Last Friday, I went to dinner and a movie - well, movie and a dinner - at Institut Francais in downtown Dakar. The Insitut Francais was founded by Senegal's first president Senghor as a "dynamic fusion that reenforces cultural and linguistic communication between France and Senegal" which for us means a easy place to go on a Friday evening.
The movie - "Midnight in Paris" - ended up being an interesting choice for our situation. It's an American film (with French subtitles) about an American writer - Owen Wilson, oddly enough - who escapes the roughness of daily life by traveling through time to a different era, the "Golden Age" of Paris and interacting with his idols in the artistic community. The movie was utterly escapist, and after being in Dakar for two months, it was almost painful to see the plush beauty of Paris. After the movie, I felt such an extreme sense of disorientation, as my friend said, the film had not entirely ended and we too were occupants of another world that was not quite real.
All around us in the calm, sparklingly lit courtyard of Institut Francais were foreigners who seemed to emerge blinking from the depths of Dakar and congregate together in a grand show of being toubabs. They all seemed to come here within the walled compound to try to ignore where they were, to dine on overpriced salads, drink wine, smoke, and rediscover their suppressed European. It was a fantastical picture, this community of outsiders who find and greet each other in their odd mixture of European and Senegalese clothing, but to me, it was completely unsettling. Senegalese waitstaff bustle through the crowd of French couples waiting for their tables, and I can't help but be overwhelmed by this living realization of continued colonialism, this sense of trying desperately to cling to luxury and familiarity as the talibes and beggars wait right outside the walls.
And it's odd the way we American students are drawn to its leafy security for the same reasons. Even though, as I think about it, I have friends studying in Paris who find that atmosphere - the atmosphere that is recreated at Insitut Francais - in Dakar foreign and utterly unknown. Yet for us, the mere connection of being Westerners in an strongly unfamiliar world seems enough. But even here, the closest we get in Dakar to our American home, we are still outsiders. We stand out from our European counterparts with their already established community. We are not welcome as part of this group; we are still visitors that are in some ways closer to the Senegalese community than the French. I sometimes forget the fact that I am not black when I am with my host family, but with the Europeans in Insitut Francais, I never forget that I am from the United States. At the end of the night, I go back to my Senegalese home, and return to the closest thing I have to a sense of belonging.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Takk ci Senegal
I've been back from Cape Verde for two weeks, so I figured my blog had better return to Dakar as well. :) Sidenote: I apologize to my immediate family to whom I've already relayed the content for this post...it's a good chance to see if anyone outside of you is reading my blog.
This weekend, I was invited to go with my family to the wedding (takk in Wolof) of my host mother's cousin (cousin being, like all Senegalese familial titles, an ambiguous term). The festivities were divided into two parts - the part at the house, and then the part on the street. On Saturday afternoon, I left for the wedding located in Medina with my host mom, my host aunt, and the maid, Diarra. My host uncle and host brother, Papi, arrived later, and the two little kids were dropped off at a cousin's house.
The first part of the marriage located in what looked like someone's home with a courtyard with lots of chairs set up surrounded by open rooms on both sides. And there were women everywhere - the older women were lying on beds or in chairs or on the floor - and there were some children - both boys and girls running around playing or running errands for their family. When we arrived, I followed my host family around greeting the elder women, and then began what was the first of long periods of sitting, a common theme in Senegalese celebrations. We ate our dejeuner in groups around bowls - this was when a few men including my host uncle and brother came - and then were given sodas and bags of water. It was kind of amusing to see everyone drinking their bag of water in their formal, elaborate boubous. Then they laid down fabric and the bride arrived in outfit one, a traditional looking Senegalese gown that was blue and pink with long sleeves and embroidery. Simplicity and elegance are not the goals of the Senegalese bride; this one sported almost neon-colored makeup and feathers in her hair - everything.
