Toubakouta day 1
- Annika Graber
- Feb 19, 2022
- 2 min read
written 14 February, 2022
Today we made our way to Toubakouta, a region about 4 hours south of Dakar, near the border of Gambia. What semblance I had to life back home is all gone. We are truly in rural Senegal, complete with cars stopped every few feet and pushing them to start and loads of horses pulling carts. The trip out of town was so interesting. First, we stopped at a million gas stations to pick up the essentials. You know you are in Africa when an essential for each person is a whole package of water for the week. With the bus truly loaded to the brim, we set off. We passed many, many villages of straw huts.
About 4 hours into the trip we stopped in a village for lunch. The village was called Sonko. It is where the director of WARC, Professor Sene, is from. We ate at his brother’s house (who is the mayor). After lunch we all danced together (participation was not optional).
Then we got back on the bus and headed to the hotel. We are staying at Keur Saloum. It’s so beautiful here. It honestly feels like we are on a luxury vacation instead of a field trip. We each have a straw cabana for a room. There is a pool and dock that goes right up to the river. Everyone here is so friendly. You can barely sit down without someone striking up a conversation with you but it’s great to practice French with the French tourists as well! We had about a 3-hour break which was much needed to swim and explore the property.
For supper, we ate at the hotel. I had the best lamb I’ve ever tasted.
After supper we watched a local dance troupe. They were accompanied by drummers. There was some fire breathing and drumming involved, all so cool!
And of course the night ended with more dancing. There are supposed to be monkeys tomorrow morning near the breakfast place so we are going to try and wake up to see them at 6 am before a full day of learning- tomorrow’s topic is public health.
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