Floating Will Never Be the Same

When I first decided to study abroad in Senegal one of the first attractions I learned about was Lac Rose (the Pink Lake) and this past weekend I was able to finally visit this incredible lake!  Lac Rose retains it’s pink coloring because of an algae called  Dunaliella salina that produces a red pigment and uses sunlight to create more energy.

In order to get to Lac Rose we took a crowded bus from Dakar to Rufisique (about an hour away) and then after being harassed by cab drivers and haggling our way down to a good price we hopped into two unmarked white “cabs” driven by a pair of brothers named Bass and Siri.  Many people had told us to be ready for disappointment as the lake is not always as pink like google images makes it out to be.  Suffice it to say we breathed a huge sigh of relief and astonishment when we pulled up to the lake and it was indeed pink.  The area around the lake is unlike any of the lakes you would find in the United States.  Instead of being surrounded by green trees and shade, it is surrounded by sand (isn’t everything in Senegal) and piles of salt from the lake.  This lack of natural surroundings highlights the rosiness of the lake even more actually.  Siri and Bass dropped us off at our encampment where we quickly settled into our personal 8-person tent, girls’ sleepover style.

Because Lac Rose has such a large salt content it brings a whole new meaning to the idea of floating.  You can only go into the lake for a period of 10-15 minutes and have to rinse right afterwards because the salt burns (luckily our encampment had a pool).  We were even told by one Senegalese person that women are forbidden from collecting salt from the lake like the men because it is bad for child bearing.  Nevertheless we decided to give it a try.   While in the lake we laid back to experience the ease of floating with no effort in a salty lake.  I swear floating will never be the same for me because in Lac Rose I was able to lie back and float, no problem.  About an hour later when I tried to float in the pool I decided it was not as much fun when I actually had to use my muscles.

On Sunday morning we woke early to watch the sunrise over the lake.  Although it was difficult to see the rosy tint of the lake in the early morning, the sunrise was beautiful, especially when accompanied with the men getting their boats ready for their day of salt collecting.  After packing up we called our cab friends Siri and Bass and had them pick us up to find the Keur Moussa Monastery where we could hear monk chanting mixed with Wolof chanting.  Unfortunately, it was far from simple to get to the monastery as all of the roads were blocked for paving (we found this a little ironic in Africa).  After an hour-long tour of the back roads around Keur Moussa we arrived with 10 minutes left in the monastery’s service.  Although we missed the chanting it was still beautiful and the monastery itself was full of stunning African depictions of the life and death of Jesus and even a Baobab tree with all of the Saints.

On our drive back to the bus stop I realized I have officially been in Senegal for two months now.  It is a weird sensation as I began to notice things that were once unfamiliar like the dry landscape juxtaposed with the colorful fabrics of the clothing, women carrying all sorts of things on their heads and backs, and the boutiques on every corner, have become not only normal in my mind but also comforting.  On Sunday I will leave for my week long rural visit in Tambacounda, Senegal where I will spend the week in a rural village host family with a peace corps volunteer and another girl from my program.  I am very excited to see another side of Senegalese life and also see if I can survive in the real African heat as the forecast predicts an average of 110 degrees everyday, wish me and my hydration luck!  

UFCS: Ultimate Fighting Champion Senegal

My entertainment this weekend came in the form of seven friends and I attending a Lutte Match (Wrestling match).  Lutte is by far the most popular sport in Senegal and varies in many ways from what Americans consider wrestling.  In the United States my naïve view of wrestling consists of a cage, large body-builder men, women wearing little clothes, and lots of yelling.  In Senegal Lutte consists of large wrestling men dancing in unison, milk pouring, bags of water and ice cream, very adamant fans adorned in clothes with each wrestlers face, and ending in about a minute of actual wrestling.

            One of the most important aspects of each Lutte match is the pre-wrestling dance ritual where each wrestler and his “posse” do about 10 minutes of a choreographed dance accompanied by a jambé band.  While dancing their posse is pouring liquid on them that ranges from plain water to milk.  The liquids are a blessing from their ancestors for luck in the match.  Each wrestler is also ornamented with Gri-Gri, another form of luck from the Islamic Marabou and come in the form of bracelets, and waist chains.  All of these pre-wrestling rituals are narrated by possibly the coolest sports announcer I have ever seen rocking an all white buubuu and hat.  Overall the rituals take about two hours whereas the actual matches last about a minute each and the goal is to force your opponent to the ground.  We saw about 5 matches, one of which was between two of the largest men I have ever seen in real life, each weighing probably about 300 pounds of muscle.  One of them, Juan, was from Spain and won as the underdog!  The final match featured Ama, the Senegalese favorite and when he won it was pure chaos.  I have never seen so many people move that quickly as each person ran from their seat into the arena dancing and yelling.  One of the boys in the jambé band even took off his pants and began to dance in his SpongeBob underwear, until the Gendarmerie (police) kicked him out of the stadium.

