I Am Worth Four Cows: A Week in Salamata

I spent this past week exploring rural Senegal. It was our rural visit week, where each CIEE student is placed with either a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV), and NGO, or a host family in rural parts of Senegal all around the country. I was placed with a PCV named Jason Haack, whose site is about 18km outside of the town of Kolda. Kolda is located in southern Senegal, in the Haute Cassamance. The specific village that we were in is called Salamata, and about 750 people live there.

Liz, one of my friends who also lives in Sacre Coeur 3, was placed with me. We left the neighborhood around 7 am on Sunday to go to the Garage Pompier and grab a sept-place down to Kolda. We were told that it would be no problem to get a sept-place anytime on Sunday and that the trip would only take about 6 hours. Neither of those things were true. When we got to the garage, we were informed that there were no sept-places going to Kolda that day, but we could take a bus. Now, the way public transportation works here in Senegal is that you have to wait for the entire bus to fill up before they will leave. Liz and I knew this could take a while, but we only anticipated waiting a few hours. Instead, we didn't leave the garage until 4:30pm! In order to get to Kolda, you have to go through The Gambia. The ferry in The Gambia stops running at 8pm, and we knew there was no way we were going to get there in time, so we called Jason. He hooked us up with some of his Peace Corps friends in Kaolack, about 3.5 hours outside of Dakar, who let us sleep at the Kaolack regional house. We arrived exhausted and dirty, to find cheeseburgers and American movies.

After a lovely night sleeping on the roof under a mosquito net, we grabbed a sept-place to Kolda and left around 8am. We got into Kolda in the early afternoon and Jason met us at the garage with David, another PCV. We went back to the Kolda regional house, where we spent the night. Liz and I were absolutely filthy from our trip. Since it's so dusty and so hot out, we were covered in dirt and sweat. So, after we met everyone at the Peace Corps house, we took long showers to get rid of all the dirt.

Jason convinced us to stay at the regional house Monday night with promises of fried chicken. Martin, another PCV, is an amazing cook, even if he is really socially awkward, and he made fried chicken and macaroni and cheese for us! We spent the night hanging out with the PCVs, talking about why they joined the Peace Corps and what their experiences had been like so far. I had a long conversation with David about what types of people are happiest in the Peace Corps. Basically, he said that people who come in with no expectations tend to enjoy the Peace Corps the most. If you come in expecting to do a very specific type of project and accomplish very specific goals, you are likely to be let down. Jason seemed to agree. When he reached his site 8 months ago, he met with the village elders to determine what they needed from him. He didn't go in with a preconceived notion of what he would be doing.

The next morning, we woke up early and took a taxi out to the village. Salamata is beautiful. There are woods and palm trees, animals everywhere, and the people are very friendly. Everyone in this area of Senegal speaks the Fulakunda dialect of Pular. Very few of them speak fluent Wolof, and even less speak fluent French. This made communicating very difficult. Luckily, we had Jason, who speaks pretty decent Pular, We pretty much only learned some basic greetings. It's really interesting how different Pular and Wolof are. Wolof is a really harsh language, while Pular is very sing-songy.

The four days we spent in the village were awesome. We met Jason's host family and stayed in his hut in their compound. There was no electricity or running water, but there was a well in the compound so we could take outdoor bucket showers. We got to explore neighboring villages, including Martin's village. We also went to see the women's garden in the village. This was worked on by Danny, the PCV who was in Salamata before Jason. He wrote the grant for it and helped the women set it up so that they could have some form of income and have better nutrition in the village. When we went down, the women asked Jason if he would buy them barbed wire to keep out the monkeys who eat their crops. However, one of the stipulations of the grant for the women's garden was that the women were responsible for its upkeep by saving some of the money they make off selling their crops. Jason did his best to explain this, and asked them to collect money from each woman so that he could go into town and get the barbed wire.

It was exceptionally hot in Salamata. I think it was over 120 degress everyday we were in the village. I don't think I have ever been as hot as I was while in the Kolda region. My daily outdoor bucket shower was fantastic. Also, because it's so hot this time of year, people don't really do much during the afternoon. So, everyday after lunch turned into nap time. Sometimes we would lay down under the mango tree, other times we would sleep in the hut.

On our last day in Salamata, we went on a death march through three or four villages instead of napping. We started off the day by walking to Sare Sarah (Martin's village), which is about 2 km from Salamata. Then we hitch-hiked to another village in search of palm wine. The two guys who collect palm wine in that village weren't in, so we ate lunch and started walking to a village that has electricity and, therefore, cold drinks. Once there, we bought some soda and bouy (baobab fruit juice) and sat in front of some government building to enjoy the cold. When we finished, it was off to yet another village in search of a man named Kobe who was rumored to have palm wine in his possesion.

When we finally arrived at Kobe's house, he was taking a bath. So, we sat in his beautiful garden until he finished. Then, he grabbed his gear for climbing and tapping palm trees, and we walked out into the woods. We sat down in a little grove of trees while Kobe climbed up on of these huge palm trees and tapped some palm wine for us. This was the second time I had tried palm wine. The first was in The Gambia, and I really didn't like it. The smell is really rancid and strong. But, this time I actually really enjoyed it. We sat in a circle taking turns drinking out of a calabash. It was lovely. Once we had finished, we hitch-hiked another ride back to the village.

One of the most interesting things about the village were the gender dynamics. Overall, men and women's lives are very seperate and different. In the village, the men build huts and do maitenance around the village, while the women spend all day cooking and pulling water from the well. The women get up in the morning and start grinding peanuts and corn. They do all the cooking and cleaning. It seems that the men only really work when there is something very specific to do. For example, the one time I saw the men working was when they were building a new hut for Jason's host brother, Ousmane. Interestingly, the village was the first time I saw fathers playing and interacting with their young children.

Overall, I really loved my week in the village. We met amazing people and had a lot of fun. Of course, it was also really interesting to see how so much of Senegal lives. Mostly, I really enjoyed talking with PCVs about their projects and their experiences with the Peace Corps. It was really eye-opening and they each had a story to tell about how they ended up in the Peace Corps and what they thought of the entire process.