Next a group of women - seemingly the female representatives of the bride and groom's family - congregated in a circle around the bride and a lot of yelling and arguing happened. Very little of this I could understand - from a combination of my small Wolof vocabulary combined with my increasingly developed body language reading skills, I soon realized that the family was basically going through a ceremonial argument about bride price. People came over and gave the bride gifts and money, and there was a lot of what seemed like lecturing. My host mom wrote down how much money everyone donated in a notebook, and then another woman with a loudspeaker walked around bullying people into giving even more money. This was, unsurprisingly, a very chaotic period of time. Then we sat for another couple hours while women gossiped and my host mom ran around organizing things and I did what I do best - sitting and watching. I mostly just followed what someone - usually Diarra - motioned for me to do.
I should also mention that during this whole process, random people from the street wandered in and out trying to sell things - handbags, laundry detergent, sponges, etc. And a band just wandered in playing music and expecting donations of money. Typical Senegal.
After a while, we left and went to sit in a large tent that blocked the entire street and listened extremely loud Senegalese music playing (note, if you want a taste of the most popular songs, Youtube Viviane N'dour - "Waaw" is a very popular song at the moment). The chairs were arranged like a traditional church would be, with an aisle in the center and a stage like-area in the front that was later unveiled. I cannot do the decorating justice; it was kind of like a terrible mixture of Valentines Day and Christmas - I have never seen so many flashing twinkle lights. We waited for a really long time for all the women to file in. Then the DJ - somethings really are like the U.S. - told us to all stand, and the bride walked down the aisle accompanied by what seemed to be her attendants. But instead of any sort of ceremony or culminating event, this was simply a queue for guests to standin line to give gifts and take pictures with the bride...really anticlimactic for me since I couldn't understand what everyone was saying in Wolof. During this time passed out what looked like TV dinners to everyone sitting in the street, and that was about the extent of it.
My host mom spent a lot of this time directing people and yelling at the clandestine musicians who kept trying to sneak back into the tent but she occasionally would find me to make sure I was eating - a common theme in my household - and usher me to get pictures of the bride. Note: I'm pretty sure no normal person in Senegal has a camera outside of their phone. Photographers would continually be walking around taking pictures of people and then return a couple hours later with the printed versions to sell to them. Anyway, by 9:00, my host mom found me sitting silently with the maid, proclaimed that I looked tired, which I was, and told my uncle that I should return with him, Papi, and the maid, who looked a bit less thrilled to leave than I was. Although I felt like I was about five years old, I was extremely thankful...the whole thing was exhausting even just to watch.
A few points worth mentioning: this entire event lasted over 7 hours for me...my mom and aunt stayed there for about 10 hours. The bride also had three different dresses during the course of the night. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, also note that the groom never made an appearance, as far as I was able to understand. The real marriage takes place at the mosque, with only men present, so this was mostly a celebration for the women. Thinking about it, Senegalese weddings are the perfect style for the Bridezilla-type...it really is just her day.
As my uncle rather exasperatedly asked afterwards, you've never seen anything like that in the U.S., have you?
This weekend, I was invited to go with my family to the wedding (takk in Wolof) of my host mother's cousin (cousin being, like all Senegalese familial titles, an ambiguous term). The festivities were divided into two parts - the part at the house, and then the part on the street. On Saturday afternoon, I left for the wedding located in Medina with my host mom, my host aunt, and the maid, Diarra. My host uncle and host brother, Papi, arrived later, and the two little kids were dropped off at a cousin's house.
The first part of the marriage located in what looked like someone's home with a courtyard with lots of chairs set up surrounded by open rooms on both sides. And there were women everywhere - the older women were lying on beds or in chairs or on the floor - and there were some children - both boys and girls running around playing or running errands for their family. When we arrived, I followed my host family around greeting the elder women, and then began what was the first of long periods of sitting, a common theme in Senegalese celebrations. We ate our dejeuner in groups around bowls - this was when a few men including my host uncle and brother came - and then were given sodas and bags of water. It was kind of amusing to see everyone drinking their bag of water in their formal, elaborate boubous. Then they laid down fabric and the bride arrived in outfit one, a traditional looking Senegalese gown that was blue and pink with long sleeves and embroidery. Simplicity and elegance are not the goals of the Senegalese bride; this one sported almost neon-colored makeup and feathers in her hair - everything.
