Adventures in Ouakam

It's Friday evening and the power is out. My little host siblings and I managed to watch a part of a French dubbed Disney Channel show in the short period during which the power was on. Now six of us sit in the darkened living room distracting ourselves from the fact that we will never see if Selena Gomez actually manages to make her brother reappear again by playing with puzzles, or in the case of my teenage host brother and I, on our computers.

This morning, a group of CIEErs living in Sacre Coeur embarked on a trip to Ouakam, a "village" of Dakar where other students lived. For most of us, it was our first time using public transportation without a guide, an endeavor much more confusing and unpredictable than in the U.S. There are a wealth of options for transportation in Dakar, but it's often problematic to find the one that works the best for where you are going and how much time (and patience) you have. It took a few questions and helpful pedestrians, but we eventually found the correct bus and the place to catch it.

Once in Ouakam, we were directed by the assistant on how to get from the station to the statue that overwhelms Ouakam and Dakar as a whole. It had rained during the night and morning, so the "road" was no more than a muddy mess that took us forever to navigate, but we reached it eventually.



The statue is supposed to encourage the African renaissance and be an inspiration to young Africans everywhere. There's really no way to describe how gigantic this statue is. Apparently, it is one of the largest statues in the world. It is immaculately taken care of with landscaping, a boutique, and bathrooms (all of which seem completely unnotable in the United States, but are completely shocking in West Africa). To reach the base of the statue, you go up a seemingly endless route of marble steps. Once you are at the top, there's an amazing view of the city and the ocean - not to mention a great breeze. You can also - for a fee, of course - ascend to the top of the statue itself. We were in awe.


But it's a little unsettling, to say the least, as you stand at the top of this enormous statue that depicts young Africans rising from the ground and look at the underdeveloped city below. It cost an exhorbitant amount of money to create this statue - rumored to be designed by North Koreans - and you wonder if President Wade really thought, "hey, this will solve all our problems! Dakar will be modern and exciting and able to compete with all the other cities of the world!" At the risk of sounding too much of a Harry Potter fanatic, it reminds me more than anything of the fountain in the Ministry of Magic after the Death Eaters, the one where the wizard and witch stand on top of all the enslaved magical creatures. But that may be too far of a stretch.

Anyway, after taking our obligatory photos we met up with a couple of the Ouakam students and followed the highway to the "beach." The one we found was gorgeous, but it's not really meant for swimming or sunbathing. Instead, it's where all the little pirogues leave, and the area is full of fishermen and people exercising. Still, we made our way down the steps past the giant mosque and put our feet in the Atlantic and washed off mud from our trip there.



We decided to walk down the Corniche along the ocean - accompanied by a friendly but worryingly persistant dog friend - to find someplace to get a drink and eventually found our way back to Mermoz where our university is located. It was a lot of walking, but we ended up not needing to figure out the bus situation of the way back. A successful first adventure.