4th of July

At 5:30am on July 2nd Jackie and I were standing outside of a gas station in Bambey, with our bikes, bags, and wearing birthday hats. Around 6am a sept-place pulled up from Thies with Alyssa and the birthday girl (Tamar). We were off to our way to Kedougou for the annual 4th of July party!

After around 11 hours in the car we finally made it to Kedougou and practically collapsed in the hotel. We managed to get out in time to eat some warthog sandwiches (the first of many during the trip) and met other volunteers at a bar to watch the Ghana v. Uruguay game.

The morning of the 3rd we explored Kedougou a little: it's the capital of the most Southeastern region (it borders Guinea and Mali) and is mostly Pulaar (compared to the mostly Wolof rest of the country). No offense to Kedougou but it is the most underdeveloped region of the country (but the people are way nicer than in Wolof country). The rest of the 3rd was spent watching soccer and hanging out in the pool with other volunteers (not to mention 3 Senegalese prostitutes who were hanging out at the pool while their French guys were working... one of them was wearing shorts that said "I do you you do me").

On the 4th we went to the regional house where everyone was in red, white, and blue; we sang the Star Spangled Banner; and we ate potato salad with 2 roasted pigs. We all joke that we've never loved America more than we do now but the Kedougou volunteers did an AMAZING job of throwing together a great party to celebrate.

We got up early on the 5th of bike to the waterfalls 40km away. After about 4 hours of mountain biking we got to the waterfalls and went for a swim. (In case you were wondering, we were closer to Guinea than we were to Kedougou.) We decided to take a car back but that ended up kind of backfiring. The car got a flat on the way to get us which took a few hours to fix. Finally, we ended up getting in the car around 8 to set off through the rocky, muddy water filled road... and got a flat tire in the middle of a puddle in an area without cell reception. We drove on the rim and almost got stuck in a ditch but ended up making it to the road where the driver's friend met us with a tire. Eventually, 3 and a half hours later we made it back to the hotel. The next morning we were up at 5am and back in the car to get back to site.

Today I just hung out and recovered for a little bought of dehydration. I also read a Time magazine while my host sisters read a J-14 Rachel P. had sent me. At one point Ndiaye pointed to a picture and asked if it was a movie ad. I said, "no he's a singer," and her response was, "I know who Justin Beiber is, I just didn't know if he was in a movie too."

KO