Next a group of women - seemingly the female representatives of the bride and groom's family - congregated in a circle around the bride and a lot of yelling and arguing happened. Very little of this I could understand - from a combination of my small Wolof vocabulary combined with my increasingly developed body language reading skills, I soon realized that the family was basically going through a ceremonial argument about bride price. People came over and gave the bride gifts and money, and there was a lot of what seemed like lecturing. My host mom wrote down how much money everyone donated in a notebook, and then another woman with a loudspeaker walked around bullying people into giving even more money. This was, unsurprisingly, a very chaotic period of time. Then we sat for another couple hours while women gossiped and my host mom ran around organizing things and I did what I do best - sitting and watching. I mostly just followed what someone - usually Diarra - motioned for me to do.
I should also mention that during this whole process, random people from the street wandered in and out trying to sell things - handbags, laundry detergent, sponges, etc. And a band just wandered in playing music and expecting donations of money. Typical Senegal.
After a while, we left and went to sit in a large tent that blocked the entire street and listened extremely loud Senegalese music playing (note, if you want a taste of the most popular songs, Youtube Viviane N'dour - "Waaw" is a very popular song at the moment). The chairs were arranged like a traditional church would be, with an aisle in the center and a stage like-area in the front that was later unveiled. I cannot do the decorating justice; it was kind of like a terrible mixture of Valentines Day and Christmas - I have never seen so many flashing twinkle lights. We waited for a really long time for all the women to file in. Then the DJ - somethings really are like the U.S. - told us to all stand, and the bride walked down the aisle accompanied by what seemed to be her attendants. But instead of any sort of ceremony or culminating event, this was simply a queue for guests to standin line to give gifts and take pictures with the bride...really anticlimactic for me since I couldn't understand what everyone was saying in Wolof. During this time passed out what looked like TV dinners to everyone sitting in the street, and that was about the extent of it.
My host mom spent a lot of this time directing people and yelling at the clandestine musicians who kept trying to sneak back into the tent but she occasionally would find me to make sure I was eating - a common theme in my household - and usher me to get pictures of the bride. Note: I'm pretty sure no normal person in Senegal has a camera outside of their phone. Photographers would continually be walking around taking pictures of people and then return a couple hours later with the printed versions to sell to them. Anyway, by 9:00, my host mom found me sitting silently with the maid, proclaimed that I looked tired, which I was, and told my uncle that I should return with him, Papi, and the maid, who looked a bit less thrilled to leave than I was. Although I felt like I was about five years old, I was extremely thankful...the whole thing was exhausting even just to watch.
A few points worth mentioning: this entire event lasted over 7 hours for me...my mom and aunt stayed there for about 10 hours. The bride also had three different dresses during the course of the night. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, also note that the groom never made an appearance, as far as I was able to understand. The real marriage takes place at the mosque, with only men present, so this was mostly a celebration for the women. Thinking about it, Senegalese weddings are the perfect style for the Bridezilla-type...it really is just her day.
As my uncle rather exasperatedly asked afterwards, you've never seen anything like that in the U.S., have you?
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Cape Verde: Cidade Velha
It's already the middle of October, and the end of this trip report is long overdue. Early Friday morning we boarded the ferry for the return trip to Praia which was rocky but not as torturous as the trip there, partially due to the fact we watched Twilight which seemed even more absurd in Portuguese. After arriving in Praia, we took a taxi the twenty minute journey to Cidade Velha, the old colonial capital of Cape Verde.
