La Troiseme Partie

So this vacation story has gone on far to long so I will end it today.

 

Our return back to Senegal was definitely an eventful one. We left the Gambia with a few days left of our vacation so we could see some of the Sine Saloum Delta, which is supposedly one of the most beautiful parts of Senegal. We drove from Tendaba to the Gambia River crossing with no problems except that we drove mostly next to the road because the road itself was so bad, but that’s very standard. However after a very uncomfortably smoky ferry ride, and a surprisingly easy trip across the border, we had to take a very eventful Ndiaga Ndiaye ride. First after much confusion we found a Ndiaga Ndiaye that we thought was going to Joal, the town we were planning on spending the night. However a couple minutes into our journey, as we were handing our money to the appranti , the boy hanging off the back of the bus who collects money, people start asking us where we are going the costs so much money. Apparently the Ndiaga Ndiaye only went about half of the way we were expecting and when people in the bus found out that we were being ripped off so badly they all started yelling and demanding that the appranti give us our money back. Once that was all sorted out and we were on our way, at a surprisingly slow pace I might add, one of the windows of the bus fell off, oops. Then our driver had to keep stopping the bus and unscrew and reattach one of the petals because apparently it was not working properly, hopefully not the break. Then we had to forge a river that had completely flooded the road for about half a mile. Finally we heard an explosion followed by a bump and the sound of a flat tire dragging along the road. Yes on top of it all we had a flat tire. But did that stop us? No. We continued driving. After about an hour we stopped and switched vehicles, however the new bus was about half the size and we still had the same amount of people to squish in. We finally made it to Koalack, where we got a sept-place (seven places), into which we squeezed eight people and arrived in Joal safely.

 

Next to Joal is a peaceful island called Fadiout. We took a nice tour of the island with one of its residents.
 

That night we happened to eat dinner at a restaurant where the Peace Corps were having a summit for all health and environment volunteers in Senegal. We meet some really cool people and I learned a lot about how Peace Corps functions in Senegal and on the ground in general, which was really interesting to compare to my time working at head quarters.

Unfortunately a bunch of us got food poisoning so we were unable to see the rest of the Sine Saloum Delta, which was a huge disappointment.

So that was my vacation, I have a lot more to catch up on but I don't have school for the rest of the week because of a holiday called Tabaski so I will have plenty of time to write.

Ba Beneen Yoon.