Day 4, 5, & 6: Sine Saloum

I just got back it didn’t take as long as we thought. It was really fun! The trip there was half the adventure. Getting there was the longest road trip I’ve been on since I’ve been in Africa something like 6hours which actually wasn’t that bad. Thia and Corey have a Suzuki Samurai which is so cute I want to look for one back home. Its small abut has four wheel drive and really tight suspension which I’m sure you would know is good for the car if not for the occupants.

The infrastructure in Senegal is appalling the roads and bridges are in varying levels of disrepair. Some stretches of road are “good” but others the pot holes will literally swallow your car’s entire wheels and there are many broken down cars because of this. At one point in our journey we bailed on the road altogether, in favor of the makeshift dirt tracks that had been created beside the original road . This was one of my favorite parts of our journey. Senegal is in its dry season at the moment which depletes the water sources to the point where large expanses of the lakes and rivers resemble a dry barren wasteland. It just so happened that these off-roading trails made use of these expanses and there was nothing but sand, clay, and dirt for miles to drive on.

When we finally got to Sine Saloum located in the delta region just north of Gambia we arrived at a tiny village on the banks of one of the deltas many rivers. We stowed the car and grabbed our bags and the 10 litter jug of water we brought with us and loaded ourselves onto one of the colorful perogues (wooden canoes) that would transport us to the Island we would be staying on. The Island we stayed at had a small village called Sipo (see-po) where the people had lived for a hundred or more years. Their homes were modest; made of the straw thatch that grows on the island naturally and bricks made from the crushed oyster shells and clay from the river. The women of the village pound millet which is a harvested grain that can be ground up into a power similar to flour and made into heavy cakes that provide the villagers with much needed carbohydrates that sustain them.

When we unloaded our things from the boat it was sunset and one of the men that manned the perogues showed us the path we were to take to our camp on the other side of the Island. He also handed us a bag of freshly killed and plucked which we understood to be our dinner once we arrived at our destination. About half-way to our camp we were met by one of the staff (a villager) who was sent with a donkey cart to pick us up. According to Corey when the young man saw Thia and I he immediately started to ask Corey if one of us were single because he was interested in an American wife. AWKWARD!!!

The men in Senegal are notorious for their polygamy. They often take more than one wife and it is seen as a source of pride to have as many children as possible. They are not supposed to marry again if they are unable to support their wives and children but they do it frequently anyway. Marriage is still seen as a transaction and the women are almost never included in the decision. Most of the men in Senegal never stick around any way. They leave and their wives and or children are often left destitute and have to turn to begging and or prostitution to survive. And when I mean everywhere I mean EVERYWHERE!!! It is one of the major problems in this part of the world. The women have the right to vote but they don’t even own their own bodies. When a man wants sex especially your husband and you say no …then too bad…. It’s absolutely awful.

American women are portrayed as wanting sex more than anything. That is how Hollywood has shown us to the world and the world treats us in kind. Thia on more than one occasion on her way home from work has attracted unwanted pursuers who insist on going home with her, some even trying to force their way in the gate after her. The neighborhood that they live in invests in guards for reasons like these, they tell the men to get out or they’ll throw them out. No matter how many times you politely refuse them they keep insisting, never doubting the truthfulness of the American stereotype. Anyway this young man kept telling Corey that he must leave one of his blonde American women there on the island so that he could marry one. Corey laughed it off and stared a new conversation. When our guide showed us to our cabins however he tried to put me in my own hut a ways away from Thia’s and Corey’s hut even though they had two beds in theirs.


After we declined to be separated he reluctantly took us back to the other hut. (Mr. McCreepenhimer!!!) Throughout our stay the same guy seemed to have nothing better to do than lounge around and watch us and at one point he told me that he loved me (in English) which was weird because he only spoke Walloff and French. I wonder where he learned that?! So I had to tell him politely and firmly that I was not interested and that I had a boyfriend that would be “very mad” that he was hitting on me. I don’t know if he completely understood but I think that I got my point across. Throughout my trip thus far I’ve constantly had marriage proposals, and it’s become an ordeal for Corey to speak up for me (in fluent French) so I’ve decided to start wearing a ring on my finger. This will take care of most of them at least, but not all.

Our hut was a cute straw and oyster shell brick arrangement just like those in the village except it had an addition of a toilet and a shower. These luxuries completely relied on gravity to power the flow of water from a barrel on a raised platform next to the hut. Sine Saloum is part of a nature preserve that consists of 7,000 acres where the mangroves and all of its inhabitants are untouched. It was absolutely beautiful. For the next two days we occupied ourselves with visiting Sipo, kayaking through the mangroves, swimming in the unpolluted but brackish water and going on a nature walk where we saw monkeys, an assortment of birds, and evidence of a warthog family. After two days we packed up and set off back to Dakar again, arriving at the first village just in time to see them welcoming a famous Marabou (a local religious leader), and managing to not get swallowed by the giant car crippling potholes on the way back.