We stayed in a rather remote hotel in the valley only accessible by walking an extremely rocky, goat-filled road.
After checking into the hotel, we went to explore the old fort that once protected the town from pirates. We weren't sure how to walk there, but with the help of what seemed like the entirety of the town, we climbed the steps (accompanied by more goats and a few pigs) up the mountain and finally arrived at the fort. The views from here were absolutely amazing!
We returned back down to the town, and after another futile search for ice cream and a brief chat with a Peace Corps volunteer, we ate dinner at a little restaurant literally steps from the ocean and watched the sunset on our last night in Cape Verde.
The next morning, we packed up our belongings, did a little shopping in the town center - the bargaining here was much less productive than in Dakar - and then hiked to see the old colonial era convent which was reconstructed using traditional labor only a few years ago.
It was so pretty and quiet here, and we got to see more of my favorite bird, the kingfisher.
Late in the afternoon, we left to go back to the airport. Unfortunately - if not surprisingly - we quickly learned that our flight was yet again cancelled and we couldn't go out until the next morning. After a few minutes of contemplating the seemingly overwhelming task of finding someplace to stay in the the relatively unfamiliar city of Praia, the airline offered to put us in a hotel back in Cidade Velha. It seemed like absolutely luxury - a hotel room with air conditioning, television, a pool, and free dinner and breakfast. What started as a frustrating delay turned into another mini-vacation before returning to Dakar.
We stayed in a rather remote hotel in the valley only accessible by walking an extremely rocky, goat-filled road.
After checking into the hotel, we went to explore the old fort that once protected the town from pirates. We weren't sure how to walk there, but with the help of what seemed like the entirety of the town, we climbed the steps (accompanied by more goats and a few pigs) up the mountain and finally arrived at the fort. The views from here were absolutely amazing!
We returned back down to the town, and after another futile search for ice cream and a brief chat with a Peace Corps volunteer, we ate dinner at a little restaurant literally steps from the ocean and watched the sunset on our last night in Cape Verde.
The next morning, we packed up our belongings, did a little shopping in the town center - the bargaining here was much less productive than in Dakar - and then hiked to see the old colonial era convent which was reconstructed using traditional labor only a few years ago.
It was so pretty and quiet here, and we got to see more of my favorite bird, the kingfisher.
Late in the afternoon, we left to go back to the airport. Unfortunately - if not surprisingly - we quickly learned that our flight was yet again cancelled and we couldn't go out until the next morning. After a few minutes of contemplating the seemingly overwhelming task of finding someplace to stay in the the relatively unfamiliar city of Praia, the airline offered to put us in a hotel back in Cidade Velha. It seemed like absolutely luxury - a hotel room with air conditioning, television, a pool, and free dinner and breakfast. What started as a frustrating delay turned into another mini-vacation before returning to Dakar.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Cape Verde: Fogo!
I loved all three places that we visited in Cape Verde, but Fogo was probably the most interesting. Since we only had one day to stay on the island, we hired the German owner of the B&B, Mike, to plan a day-trip for us. He was somewhat of an inspiration to our CIEE Cape Verde study center dream, as he and his wife had settled in Fogo when they saw an advertisement for a B&B for sale, and after a brief trip, had moved here knowing no Portuguese or Creole. I'm pretty sure that after five minutes, we were all ready to pack up and move to the island as well.
We first traveled by van up the winding roads from the little town of Sao Filipe to the base of the volcano. While we had thought that we wanted to climb the large volcano, we soon realized that we were vastly underprepared for the all day hike. The hike up the little volcano was difficult enough; as it was just an uphill climb on loose, prickly gravel. The volcano is active, and as you reach the top, you can smell the sulfur and feel the heat through openings in the rock.
It is an amazingly beautiful and bizarre looking place; as my friend said, it looked like the lovechild of the Grand Canyon and Mars.