            The Lutte match was not only entertainment but also a remarkable insight into Senegalese culture.  Lutte emphasizes tradition just like everything else I have encountered in Senegal and I basked in the unspoken bond each Senegalese at the match shared based in religion, tradition and ritual.    

Senegalese Stardom

On Friday I fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams that I did not expect to check off in Senegal, but it happened anyway, I WAS IN A MOVIE.  About 25 other students and I decided to be extras in a Senegalese film entitled Des Etoiles (The Stars).  One thing I have to say about the day is that the life of a movie star is not all its cracked up to be, or at least the life of an extra.  I spent more time at the Dakar airport on Friday then I ever planned (12 hours total) and have no desire to be back in two months now.  The first scene we filmed involved us waiting in line to go through customs where instead of “acting” my friends and I discussed our future weekend excursions as the director kept calling “action” and “couper” (cut).  We then had about a 4-hour lunch break, where as movie stars should we got free food. 

The rest of the filming for the day involved my friend Bridget, Brian and I waiting for arrivals outside the airport surrounded by other extras, our goal, which we decided upon, was to look for our “dad.”  Instead we spoke some Wolof with the guys next to us and people-watched all of the travelers actually coming to Dakar and awkwardly finding themselves in the middle of a movie shoot.  By far my favorite part about my day as a movie star was watching a man we donned “Boom Guy.”  This old French man spent all day carrying around a sound boom while smoking a cigarette and awkwardly standing alone.  By the end of the day we decided that he probably didn’t actually even work for the film but instead followed the rules of BYOB and showed up to the set of Des Etoiles with his own Boom. 

For those of you who are wondering the film will be in production for the next 8 months and then whoever would like to join me can grab some popcorn, a French-English dictionary and watch my film debut which will most likely be about a 30 second scene scan, but still I can now say I have been in a movie!

What Happens When "Womens" Take on Cape Verde?

What happens when seven girls decide to take a plane to the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa with only a tentative hotel booking and a lonely planet guide book?  Well hopefully this blog post will be able to somewhat describe the adventures, mishaps, random people we met, and the realization we all came to that plans can change instantly but everything will work out and for most cases it will be better and involve more laughs than you expected.

Instead of going through every adventure we had I am going to pinpoint 15 things we realized in the past week and add some pictures for visual purposes.  If you want more stories feel free to ask!

1.    Cape Verde has the bluest and most beautiful water I have ever seen

2.     No where in Cape Verde can you find sunscreen even though it is supposedly a tourist destination (so if you are inspired to travel there after this blog post, BRING YOUR OWN SUNSCREEN, or become a lobster as some of us did)

3.     Cape Verdeans do not believe in mixed drinks, only shots of Grogue (traditional Cape Verdean sugar cane rum) or Estrela (Cape Verde traditional beer)

one mixed drink we found, with grogue of course

4.     The best way to travel around Cape Verde is in 10 person vans that constantly run yelling at you as they pass “Praia, Praia, Praia” resembling the pelicans from Finding Nemo

When one said van got a flat tire

5.     Don’t lose your club card or you will have to pay $50 and it might involve a fight between the bouncer and a cop that you befriended earlier when he drove you in his cop car to the club

6.     It is necessary to always carry a deck of cards around, especially when in a group of 7-10 people when it takes two hours to receive a meal, also I need to learn the rules of my friend Taylor’s card game “Mao”

7.     Another realization about cards: Tarot cards are a great thing to travel with as my friend Cara brought them and we used them constantly and even told one of our waitress her Tarot reading

8.     Boats in Cape Verde are completely unpredictable but you can always go to the beautiful Mountain town of Assomada instead

view of Assomada from our hotel

9.     If you ever happen to travel to Assomada stay at the hotel Asa Branca and hang out with the greatest hotel manager, Lito, who will make you a wonderful meal of grilled meat, fish, and vegetables while telling you his life story at the same time. You will also have a constant joke from the fact that Lito pronounces women as "womens" every time

10. Sometimes it can be fun to throw a random birthday party for no apparent reason except that you want to buy party supplies and a cake

11. Cachupa (a traditional Cape Verde dish with corn, lentils and potatoes) is DELICIOUS, order it every chance you get

12. Similarly, why do we need to buy dinner when we can just survive off of bags of cookies and cheese crackers, which we did three of our seven nights

13. How do you hike in Assomada without a map?  Just start walking down a mountain and you will discover a small village built into a beautiful mountain landscape as well as a giant Baobab tree surrounded by farm land

14. Live music is harder to find in Cape Verde than you might think, but luckily by the last night we got to enjoy some Cape Verde Jazz

15. And finally, don’t be scared of adventures or spontaneity because having no plans led to one of the best weeks of my life with 6 of the weirdest, most hilarious, craziest, kindest, and best girls I have ever met.