The Far West

The traffic coming into town (facing us)
is much worse on Mondays and Fridays.

We are about to leave the continent of Africa, at least for a while.  Senegal is as far west as you can go and still be in Africa.  Dakar, our port of entry, is one of the busiest ports in Africa.  Since it is the only African country which has not had a revolution or similar forced change of power since its independence, much of the shipping which would have gone through other ports closer to certain landlocked countries now goes through Dakar.  Our pier is in the industrial or cargo port, so we see the trucks lined up waiting to be loaded and container ships being loaded.  The cranes are not the same kind we have seen in other ports, but I guess they get the job done.

Rather than stay in a big city with massive traffic congestion we went out to a small village an hour and a half inland.  We passed by Lac Rosa, or Red Lake, on our way.  It did not look particularly red from the distance, but the microorganisms make the water appear red when you are close to it,  The water is several times saltier than the sea.  Salt is "mined" from small boats and piled on the bank for use as table salt and other uses such as road de-icing (not that that is much of a problem in this part of the world.)  During the 3 month rainy season the lake fills its borders.

We had to wait for the truck and the horse.

We drove through larger villages (or smaller towns) on our way to our destination.  The road was paved, but had lots of speed bumps, none of which were marked.  Thankfully our driver seemed to know where they were.  The road is shared by trucks of all sizes, buses, cars, horse or donkey drawn carts, motorcycles, cows, goats and people.  In the market areas stalls and shops line the streets with people wandering across the streets dodging the traffic.  Just about anything you can imagine is sold in these stores.

One of the larger market areas

The village Chief

The village chief greeted us when we got to his village.  "Chief" is an inherited job as is drummer and lion dancer (more later.)  Since a man may have up to 4 wives, he may also have many sons.  The next chief is not necessarily the eldest.  The village chooses the new chief from among his sons.  Thus began our journey through the village.  I could call it a trek, since the ground was several inches of very dry sand.

The village has electricity, but no running water, sanitary system, school or clinic.  The water table is fortunately quite high, so the village shares a 7 meter deep well.  It is covered, but all water is drawn up in a bucket, poured into containers and taken to the homes for drinking and cooking.  Once in a while they pour in some bleach.  

The kitchen

We saw a couple of family "compounds" where an extended family lived.  The first had a cement block family home, but the other buildings were more traditional.  There was an open sided shelter with a rug spread on the cement floor.  That was the dining room.

Exterior of the kitchen, showing typical construction

The family bath

The village laundromat

The interior of another house

This house had 2 sewing machines, but not much else.

The older children were at school and the men were working, either herding cattle or tending fields, so we only saw women and children except for the chief, the drummers and the lion dancer.

Next we were entertained by the women dancing for us to the beat of drums.  One woman would break out of the group and bounce around to the drums.  Then another would join her or replace her. One pulled up her traditional dress to reveal a pink beaded skirt.  I will say that these women, of all ages, sure knew how to move their bodies in ways that were designed to get them husbands.  They invited women from our group to join in the fun.

You may have wondered about the clothing of the women.  They are all Muslim, but do not wear the head scarf we are used to seeing.  Most women wore some kind of head covering, but not all of them.  Bright colors dominated, but some of the younger women or maybe teenagers had more Western looking dresses.  I saw no shorts or pants.

The lion dancer then made his appearance.  The lion dance, or "False lion dance," is a part of all ceremonies such as birth celebrations, weddings and funerals.  The young man in an elaborate lion costume dances, stalks, kicks and prowls around and among the guests.  Sometimes he paws or claws at the sand, raising clouds of dust.  He has exaggerated facial expressions aided by his makeup.

As we drove through the country we saw several baobab trees.  They are distinguished by the trunks which are fat at the bottom.  There are no leaves on these trees this time of year, but the leaves are edible.  They can live several hundred years.

We came back to the boat well before rush hour, but the traffic was heavy already.  People were standing by the median offering goods for sale.  They had water, cashews and a wide variety of household goods.  If anyone seemed even a little bit interested, they would keep pace with the car to try for a sale.  Some of them even walked between the lanes of cars to make sales.  Notice the motor scooters dodging between lanes.