Destroyed by past lava flows, a very small town has popped up in the shadow of the volcano. It was probably my favorite little town we visited. Although it doesn't sounds like a beautiful place to live, the contrast between the barrenness of the volcanic landscape and the little hut-like houses surrounded by trees and flowers was unique and oddly magical. After the madness of Dakar, it was just so tranquil and quiet. We stopped and ate a delicious Cape Verdean lunch here.
After lunch, we did the normal tourist-y wine tasting that was actually comical in our lack of wine knowledge or taste. Then we headed back to Sao Filipe where we explored the quiet streets, searched (in vain) for ice cream, and played another rousing game of Bananagrams. That night we found our way to a restaurant that we thought would have pizza, but instead, we ended up eating the West African equivalent of hamburgers - with a fried egg, of course - and watching a French music video countdown, which was actually quite entertaining. We returned back to the B&B and prepared for the next morning's ferry ride back to Santiago and our last destination, Cidade Velha.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Cape Verde: Arriving in Fogo
So I ended the last post with the beginning of our journey from Praia to the island of Fogo. I should preface the account of our experience by saying that I love traveling on boats - I think it's a generic trait that I inherited from my dad. I also love the occasional three hour break in air conditioning and watching third-rate American comedies dubbed into Portuguese. Yet all of these lovely factors could not make up for the fact that the ferry ride to Fogo was one of the longest four hour periods of my life.
The extra sea sickness bags should have been the first tip off; we were only on our way for a half hour when the first sounds of retching began. I have been pretty impressed with my sturdiness in Africa. Neither Senegalese mystery meat, sour milk dishes, 100 degree heat indexes, or precariously rocking ferries have defeated me (inchallah). But the combination of sounds and smells of people being sick all around me, the sight of the ocean rising and falling outside of my window, and the atrocious Adam Sandler comedy were the closest I've gotten. Oddly enough, the four American girls managed much better than the Cape Verdeans on board, much to the relief of the stoic ferry attendants who spent most of their time handing out extra seasickness bags and cleaning up after their passengers.
Despite the fact that we were extremely grateful to be off the ferry, the arrival into Fogo caused some panic. We arrived around 9pm, a little over an hour after we thought. It was dark when we arrived in the rather industrial looking port, and we were unable to see a road or any sign of life at all. We only saw a chain link fence with a police officer and a large crowd of people congregated close behind it. As the people around us mulled around searching for their bags, we moved closer and clung to our backpacks with a shared panic with what my travel companion termed a gazelle herd mentality. The question of "what have we gotten ourselves into?" - so commonly employed in Dakar - suddenly became relevant in Cape Verde.
You know how when Snow White is fleeing the witch, she runs through the forest and sees monsters all around her? And then she realizes that they are only trees and all the cute little forest animals pop out and comfort her? The Snow White phenomenon seemed to happen a lot to our group who had been trained in Dakarois worst case security scenarios. The mob of swindlers and thieves behind the fence turned out to be relatives waiting for their families to arrive; the reason we couldn't see the road was because there were mountains around us. After we had calmed down and regained our senses, we found a taxi who knew the owner of the B&B we were traveling to and who could speak a little English. Still a bit flustered and unfamiliar with the Cape Verdean currency, as the driver pulled away from our B&B, we realized that we had majorly overpaid. In Cape Verde unlike Dakar you don't barter for taxis, and in our confusion, we hadn't distinguished the difference between 5000 CFA and 5000 escudoes. While Mike, our friendly German host, explained the layout of our rooms and the plan for the next day, I was the first to realize what had happened. We were almost sick at the thought that we had gotten completely ripped off, not in Dakar, but on the little island of Fogo. To console ourselves, we went to the little restaurant nearby to get some dinner and then returned to our lovely, IKEA-like room and went to bed.
