Ecotourism and a real village visit

On Wednesday Kayleigh and I got up bright and early to go on a priogue tour of the delta, with a guide named Felix. It was mostly a relaxing morning tour, looking at mangroves, seeing some birds eating and generally enjoying the scenery. It's nothing mindblowing, but was still really pleasant. And since it is what Shannon does in Foundiougne, we thought it would be a good idea to check out just what the ecotourism is.
When we came back we hit up the post office- I'm not a big fan of the post in Dakar, so I was happy to have an opportunity to go and pick up some stamps in order to send postcards, which I haven't done enough of. From there we did a little bit of shopping- I don't want to give away too much, or else I'll ruin the surprise gifts I've gotten for people! With the day getting hotter and hotter we headed back and had lunch at Shannon's- Yassa Poisson, my favorite (ok, really my favorite with chicken, but i can deal with fish).
For our strenuous afternoon activity we went to a nearby hotel and bought some sodas and sat on some hammocks at their dock. A tough life I tell you. I swam a bit, but it was a strong current and the dock didn't have a good exit point (easy to jump in, not so easy to hoist yourself out). We had a brief blackout at Shannon's, but managed to still squeeze in a few episodes of Gilmore Girls. Like I said, a tough life, I know.
Thursday was our really big day in which Shannon took us to her favorite nearby village, a place that she started to visit in order to help prepare the village for an incoming Peace Corps Volunteer (their first) but has now grown to really like the people there so she visits on her own accord. One of the really cool projects that she has taken up there is helping to translate and type up Sereer (a Senegalese ethnicity) contes, or stories. I think that it is a really important thing to be done, and Shannon is hoping that the stories can get published in french and/or English.
To get to the village we took a sept-place (they're like station wagons, only incredibly crowded and hot), which we had to fight our way into for spots. Transportation is absolutely insane here- it is a truly dog-eat-dog sort of situation. I'm going to hope that my manners come back to me in the US, but here, if you want to get anywhere, you have to be prepared to butt ahead in line. Anyways, we took a car to Djilor and then walked over to the town. It was shaping up to be quite a long walk in the heat, but fortunately people passed by on their charette (a horse drawn 'cart') and picked us up. The thing about a charette is, well, it has really ruined my romantic sense of anything horse-drawn. They are bumpy rides, when you're sitting on a wooden platform, doing your best to hold on.
Eventually we reached the village and went directly to visit the village chief (don't forget to curtsy a bit when you shake an elders hand!). He's very old and so not even Shannon could get everything that he said, you've just got to smile and say thinks like 'jamm rekk' (peace only) and 'alhumdulilah' (thank god). After that we went with some of the village school teachers and they showed us their school. Although not a fantastic school and very overcrowded, there was still posters all over the wall and the teachers seemed like very dedicated men.
Following this we went to a compound where one of the teachers lived and met up with Nene, who agreed to be our teacher and show us how to cook! I was very excited for this- I've been hoping for some time to have this kind of opportunity. AND we got to cook yassa! My very favorite. Our first job was to sift through the rice. They buy it in bags, so you have to go through by hand and get all of the little hard bits out, like litle stones- nobody wants a cracked tooth! After that we set about cutting veggies, which involved putting an onion in your hand and using a just sharp enough knife to cut things up. No fancy tools here!
It was a fun and relaxing (although hot and smoky too) way to spend the late morning, and the fruits of our labor were delicious. I don't know if it is because I helped or what, but I was personally very satisfied and ate quite a lot! And it was wonderful cooking with Nene, she was very sweet and helpful and patient, and I didn't feel like we were getting in her way- although on occasion she'd take a carrot from your hand and cut it five times faster than you ever could! We also got to play with her adorable daughter MameJara!
Following lunch we let it all settle in and then went on a charette ride around the area. Although very hot and not very interesting (low tide, not much water) it was still cool, and the teachers came with us as the guides to tell us some cool stories about the king's burial ground. And of course, there were baoboab trees, just like there are everywhere else. We got a charette ride back into Djilor (the name of the village we went to was Pieth) and proceeded to wait for quite some time for a bus. Eventually one came, and on a bus that you might fit 18 people onto back in the states, we had upwards of 25 (and that's not counting the guys riding on the top). Totally exhausted we went straight back to Shannon's, had some delicious cold bissap juice. Eventually we pulled ourselves together and made garlic bread, green beans and pasta with pesto sauce for dinner. Delicious!
More tomorrow!