as it left at like 2 in the morning so as to get to the Gambian border at first light. We definitely got there by first light. We were early, and ill always remember sleeping next to meg on the road by our 7place at the head of a long line of semi's and cars waiting to cross the Gambian border at first light. We were one of the first cars to cross the border and made it to the subsequent ferry crossing as one of the first cars there as well. I remembered the ferry crossing from when kevin and I had crossed there on our bike trip through the gambia. It was nice being able to hop back in a car and get to kolda at a decent time after crossing and not bike for two more days.
Kolda was fun for the ag/fo summit. Lots of cool people there and a great time hanging out after the sessions. We were frequently at the catholic bar in town as well as the riverside bar. My favorite was the riverside bar, it wasn't so much next to a river as a seasonal river that wasn't there but for lots of grass growing. very pretty none the less. The Kolda volunteers know how to put on a good show and i think everyone had a good time in-between and after sessions. I got a shirt called a leppe while there. Its white and basically has the sides cut off it and brings you luck. Its great for here as it has great ventilation!
While there i had a chance to chat with some of the Kolda volunteers about the possibility of a bike ride to Kédougou from Kolda for the 4th of July. We would start off from Kolda and shoot across the south side of the park to Salemata and then on to kédougou. It sounds like a great idea and should be fun if folk keep up their enthusiasm!
After the summit, we all took off back for site and a bunch of us from Tamba and Kgou rented out a 7place to take us. We ended up stopping in a big market town to buy peanut butter for people's family as it was really cheap and worth it. It sounds weird, but they use it in most of the cooking here and would set a family up quite nicely if they had a huge tube of it.
After the ag/fo summit, its kind of a busy time for ag/fo volunteer's as were putting together our tree nurseries or at least trying to organize them. for most of April its more of work related travel with a little waterfall trip sunk in at the end of the month. I do get out to Kevin's village on the 3rd for some seed collection. i had originally planned on going out and coming back in but since no one helped me with the collecting of the seeds it took way longer than i had originally though and had to go on to kevins for the night. It was something else biking with 2 huge saddle bags and 1 big duffle bag stuffed full of sisal plants. I get back to Kédougou the next day which happened to be the 4th of April, the Senegalese independence day. Big parade and carrying on all throughout the day.
We end up playing a basketball game versus the kédougou basketball club around the 4th as well which was really fun. They whooped the shit out of us in the first half and then they didn't score again in the second. We somehow managed to win the game! It was really fun.
The next fun little trip that i go on is with Aaron up to his site to check out a well that is being built for much cheaper then we were quoted by the GADEC guys. Aaron and i caught the Mini car up to saraya for our bikes and then biked out to Aaron's village faraba. We crashed there for the night after riding out in the dark. It was a fun ride, i again got to use my bike light to good effect. We take off for the site thats about 15-20odd km out of Aaron's village. We only got slightly turned around en route but it was a nice ride. The Basari guys were actually working rather diligently and seemed very knowledgeable about the well building process.
It wasn't till the ride out that i had bike problems. We were maybe 15km outside of Saraya when the quick release pin on the back wheel of my bike snapped at the threads. Bizarre but the 2nd time it has happened while here. So Aaron and I end up staying in this village for the next couple hours hopping to flag down a car and catch a ride back into Saraya. Of course that doesn't happen. 2 cars go by, the first of which i just didn't get to the road in time to flag down, and the second of which just ignored me and went 100m up the rd, and picked up some africans really quickly and took off again. French hunters suck in my opinion now.
So in the end i pay a guy in the town to carry me back into Saraya on the back of his Moto with my bike strapped on to his port-a-baggage. Very interesting ride back into town. Very hot and not very smooth. Because the bike is busted Aaron and i go to the police station to try and get help flagging down a car that would be able to take me back to kédougou. I end up hanging out there for a couple hours with the guards. Nice guys who thought that it was really funny that i had a Senegalese name and spoke pulaar. They were cool and ended up getting a big camion truck, like the one i took that flipped over in Guinea, to take me back to kédougou. Luckily for me the road here was a billion times nicer as they had just finished work on it and its for a new trans west african highway or something.