The next morning, we had another amazing breakfast - this time with absolutely delicious homemade guava jam - and prepared for our tour of the island with Mike. But before we left, we had a surprise: our taxi driver from the night before who we had roundly abused had returned rather sheepishly because he had realized that through a miscommunication we had given more money than the actual fare and he returned the remainder to us. Our day was already off to a good start!
The extra sea sickness bags should have been the first tip off; we were only on our way for a half hour when the first sounds of retching began. I have been pretty impressed with my sturdiness in Africa. Neither Senegalese mystery meat, sour milk dishes, 100 degree heat indexes, or precariously rocking ferries have defeated me (inchallah). But the combination of sounds and smells of people being sick all around me, the sight of the ocean rising and falling outside of my window, and the atrocious Adam Sandler comedy were the closest I've gotten. Oddly enough, the four American girls managed much better than the Cape Verdeans on board, much to the relief of the stoic ferry attendants who spent most of their time handing out extra seasickness bags and cleaning up after their passengers.
Despite the fact that we were extremely grateful to be off the ferry, the arrival into Fogo caused some panic. We arrived around 9pm, a little over an hour after we thought. It was dark when we arrived in the rather industrial looking port, and we were unable to see a road or any sign of life at all. We only saw a chain link fence with a police officer and a large crowd of people congregated close behind it. As the people around us mulled around searching for their bags, we moved closer and clung to our backpacks with a shared panic with what my travel companion termed a gazelle herd mentality. The question of "what have we gotten ourselves into?" - so commonly employed in Dakar - suddenly became relevant in Cape Verde.
You know how when Snow White is fleeing the witch, she runs through the forest and sees monsters all around her? And then she realizes that they are only trees and all the cute little forest animals pop out and comfort her? The Snow White phenomenon seemed to happen a lot to our group who had been trained in Dakarois worst case security scenarios. The mob of swindlers and thieves behind the fence turned out to be relatives waiting for their families to arrive; the reason we couldn't see the road was because there were mountains around us. After we had calmed down and regained our senses, we found a taxi who knew the owner of the B&B we were traveling to and who could speak a little English. Still a bit flustered and unfamiliar with the Cape Verdean currency, as the driver pulled away from our B&B, we realized that we had majorly overpaid. In Cape Verde unlike Dakar you don't barter for taxis, and in our confusion, we hadn't distinguished the difference between 5000 CFA and 5000 escudoes. While Mike, our friendly German host, explained the layout of our rooms and the plan for the next day, I was the first to realize what had happened. We were almost sick at the thought that we had gotten completely ripped off, not in Dakar, but on the little island of Fogo. To console ourselves, we went to the little restaurant nearby to get some dinner and then returned to our lovely, IKEA-like room and went to bed.
The next morning, we had another amazing breakfast - this time with absolutely delicious homemade guava jam - and prepared for our tour of the island with Mike. But before we left, we had a surprise: our taxi driver from the night before who we had roundly abused had returned rather sheepishly because he had realized that through a miscommunication we had given more money than the actual fare and he returned the remainder to us. Our day was already off to a good start!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Cape Verde - Beginnings and Tarrafal
I haven't posted on here for a while now, but I've been trying to catch my breath ever since I've returned to Cape Verde. Presentations, papers, tests, and demanding host siblings have all gotten in the way of creating a trip report until now.
First things first, Cape Verde is AMAZING. It is far and away one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and a welcome change from Dakar. Although I've grown attached Dakar, it was lovely to spend a week somewhere much cleaner, greener, and more lowkey than my host city. It is hard to believe that the seemingly lush island was uninhabited until the 1400s (thanks for the history lesson, Grace!) when the island was used for trading of goods - and slaves. The majority of the plants on Cape Verde were actually not native to the area which is even more difficult to believe since the palm, banana and papaya trees seem so natural for the area. Cape Verde is a former Portugeuse colony, so while they are not far apart, Cape Verde and Senegal are wildly different in terms of language, culture, and people.
