The Middle of the Earth
My life consists of more than baboons, but my experiences with the noisy creatures seem to be some of the most story-worthy. Forgive me if you’re bored of the baboons, I promise I’ll switch to some different subject matter for the next entry.
My village lacks power, running water, and cell phone reception, and is at least 16 hours by car from the capital city – as far as Senegal is concerned it is off the “beaten track.” However, I recently realized that it is relatively accessible.
I heard about a village from a former Peace Corps volunteer with some mature mango trees that fruit a lot because a couple forward-thinking farmers planted them twenty years ago. Many of the villagers in the surrounding area go to this village by bike to buy the inexpensive mangoes and then sell them in their own villages for a profit.
One day in April, I went to this village with a friend of mine who wanted to buy some of the mangoes. After leaving the main road that my village is on, we biked 17 km into the woods on a bike path that you couldn’t drive a car down. We occasionally had to dismount our bikes to traverse steep, dry, riverbeds, that are now undoubtedly filled with water after the rains we’ve had lately.
After an hour and a half of biking in the bush, I found two family compounds, and a total population of sixteen people. Each of the men in the village had a shotgun strapped over his back and a string of cartridges around his waist. While it appeared strange at the time, strange has become the norm for me and I quickly forgot it - until I heard a shot. Moments later one of the man dragged a baboon by the tail to the center of the mango grove where we had been eating freshly fallen mangoes with the other villagers. Not wanting the baboon to go to waste, they skinned it and hung it up to dry to be eaten later.
A couple hours later everyone started shushing as one man ran off. This time I watched him take a knee, take aim, and fire at the second baboon of the day. With more than enough meat for the day, and no means of refrigeration, they gave the second baboon to the dogs for a meal.
While I was initially put off by the seemingly senseless killing, they explained to me that the mango trees are the village’s main source of income, and that if the baboons were left un-hunted, they would eat the only revenue the village had for the entire year. For the two months that the trees are fruiting, they are on 24-hour patrol, with somebody even sleeping in the orchard.
Even though strange has become the norm in my life, my day spent out in this village was surreal. I didn’t feel as if I was at the end of the world, more so somewhere in the middle in a completely forgotten pocket of it. It’s illegal to shoot baboons in Senegal, or even to have an unlicensed firearm, but being in this village I was reminded that sometimes laws simply don’t apply. To be in a truly lawless, and yet peaceful and functioning micro society, was actually a reassuring – even if a violent – experience.
Bumpin' Basketball
Kedougou has a basketball court in town funded by a U.N. project years ago. The court gets almost daily use thanks to a Brazilian missionary who runs a pickup game every evening and who also conducts workshops and lessons.
One of our volunteers played basketball in college and started participating in the pickup games and convinced a few other volunteers to join, so we strapped on our tennis shoes and went down there, even if a little apprehensive to walk onto a court where we didn’t know anyone. The Senegalese guys were not only great basketball players, but also incredibly nice guys. After a few of us had played with them regularly, they suggested the idea of a Peace Corps vs. Senegala full court game. Thinking it would be a fun, casual game, we agreed, and set a date to make sure everyone was in town.
On the date in question we all set out from the regional house bound for the basketball court and found fifty or more people congregated at the court. The court regulars had chosen their most loyal ten to play on the team against us, and each of them had chipped in to pay for a sound system and DJ to blast popular hip-hop music while we played. They had mesh jerseys ready for us – they played in red and we in green. A referee was ready complete with whistle and we played four ten-minute quarters.
The game was entirely light-hearted and jovial, despite the fact that they dominated us. We all shared some cold hibiscus juice at the end and took some great group photos. The crowd that had gathered to watch the game cheered equally for every basket. They rushed onto the court at the end, most of them putting their cell phones in our face, pretending they were microphones, and interviewed us about the game. One even complained to the Brazilian missionary, who had organized the entire game, that the Senegalese national media hadn’t been invited; they’re promised for the rematch.
God Bless America
As a volunteer in Senegal I am constantly striving to better understand the culture and customs here, and to assimilate seamlessly into their traditions. However, sometimes I need to act and feel American to preserve my sanity, and the 4th of July offered me the perfect opportunity.
The Kedougou regional house offers a perfect setting for a 4th of July party, because it’s a mostly outdoor compound, lending itself to the vibe of a typical American barbeque. So we invite every volunteer in Senegal - and any other Americans we run into - to come to Kedougou for a big party every year.
This year we had about eighty people, including ourselves, for a crazy day filled with horseshoes, flip cut, beirut, foosball, a professional sound-system and DJ and even a man-sized piñata. We had tiki torches lining the walkway. We had a large party tent set up for food and another for dancing.
We cut up, marinated, and grilled an entire pig, topped with two large bottles of BBQ sauce that conveniently arrived in a care package days before the party. We made 15 liters of potato salad, 15 liters of coleslaw, and over 20 liters of pasta salad. We baked loaves of bread and cut up veggies to dip in the homemade hummus, baba ganoush (sp?), and a dill yoghurt sauce that we made. We had M&M cookies, peanut butter cookies, brownies, and mango cobbler for dessert.
While we may not have had the spectacular fireworks display so commonly associated with our Independence Day, the party certainly felt like our own slice of American apple pie, even if the pie served was made from mangoes.