A couple weeks into April the new volunteers came for their demist visit. We got ready for them with a nice dinner of Nacho's and Pizza. I was kinda in charge of the Pizza and Hayes was in charge of the Nacho's. Both turned out really good. We made a bunch of Pizza's, barbecue chx pizza, Buffalo pizza, and the usual meat lovers and plain cheese with veggies. All really good thanks to Zach's blue cheese, barbecue sauce, and hot sauce. Hayes is becoming an expert at making home made nacho's. Making the chips with corn flour and deep frying them. So delicious! Throw on top of that really delicious Guacamole salsa beans and cheese. Youre in for a delicious meal! That and pizza knocked me out that night.
Its always cool to see a new group of volunteers roll into the regional house. I can remember when we did it. Quite a bit different now with the internet and power but its still an interesting experience as the regional house is set up more like a large senegalese compound with huts and large communal shade structures. Not unlike the training center in Thies, but still a little intimidating. We are getting about 6 or 7 new volunteers in the region. A mix of Malinke and Pulaar language groups and Environmental Education and Health sectors of volunteers. It was a good time enjoying the food and newbies.
After the new volunteers head back up to Thies for the rest of their training, i head out to this big waterfall that is 50odd km out to the west of Kédougou. I was planning on making a little trip out there a week after with some friends, but wanted to make sure that there was actually water flowing. I had heard from different people that it runs dry but no one had seen it dry themselves. So i hopped on my bike and took off for Inglee. Miserable ride, head wind the for pretty much all of the way there. Right when the head wind ended, the sun came out in force. Don't get me wrong the sun was there before, i just had a head wind cooling me off so i didn't notice! Crazy how that works sometimes. Anyway make it out to the falls around 11ish. Dry as a bone. Most of the pools that were below it were dry, and really no water was falling. I hike up to the pool directly underneath the main falls and eat a bean sandwich i brought with me. Fill up on water as i drank all of it on the way out and get ready to head out.
I took the north route to the falls via thokoye and decided to come back via the southern route. It was a interesting ride and i got to see the villages to the west of dindefello. It was neat but very very hot. I stopped in every village i came to and refilled on water. It is very pretty out there, very much like dindefello in that these villages are tucked up next to a plateau that leads up to Guinea. So you have great views of these sheer rock faces that basically lead up to Guinea. And again because of how close we were to dindefello, everywhere i stopped for water of breaks and talked to people, they all knew my host dad and greeted him and thought it was hilarious that i was so crazy as to do what i was doing in the heat of the day.
I kinda limp into Dindefello and buy a bunch of water that immediately sweats out. While im sitting catching my breath my deaf host uncle who i haven't seen in a week or so comes up to me to greet me. Again tells me im crazy for biking so much. Well uses hand gestures to tell me that. I buy a couple mango's and go greet his family and then head back to kédougou. I make it back to Kédougou around 3:30ish. So i still have the rest of the day to relax and drink cold water! All in all i ended up biking around 100km just for a dryad up waterfall! But im glad i did that rather than drag meg out there for a big let down.
My trip out to Segou's waterfall with meg and sheila followed this almost immediately. Since Inglee was out of the question, Segou made a nice second best. We bike out there early morning the day after meg got here. We made it out there in decent time and from sego followed another trail another 30min to the trail head that would take us to the waterfall. The hike to the falls was really nice as it followed the stream bed that the falls fed. it reminded me of the demise that Kevin and I went on with Steve Wood. There was even a nice swimming hole along the way which you were able to jump into from a raised stream bank. All very fun.
The falls themselves were a little bit of a let down. Im not a good judge as i now compare everything to the falls i saw in Guinea and to Inglee. Nothing can live up to that really. It was nice though, just no real swimming hole. We spend the afternoon there and make camp next to the falls.
We didn't really notice when we got there but i put a bag of trash down on the ground from our lunch. After an hour or so, it was crawling with ants. Again theyre ants, and they were going after trash that was a ways away from our camp site. We cook dinner, pesto pasta with meat and bread. Again we clean up our dinner quite well but there is still some onion peel and bread crumbs sitting around. just kinda sitting around the camp fire hanging out it starts to get dark. Meg goes to get something from her bag thats over by where the zip lock bag of trash is, and ants are just everywhere. Our sleeping area is a ways away from where the ants were so we don't think too much of it, but Meg gets bitten a little bit from this.
Again we think they will content themselves with going after our trash and as our sleeping area is a ways away from the campfire we'll be fine. Well we got bed and Sheila wakes us up because shes moving her sleeping area as the ants had found her. There were ants everywhere! Completely swarmed everything, our bags, the pot we cooked in, the Deet i brought, and the food bag we had. So this is about midnight when we realize were dealing with a problem that we need to deal with. We think about just moving further down the creek bed, but they found us when we were a ways away from the food, so we decide to dent all our stuff and hike out to the trail head. The de-anting sucked. They were everywhere!
The walk back to the trail head was interesting as well. We could see the small trail we followed in most of the time, but lost it every once and a while. That wasn't the bad part about it though. This area that the waterfall is in is home to chimps. Not monkeys or baboons, chimpanzees. We were walking through their territory at midnight with our lights and i don't think they really liked it. The creek bed sloped up on either side to steep hills and the chimps were up top looking down at us barking. We couldn't see them and didn't want to. we passed through two areas that had chimps before we were back to our bikes and the trail head.
Back at the trail head we thought our adventure was over and we would get a good nights rest all things considered. Well of course a flash thunderstorm comes up on us. This is the dry season so this is a little weird, ant it being the hot dry season, we had no tent. At first you think well its only gunna sprinkle a little bit, no worries. Then it keeps coming and getting a little harder and harder. We rig up a shitty little tent with the sheet that meg brought with her and sat under that trying unsuccessfully to stay dry. It made for the ride back being much more pleasant as it wasn't so hot and the sand on some of the road firmed up. Oh and on the way back my back wheel breaks 3 spokes! lots of things to talk about from this trip! All in all it was a fun trip and definitely a story! Meg took off the next morning with the Nokolo transport and back to Kolda.
After this little adventure and seeing pictures of myself, i felt it was time to loose the locks. A. i looked a little like girl, B. its way to hot to have that much hair on your head! So its back down to the really short for the time being.
Really the only biking for fun/ relaxing vie been doing these days is riding out to dindefello to drop off tree sac's or seeds and then spending the day out there with Hassana. That is great and i really enjoy it. We just sit around and talk about the things we want to accomplish with the pilot farm and what we miss in america or just shoot the shit. A bunch of my host family lives out there so i get to see a bunch of really nice folk that i don't get to see very often as well. As it turns out my deaf uncle is moving back to Dindefello as he is not happy in Kédougou. I mean he is from dindefello so he is really just going home.
I was out in kafori visiting Kevin 3 days ago now as he had asked me to bring him out some money and metal wire. It was a nice trip out there. Again got cooked on the way out there. the ride out to dindefello the day before was the complete opposite to this one. It was overcast and even sprinkled a little bit on the away to dindefello, this day it was not much wind, humid, and stinking hot! I was hurting when i rolled into Kafori. We just kinda kicked it for the day, hung out with some of the teachers at the school after lunch. Really cool guys, most of them are from the casamance and love it there. They really like kevin and i as we hang out with them and did a school garden for them. While we were talking to them, i told them i was thinking about visiting there and they all jumped to give me contacts of their families there for me to stay with. Senegal sometimes is really really hospitable. I think as you get further south it gets more and more like that.
Once i got back to Kédougou thomas had downloaded the new terry gillingham move, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Heath ledgers last movie. He died half way through the filming so they had to use johnny depp, jude law, and Colin farrell to stand in for the rest of the movie. Without a doubt one of the weirdest movies ive ever seen. interesting with the 4 actors playing heath ledgers part but really really weird.
