Settling in

It seems maybe somewhat illogical that it was the act of leaving the city of Dakar for my first weekend here that actually helped me settle in to my new life in Senegal. I think that had I stayed in the city my first weekend, which also happened to be a holiday 3 day weekend, I would have probably been pretty lonely. Instead I set out with two of my co-workers to the region of Sine-Saloum specifically to the little peninsula of Palmarin. I discovered part of the country of Senegal in the 4 hour drive down the coast from Dakar to Palmarin. I saw the dry brown and red colors of the northern parts, the edges of the Sahel, giving away to the lush greens of the Sine-Saloum Delta region. Along the road I saw the people of this country going about their daily lives: cooking, laundry, fetching water, children playing, men and women tending to their fields; all activities that I don’t usually see in the city. There were also many animals: the goats eating happily on trash heaps, herds of skinny cows being moved along by equally skinny boys, as well as many horse drawn carts sharing the road with our car. Being able to see all that is the daily life of Senegal to see the homes, fields, and animals helped me better put into context this country that I am going to live in. I think it helped me settle in because by knowing the life of the people a bit better I hope that it will help me better serve and work with them in my job.

I spent the weekend in a small “campment” (cabin style hotel) a mere 100 meters from a beautiful blue ocean. It was wonderful! After months of feeling like I was in a whirl wind of preparation and general chaos it was a nice time to slow down, reflect and prepare for the coming months of work. There is an “epidemic” of trash it would seem on most of the beaches of Senegal some of it homegrown and some of it washed ashore from other parts of the world. In spite of the trash I enjoyed being near the ocean for two days and also getting to visit the village of Palmarin. When I visited the town it was still half asleep after having spent much of the previous night celebrating the 15 of August holiday (Assumption of the Virgin Mary). The region happens to be one of the only Catholic strong holds of the country. It was interesting to walk through the sandy alleys of the village; seeing children playing soccer and more then once turning a corner and finding ourselves in the middle of someone’s front yard. Later, we stopped for a cold soda at a little shop owned by the town chief who also happened to be a former Olympic wrestler for Senegal and who had satellite TV. That is how I ended up watched the record breaking 100 meter men’s finals in the most unlikely of location and with very unexpected company.

This past week, I have been settling in at work. I spent much of the week meeting with nearly everyone in the office and learning about their position in the office and what they do. It seemed that each one gave me one or many reports to read to learn more about their work. When I wasn’t meeting with someone I was reading the reports which made for some not very exciting days. Thankfully, the days were broken up by lively lunches of local Senegalese food with some of my co-workers. By the end of the week I even had two real tasks to work on that did not involve reading reports!

This weekend I got to finally explore my new city a bit more. I went with a friend to Yoff a neighborhood of Dakar about as far as you can get from my neighborhood. We visited the beach full of pirogue (fishing boats) and we wandered the sandy streets. We ate a great plate of “rice and fish” in what could only be called a dive. It was what I would consider a perfect day! On the bus ride there and back I got to see several other neighborhoods and activities of life in Dakar which will again hopefully help me better understand my work here and my co-workers too, as many of them live in these neighborhoods further from the center of the city.

Pictures of the beautiful ocean, the colorful pirogues, and the interesting people I have seen both in Palmarin and Yoff can be found on my picture website (link to the right).