| Hello, my name is Babanne. |
[12 Mar 2006|02:15pm] |
Well, I suppose I have really dropped the ball this time and haven’t posted in over three months. For that I apologize, but the good news is that I’m still healthy and happy here in Mauritania. Quite a bit has gone on since Thanksgiving and there is no way I could go over all of it, so hopefully you’ve gotten updates from email or my parents.
Speaking of them, their big trip to Mauritania was an absolute success. We met up in Paris for Christmas where saw the sites and more importantly had wine, cheese, and ham galore. The Parisians weren’t too terribly offended with my ‘African’ French and the whole weekend was wonderful. I think being in a non-English but still first world country worked well as a brief adjustment period before coming to Africa for Mom and Dad. Once here they met a lot of the other PCVs, the PC staff, and some of my Mauritanian friends. My host family and neighborhood were absolutely amazing and welcoming. The whole time we were in Selibaby people came to welcome, greet them and bestow them with presents. I’m positive that this visit was the best way to convince my once doubting parents that my time here is well spent and I am truly safe. My dad has uploaded photos on http://ksuzannec.smugmug.com under the ‘family’ folder. For more details on the trip all you have to do is mention Africa, Peace Corps, or my name to either of my parents and I’m sure you’ll all you’d like to know.
The other big events away from the day-to-day computer lesson routine in Selibaby was my latest trip to Nouakchott, Dakar, Toubab Diallo, Guinea-Bissau, and then back to Dakar and Nouakchott. We had an all-volunteer meeting in Nouakchott with talks from the Embassy and Peace Corps staffs along with a softball practice, RISK tournament, and Mohawk shaving fest. I shaved no less than six Mohawks and they looked good!! The day after the meeting we climbed into three buses and made the long, long trip down to Dakar for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. WAIST! I played on the Swashbuckler (aka ‘B’ team), which, as expected, did not win the tournament, but our Pirates did! As ever, the weekend was an absolute blast with plenty of softball, Americans, beer, dancing, swimming, and craziness to keep us going for a while.
After the tournament was over Maddie, Jeff, and Brock’s friend Gretchen and her friend Scarlet, headed down to a small town on the beach, Toubab Diallo. We stayed in a beautiful hotel right on the beach and where we were able to relax and read on the beach all day for a few days to recoup from the hectic weekend. Then we packed up our bags again and started the long trip down to Guinea-Bissau. Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony directly south of Senegal, and will from now on be my mental image of paradise. The country has an amazing welcoming culture, beautiful terrain full of trees, wildlife, and lush green fields, and is the real Africa you imagine I’m living in (complete with grass skirts and topless women).
When we arrived Bissau we found ourselves in the middle of the largest festival of the year, Carnival. Women dressed in tiny grass skirts and even smaller tops (or none at all) with their hair was braided in glorious colors and directions; dancing and walking up the main street hold each others and (shock!) mens’ hands. The men were, in true Mardi Gras fashion, dressed up as women or in brilliant homemade (mostly paper maché) costumes and dancing, drinking, and eating as much as the women, if not more so. There were condoms as earrings, hair decorations, patches, necklaces, bracelets, just everywhere (apparently their government emphasizes safe sex). Local cashew rum and wine, palm wine (naturally brewed in the trees), along with Portuguese imported alcohol was flowing up and down the street alongside the freshest seafood and Guinean dishes. We weren’t in Mauritania anymore, Toto. Luckily, we were able to meet up with a woman who had been a PCV in Cape Verde but was now living in Bissau, and got an insiders’ viewpoint of the festival and country as a whole.
After three days in Bissau we boarded a transport canoe and made the six-hour trip to the central island of the Bijagos archipelago. The islands are very remote and have resisted outside influence, and therefore considered a ‘pure’ culture. For the carnival final celebration a local NGO brought in youth groups from most of the islands to compete in a dancing and costume contest. The women were all in grass skirts with beautiful necklaces and nothing else but oil to make their skin shine. The men had huge, elaborate headpieces in the shapes of hippos, cows, crocodiles, and other vivid symbolic forms. The whole town was there to watch and believe me; I took plenty of pictures for my first stereotypical African dancing experience.
Most of our time on the islands was spent trying to organize a trip to the island with hippos, but we instead had to settle for a big baboon down the street from our hotel for wildlife. And now you shall read my new “When I was in the Peace Corps…” story:
Maddie and I were sitting on the front porch of the auberge drinking wine at dusk and saw a man with a big baboon on a chain down the street. So I said to her ' I wonder if that monkey bites...' and she replied 'lets go find out.' so we did and he did. We were trying to ask the owner guy if the baboon was nice or if he scratched and bit people but he only spoke Creole or Portuguese and just handed me the chain. Then the baboon freaked out jumped on my back and bit my arm. It hurt- baboons' jaws are powerful, but just barely broke the skin. I washed it and put some antibiotic cream on it and called the Peace Corps medical office. They made me rush to Dakar to get a rabies shot and drugs and then to Nouakchott for my second booster shot and more drugs.
Genius, huh? I am safe and healthy now, so please don’t worry about my right arm and me. While on the islands we also enjoyed more seafood and wine, and were able to find a vast, breathtaking beach where we were the only people all day long. All in all Guinea-Bissau is by far the most wonderful and awe-inspiring country I have ever visited. Maddie, Brock and I are going to Ghana in a few weeks, so we’ll see how the two compare.
And that concludes my stories on the best vacations I’ve had in years. The countdown is ticking away with only five short months until I will be back in the States. But please don’t stop the emails because you’ll see me soon.
miss and love y’all,
suz
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