Tuesday, January 18, 2011

ADVENTURE!

Sitting atop a gravel pile in Dakar.


Christmas brunch at Dakar regional house
2010 ended nicely, with Ian coming to visit for two weeks, after a week of frustrating delays stateside. He finally made it in to Dakar early on Christmas morning, and we spent the day with a bunch of volunteers in Dakar.

Dangling heart talisman for good luck
The next day we headed off on Ian's first grueling sept-places journey, and made it down to Kolda by the evening.
Ian beats peanuts off the plants
We spent a day with the Kolda folks at the house, and then headed out to the village, where my family promptly gave Ian a new name, Usman Diamanka, and put him to work in the peanut fields.

Ian and our little stalker
He quickly learned to say 'jam tan' ten times fast, appreciate a cold bucket bath, and constantly make or be the brunt of Pulaar-style jokes.

The women get Ian all dolled up.
I probably exhausted Ian unnecessarily, but we went around and greeted every single household.  Ian made friends in particular with Aliu  our household, and another little fellow who followed us around Sare Bidji.

Then we allowed the village to throw us a wedding.  More accurately, we threw ourselves a Pulaar style wedding at the demand of the village. It was pretty strange, but kind of fun, and made for some awesome photos!  The village was so delighted, too, as you can imagine.

Ian dancing in wedding garb the first night






Ian's holding the all-important bindle.
So many old women dancing!
 I was less than delighted that I didn't get the usual assorted remnants of fabric as gifts, however.  I guess they thought a toubab doesn't need gifts...


Finally the next day, after the bride had to do chores all morning, we got to put on normal clothes and enjoy the party.

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We did some more visiting the next few days, out in Sare Gagna and in Sare Bidji, then headed back towards Dakar.  We stopped in Diaobe, a small town with a huge weekly market.  Then we took an incredible long overnight bus up to Kaolack, and from there went out to Jinack Island, an island that is 1/2 Gambia and 1/2 Senegal. We only had one night to spend there, but it was beautiful.
Jinack Island  

Boat trip out to Jinack