The trip this year is different from the previous JC study abroad trips here as for the first time W&J is joining us for the semester. So as a part of their pilot group we, rather than landing in Dakar and the next day driving to Serrekunda, Gambia, we toured around Senegal for four(?) days. This announcement was greeted with some complaining on my part (I like to get where I am moving to unpack then explore not delay the move in). However since day two of exploring I have been incredibly pleased that we were required to tour around.
Senegal was simply amazing. For a bit of background Senegal was colonized by the French. Dakar became the capital of french west africa. The local languages there are Wolof, Jolla/Fula, and French. However for those of us who don't speak French a very large portion of the population also speaks English and I found a large number speaks Spanish too. (However my non-existent French did rapidly improve). My first experience getting off the plane was that Senegal felt like home. Not that "hey this is where I need to be not the Gambia' type way but the smells started out like India (lacking the copious amounts of Human piss and cow crap) until a breeze off the ocean hit me. The sounds are like india with the loud people the hawkers looking for rides in their Taxi and the honking. I think the temperature that night was 70* and not at all humid, it was very nice version of India. (For those who haven't been to New Delhi I apologize but all of my references, or at least alot of them, are based as a comparison off of my life in India)
The first night we went to the Hotel Fauna (email me if you want pictures) which had wifi for us poor american kids who had been wifi starved for 24 hours, and where we met Emily our Assistant Director. After a short meal of Yassa (an amazing onion sauce), rice and in the words of Sophia some "bangin' Chicken" we quickly breifed and went to bed. The next couple of days included a trip to Goree Island, a two night stay at Pink Lake (and Hotel Chez Saliaam which was oh so nice), dune trucking, camel rides then a night at Kaolack and a safari and here we are in the Gambia!
Anyways I was so happy we had to do that experience rather than go straight there. I think it allowed for greater bonding in the group especially between schools. Not saying we were all bitchy xenophobes but we, at first, kind of segregated ourselves off from each other, I think because we just didn't know these other people we were going to live with. Anyways my next posts will be more detail about the activities we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment