After leaving the Peace Corps bureau in Conakry around 7:00am, I made my way to the gare to catch a taxi bound for Labe. The trip to Labe went pretty smoothly. At one point the accelerator got stuck so the driver just ran a string from the engine, out from under the hood and back in the window so he could operate the accelerator by hand. We drove like that for about an hour and then we stopped outside Kindia to fix it. After that it was smooth sailing to Labe. This was the first time I had travelled to Labe by taxi so I got to see some beautiful countryside I hadn’t seen yet. I got to Labe around 7:00pm, got some food, and then thought about going to bed but it was hard because I was so excited about my trip. I finally managed to fall asleep around midnight, only to wake up around 4:00am so I could leave for the gare around 5:00.

I wanted to be sure to get the first taxi heading to the Senegal border. I got to the gare around 5:30 and there was practically no one there yet. After talking with a few people, I learned that this was probably not the best place to catch a taxi for the border so I got in another taxi and headed for a village outside Labe who had a marche that day and likely some taxis heading to the border. I managed to find one rather quickly and by 8:30 we were on the road. This leg of the trip went pretty smoothly. For some reason, we tied a bunch of large leaves to the roof for about an hour and then took them back off but that was the only weird thing that happened.

We made it to the border right before it closed at 6:00pm and got across with no problems. Then we continued on to Manda, a transit hub in Southern Senegal. We took a shortcut on a non-paved road to get to Manda and while driving on this road we saw A TON of monkeys. They were crossing the road in packs. It was pretty awesome. Also, there are donkeys in Senegal and a lot more people ride bikes because there aren’t as many hills. So, when we got to Manda, we then got on a bus bound for Dakar. I had made some friends in the taxi so we all continued on together. The bus ride wasn’t too bad and we rolled into Dakar around 6:00am on Friday. I had made a friend in the taxi from Labe who was selling gold in Dakar so he showed me around a little bit before I struck off on my own. I even went with him to a few jewelry shops while he was trying to sell his gold. I found a decent hostel to stay at for 5000 CFA or about $10. It was right above a delicious fast food place called Ali Baba’s that made amazing chawarmas. I stayed there for two nights and spent my first two days in Dakar scoping things out so I would be ready when Kelsey arrived on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, I took the bus to the airport to check on the flight. It was delayed of course. Probably because Obama was coming to Dakar that Tuesday! After waiting for basically the entire day, Kelsey’s flight finally arrived around 5:00pm. Just seven hours late. I was very, very, very excited to see her! She got to stay in Senegal for two weeks. We didn’t have anything planned so we mostly just walked around and looked at things. One afternoon we rode a pirogue packed with at least 50 people across a short stretch of ocean to a cool island. Another day we walked to the westernmost point of the African continent. About a week of our time was spent in St. Louis, the first French settlement in West Africa. The beaches near St. Louis were marvelous and one day we walked all the way out to where the Senegal River meets the ocean. We ate a lot of good food and got a chance to hear some live music. We went to the marche too so I could get a “WATI B” shirt and Kelsey could find some fabric to make a bag. We spent the last 3 nights in Dakar and then Kelsey flew out on Sunday afternoon, two weeks after she arrived.

I headed back to downtown Dakar to prepare for my return voyage. I stayed at the same hostel and was up early the next morning to get a taxi toward the Guinean border. I had planned to spend the night in a town called Dioube where there is a large marche and probably lots of taxis heading to Guinea. Unfortunately, the taxi going to Dioube didn’t leave until 12:30pm so I decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go all the way there because it would be dark when I arrived and I didn’t have a place to stay picked out yet. Instead of going all the way to Dioube, I decided to get out early in a larger city called Tambacounda. There is a Peace Corps volunteer house there and I was hoping I could stay there for the night. Unfortunately, due to some recent rule changes, they couldn’t let me stay at the volunteer house. They gave me the address of a cheap and respectable hotel. When I got there though they told me that it wasn’t open because the owners were on vacation. Luckily, there was a super nice guy named Joseph who lived on the property and offered me HIS room for the night. We chatted for a little bit and he told me about the soccer club he runs in Tambacounda called the “JOEstars.” I got some good sleep that night and Joseph was even nice enough to show me to the gare in the morning.

I decided at this point that it wasn’t worth it to go all the way to Dioube because people told me I could get a taxi direct to Telimele in Manda. This turned out to be true. I found the Telimele bound taxi within seconds of my arrival in Manda. It wasn’t full yet so I walked around the busy marche for a while to kill some time. Around 1:00pm, I asked the driver if we had all the passengers yet. He said we did and that we were just waiting on some baggage so we would leave right after the 2:00pm prayer. It turned out that we were waiting for a lot of baggage. And apparently more people. There were 8 seats in the taxi including the driver’s seat. When we finally left Manda around 7:30pm, there were ten adults and eight children in the taxi, plus another guy on the roof. There was even a guy in the trunk. We got to the border after it had closed so we had to sleep there for the night. Apparently this is a pretty common thing to do because there were at least 15 other taxis doing the same thing. The setup was pretty cool. There were food stalls all along the side of the road. You picked one to eat sinner at and then that person let you sleep on the ground in or in front of their stall. I was super tired so I managed to get a little sleep but the next day was the first day of Ramadan so everyone got up around 4:30 to eat before the sun came up. We got moving around 7:00 and had a successful border crossing. After a grueling eighteen hours in the taxi (and outside of it, climbing mountains that it couldn’t go up with all the passengers inside) I eventually made it to Ellen’s site around 1:00am. I spent two nights there and then took a taxi back to Gougoudje. It was quite the trip. Not something I would want to do again but it makes a pretty good story…

Luckily Kelsey took some pictures. There are more on facebook...

Isle de Ngor

Yassa poulet and fried sweet potatoes!

Here in Africa, we drink water out of bags

One of the beautiful pirogues in St. Louis

Sunset at the beach in St. Louis

A bientot!

So, I was back in Gougoudje and my right foot was starting to swell up. There was a small red bump on the top and a large bump on my ankle. Foot infections are very common in Guinea, probably because it is pretty hard to keep your feet nice and clean all the time. You either have to wash them constantly or where close toed shoes all the time which can be a pain. During the rainy season, exposed feet get covered with mud. During the dry season, exposed feet get covered with dust. And there isn’t much in between the mud and the dust. I suspected that the swelling was being caused by an infection of some sort. By this time you may have already heard about this incident because I believe my mom made a post about it on facebook. Anyway, I was also concerned that the lump on my ankle (which seemed to be growing) being caused by something else. I’ll warn you now, if you’re easily grossed out, you may want to skip the next paragraph.

So, during PST we learned about several nasty sounding insects, one of which was the Tumbu Fly. This fly lays its eggs on your clothes while they’re outside drying. Then when the eggs hatch, they burrow under your skin and grow. When they have reached adult size, they emerge from your skin and fly away. Super gross right? Well, I had recently suffered a particularly itchy mosquito bite on my ankle which I had stupidly scratched open. The wound had almost healed but the skin was new and very week. A perfect place for the fly to lay its eggs. I had also just worn socks that weren’t dry yet and had been sitting out all day.

I was concerned enough about the swelling by the time I got back to site that I called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and asked if I could come in for treatment before I left for Senegal. I was very excited to see Kelsey and I didn’t want a foot infection to ruin the trip. I got the ok to come into Conakry and they gave me some powerful antibiotics that took care of the infection which turned out to be the small red bump on the top of my foot. The other bump on my ankle remained a mystery. I still don’t know exactly what it was. But no flies ever came out so it wasn’t the Tumbu Fly! If you don’t believe me that such an awful creature exists, read this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbu_fly

I had left for Conakry on Friday and by Tuesday night my foot was feeling much better so I hopped in a bush taxi early on Wednesday morning to start my trip to Senegal…

The tale of Geoff’s cursed keys...

On June 7^th, 2013 Geoff Delperdang and I climbed into a bush taxi bound for Kindia. We were promptly joined by Caleb upon our arrival and spent the afternoon waiting at the bank to receive large wads of Guinean francs. After eating some dinner and meeting some volunteers who had just finished their service in Morocco, we made our way to Michelle’s house where we had arranged to spend the night. It was a bit of a walk and when we were about halfway there, someone (probably me) commented on how it hadn’t rained all day. Within 2 minutes it was pouring. By the time we got to Michelle’s house we were completely soaked. We were also pretty tired so we changed our wet clothes and went to bed. The next morning we headed back into town for a day of food and internet. We spent a good portion of the afternoon sitting at a restaurant purchasing whatever the people who walked by happened to be selling. We joked about how we were being “patrons” but in reality I don’t think any of us spent over $3.00. After patron day, we ate some pizza for dinner. Then the group split and half of us went dancing with the Moroccan volunteers and the other half spent the night at Chico’s farm near Kindia where they would be attending various PC functions the following day. It was a wonderful weekend in Kindia and I was a bit sad on Sunday morning when I had to leave. I packed up my stuff which was still a bit damp and grabbed a few of Geoff’s items that he had left drying at Michelle’s place. Then I headed out to climb into a bush taxi bound for Telimele.

Geoff came back on Tuesday and because I had left my bike at his site 30km away, I hopped in the taxi with him when he passed by Gougoudje. I was planning on getting to his site, hopping on my bike, and riding back to Gogoudje the same evening. If we got delayed because of taxi breakdowns or some other such thing, I would just spend the night at Geoff’s and go back in the morning. Perfect plan. The only problem was, as soon as we got to Geoff’s, he realized that he had forgotten the key to his house in his shorts, which he had left drying at Michelle’s in Kindia, which I had brought back to Gougoudje but had now left sitting in my hut. Then it started pouring. We sat on his neighbor’s porch contemplating what to do. This is what we came up with:

1.       We spend the night with our site mate Dee

2.       I borrow Dee's bike in the morning (mine was locked in Geoff’s house) and ride to Gougoudje to retrieve the shorts

3.       I bike back to Telimele on Dee’s bike and hand the shorts and keys off to a moto-taxi who delivers them to Geoff

4.       Geoff opens his house, hops on my bike and rides to meet me in Telimele

5.       We then exchange bikes and I ride my bike back to Gougoudje and Geoff rides Dee’s bike back to his site

The next morning, I hopped on Dee’s bike and headed out. The plan was complex but seemed to be working alright. It was a little challenging riding Dee’s small bike but I still made it back to Gougoudje in less than 2 hours. I grabbed the goods, got back on, and rode to Telimele where I ran into one of Dee’s counterparts who agreed to deliver the keys to Dee who would in turn deliver them to Geoff. This is where things started to fall apart, after waiting for a couple hours in Telimele and trying to contact Geoff and Dee numerous times, I found out that Geoff was feeling sick (with potential malaria) and didn’t feel up to riding so Dee was going ride my bike to Telimele and then we would exchange bikes as planned. Ok. No problem right? Well, unfortunately I forgot to inform Dee that I don’t use some of the lower gears on my bike because I couldn’t get the derailleur screws set correctly and the derailleur shifts too far into the spokes if you try to use those gears. Lacking this critical knowledge, Dee attempted to use these gears and the derailleur shifted into the spokes and was pretty much snapped in half. I was certainly not able to repair it so we walked it back to Dee’s and I spent the night at Geoff’s place. The next morning I rode Geoff’s bike to Dee’s, then walked my bike to the taxi gare, tossed it on top of a taxi and headed for Telimele. After arriving in Telimele, I hopped on and rolled most of the way back to Gougoudje. Luckily it’s mostly downhill. When I finally got back to site (on Thursday afternoon), I noticed that my right foot was starting to swell up…