In the past several days, I have had two interesting experiences with public transportation in Senegal. To that end, I give you the following anecdotes.
Saturday was my last full day in Thies at the Peace Corps Training Center. It was a day of laundry, packing and last minute errands. One such errand, which proved to be quite an adventure for me and 5 fellow PCVs was the procuring of trunks necessary for transporting and storage of our belongings from the training center to our regional capitals and finally on to our host villages. There were 6 of us that went on this particular errand, as we were told that if you bought trunks in groups, you would be more likely to get a better price. Anne, Emily B., Hilary, Jim, Emily M. and I did our best to get as good a deal as possible on our trunks. Forunately for us, Anne and Emily B. speak French. Unfortunately, we still didn't wind up getting such a good price on our trunks. We paid 16,500 CFA ($33) for each one.
(Sidebar: once I get a better handle on Pulaar, I'm seriously going to work on my French language skills. I feel a little useless when I go out with people an can provide zero help in any given situation since I speak NONE of the language)
Now that we had our trunks, all 7 of them since we also picked up an extra for another PCV, it was time to figure out how to get them back to the training center. Emily B. still had some shopping to do in the market, so we only wound up needing to cram 5 people and 7 trunks into 1 taxi. I don't know how we did it, but we made it happen. We must have looked hysterical climbing out of the car at the training center. It must have looked like one of the clown cars in the circus, more and more people just kept getting out with stuff and no one could figure out where it was all coming from.
Sunday morning, bright and early at 6am, was when we were supposed to leave for Tamba. I was totally ready and raring to go, despite the lack of sleep and early hour. However, the same couldn't be said for our driver, as he was fast asleep in the front seat of the car. It took no less then 4 tries before he would even lift his head up from the fully reclined seat. We finally got on the road at about 7am.
It was then we realized that our cab driver either didn't speak French or didn't deign to speak to us, as he fully ignored anything that we tried saying to him. This included; "can we please stop for breakfast" and "pull over now, I have to go to the bathroom." It was not the most pleasant car trip in my recent memory, but at least we made it to Tamba in about 7 hours.
Supermarket Sweep:
As tomorrow I will be officially installed as a Peace Corps Volunteer in my village, yesterday was spent running around trying to buy everything that one might need to furnish an honest-to-god village hut. The experience we had at our first stop was right out of that old gameshow, "Supermarket Sweep." I was literally just grabbing things and putting them in a big pile on the floor. I'm not even going to give a final total, it would just horrify my mother (sorry mom!). It was A LOT of CFAs ($), that's all I'm going to say.
In case you were wondering what one might need to furnish a hut in the middle of the bush, here are some of the things that I can now call my own; foam mattress, gas tank with stove attachment, lots of buckets, cooking supplies, candles, matches, soap, food (beans, peanut butter, bissap, sugar, honey, pasta) not to mention numerous other miscellaneous items. Worse case scenario and I get there and find out I forgot something, it's only about an hour bike ride back into Tamba (maybe even less once I get really fit and good at biking).
Wish me luck as I'm dropped off, unceremoniously, into the wild.
Asalaa maalekum,
Rachel
In case you were wondering what one might need to furnish a hut in the middle of the bush, here are some of the things that I can now call my own; foam mattress, gas tank with stove attachment, lots of buckets, cooking supplies, candles, matches, soap, food (beans, peanut butter, bissap, sugar, honey, pasta) not to mention numerous other miscellaneous items. Worse case scenario and I get there and find out I forgot something, it's only about an hour bike ride back into Tamba (maybe even less once I get really fit and good at biking).
Wish me luck as I'm dropped off, unceremoniously, into the wild.
Asalaa maalekum,
Rachel
Sometimes, you need to leave your preconceptions behind to see a broader reality.
ReplyDeleteJohannesburg, late 2009.
This entry is a mix of things, which is unusual for my writing. Instead of a first hand account, it is a mix of my experiences, coupled with some facts, statistics, and opinions. Each detail helps paints a scene. So sit back, and let me paint you a picture of change.
Firstly: The facts - Wikipedia & CIA world fact book can be today’s sources. They list the following of South Africa.
Unemployment is high, poverty is high, social tensions are high.
In the year 2000, the average white household was earning 6x the income of an average black household and whites make up only 9.2% of the population.
High refugee influx is occurring into South Africa from DRC, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and other African nations and they are empoverished. This has caused further economic and social strain, resulting in growing xenophobia.
Life expectancy of the average adult is only 48 years.
HIV rate is over 18%. In 2005, an estimated 31% of pregnant women were found to be HIV positive. The legacy of this tragedy is 1.2 million orphans and an infection rate that grows year on year, with over 5 million infected to date.
From 1998 to 2000, a UN survey ranked South Africa as the country with the 2nd highest rate of murder per capita in the world. For rapes and assaults, it was ranked 1st. I quote Wikipedia:
“...It is estimated that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read. One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year.South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world. In a related survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling', a term for gang rape, was fun.
Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities. Many emigrants from South Africa also state that crime was a big motivator for them to leave. Crime against the farming community has continued to be a major problem…”
Now I’ll be the first to admit, statistics are open to manipulation. But those are quite some statistics.
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