We arrived on Saturday evening after a surprisingly pleasant trip on Senegal Airlines. After our earlier cancellation fiasco and our experience with the other refined forms of Senegalese owned transportation (car rapide, anyone?), we were shocked at how nice it was while on board. On an hour and a half trip from Dakar to Praia, we received a beverage and sandwich and muffin, something we Americans regarded with a little too much enthusiasm. When we landed in Praia, on the island of Santiago, shortly before dusk, we began having our first bouts of culture shock. It was disorienting and we continually marveled, a bit suspiciously, of what we were and were not experiencing. The customs official was polite and friendly? We didn't need to ward off countless men with luggage carts or phone cards? We couldn't see through the floor of our taxi? It was a bit unsettling, and by the end of the first day, we made a decision to consciously not make any more comparisons between Cape Verde and Dakar.
Language became a problem really quickly. The prepared young adventurers we are, we completely forgot to bring our guidebook or learn any Portuguese or Creole phrases before we arrived. Whoops. So the two hour drive to Tarrafal must have seemed like an eternity to our cab driver as the four American girls in his car could only interact with him through "hola," awkward hand gestures, and uncomfortable laughter. It was an odd ride, mostly though the dark on winding roads, presumably though the mountains along the coast. But our faithful driver pulled through for us, and we arrived in Tarrafal at a small, beachside hotel called the Baia Verde.
We had arranged all of our hotels ahead of time. Our decision making process was basically comprised of internet searches and random guidebook selections. If it was cheap, it was worth consideration. We either have great intuition, or a lot of luck, or both, because all of our hotels turned out to be great. The Baia Verde is comprised of a series of bungalows situated behind a wall on an amazingly gorgeous beach. We really enjoyed our four days here which consisted of relaxing on the nearly empty white sand beach, swimming in the clear, warm waters, and exploring the tiny, quiet fishing town of Tarrafal.
With the help of our friendly, English speaking tourism official Carlos, we managed to visit, via covered pickup truck, a former concentration camp outside of the town. In this camp, political prisoners from Portugal and the Portuguese African colonies were kept for years.
The next day we resolved to climb the mountains to the lighthouse that we could see from the beach. We had been told by Carlos that the hike was about an hour and a half to the top, and after spending a month in Senegal where people think you have lost your mind if you want to walk five minutes, we figured that that would be a total overestimation. It wasn’t. What started as a stroll through tree-covered path along the coast turned into a scramble up loose rocks and thorny paths littered with cow droppings and the occasional giant cow. As we started up the mountain, we noticed a teenage boy following us. Through a mixture of hand signals and Portuguese/French cognates, our new friend Etu (at least we think that was his name) managed to lead us to the top of the mountain losing two shoes in the process.
On Wednesday, after another delicious Cape Verdean breakfast, we caught one of the many sixteen person vans that constitute public transportation in Cape Verde to return to Praia in order to take the ferry to Fogo. Bags piled on our laps, music blaring, we drove nearly three hours through the tiny towns that dotted the coastline to the capital. We found a taxi that took us to the port where we ate lunch and watched a Portuguese soap opera that could rival even its Wolof counterpart in terms of melodrama. When the ferry arrived, we tried to understand the luggage requirements – a more complicated process when you have no idea what is going on and cannot speak the language – and we finally boarded the ferry. We were shocked by how pleasant it was inside, clean and air-conditioned with comfy, airline style seats and flat screen TVs. We were almost sad that our journey was only three hours long.
Well, we were sad. I guess we should have known when the attendants began handing out Dramamine and plastic bags that our trip may not be as pleasant as we anticipated…
First things first, Cape Verde is AMAZING. It is far and away one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and a welcome change from Dakar. Although I've grown attached Dakar, it was lovely to spend a week somewhere much cleaner, greener, and more lowkey than my host city. It is hard to believe that the seemingly lush island was uninhabited until the 1400s (thanks for the history lesson, Grace!) when the island was used for trading of goods - and slaves. The majority of the plants on Cape Verde were actually not native to the area which is even more difficult to believe since the palm, banana and papaya trees seem so natural for the area. Cape Verde is a former Portugeuse colony, so while they are not far apart, Cape Verde and Senegal are wildly different in terms of language, culture, and people.
We arrived on Saturday evening after a surprisingly pleasant trip on Senegal Airlines. After our earlier cancellation fiasco and our experience with the other refined forms of Senegalese owned transportation (car rapide, anyone?), we were shocked at how nice it was while on board. On an hour and a half trip from Dakar to Praia, we received a beverage and sandwich and muffin, something we Americans regarded with a little too much enthusiasm. When we landed in Praia, on the island of Santiago, shortly before dusk, we began having our first bouts of culture shock. It was disorienting and we continually marveled, a bit suspiciously, of what we were and were not experiencing. The customs official was polite and friendly? We didn't need to ward off countless men with luggage carts or phone cards? We couldn't see through the floor of our taxi? It was a bit unsettling, and by the end of the first day, we made a decision to consciously not make any more comparisons between Cape Verde and Dakar.
Language became a problem really quickly. The prepared young adventurers we are, we completely forgot to bring our guidebook or learn any Portuguese or Creole phrases before we arrived. Whoops. So the two hour drive to Tarrafal must have seemed like an eternity to our cab driver as the four American girls in his car could only interact with him through "hola," awkward hand gestures, and uncomfortable laughter. It was an odd ride, mostly though the dark on winding roads, presumably though the mountains along the coast. But our faithful driver pulled through for us, and we arrived in Tarrafal at a small, beachside hotel called the Baia Verde.
We had arranged all of our hotels ahead of time. Our decision making process was basically comprised of internet searches and random guidebook selections. If it was cheap, it was worth consideration. We either have great intuition, or a lot of luck, or both, because all of our hotels turned out to be great. The Baia Verde is comprised of a series of bungalows situated behind a wall on an amazingly gorgeous beach. We really enjoyed our four days here which consisted of relaxing on the nearly empty white sand beach, swimming in the clear, warm waters, and exploring the tiny, quiet fishing town of Tarrafal.
With the help of our friendly, English speaking tourism official Carlos, we managed to visit, via covered pickup truck, a former concentration camp outside of the town. In this camp, political prisoners from Portugal and the Portuguese African colonies were kept for years.
The next day we resolved to climb the mountains to the lighthouse that we could see from the beach. We had been told by Carlos that the hike was about an hour and a half to the top, and after spending a month in Senegal where people think you have lost your mind if you want to walk five minutes, we figured that that would be a total overestimation. It wasn’t. What started as a stroll through tree-covered path along the coast turned into a scramble up loose rocks and thorny paths littered with cow droppings and the occasional giant cow. As we started up the mountain, we noticed a teenage boy following us. Through a mixture of hand signals and Portuguese/French cognates, our new friend Etu (at least we think that was his name) managed to lead us to the top of the mountain losing two shoes in the process.
On Wednesday, after another delicious Cape Verdean breakfast, we caught one of the many sixteen person vans that constitute public transportation in Cape Verde to return to Praia in order to take the ferry to Fogo. Bags piled on our laps, music blaring, we drove nearly three hours through the tiny towns that dotted the coastline to the capital. We found a taxi that took us to the port where we ate lunch and watched a Portuguese soap opera that could rival even its Wolof counterpart in terms of melodrama. When the ferry arrived, we tried to understand the luggage requirements – a more complicated process when you have no idea what is going on and cannot speak the language – and we finally boarded the ferry. We were shocked by how pleasant it was inside, clean and air-conditioned with comfy, airline style seats and flat screen TVs. We were almost sad that our journey was only three hours long.
Well, we were sad. I guess we should have known when the attendants began handing out Dramamine and plastic bags that our trip may not be as pleasant as we anticipated…
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