Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Travelling Alone (bum bum bum)

Two days before Thanksgiving, I biked down the dirt path out of my village as the sun was rising next to me. I dont know why I havent done this sooner (maybe because its 630am). I had to head into town to store my lifesaving bike, find breakfast, and flag down a car to go to the next big road town before making my big move into Tamba for the holiday.
The entire process went much smoother than expected. Ive been building up this big scary image of the "garage" and the people lurking around the janky cars. It is a miracle that any of the vehicles are functioning. The characteristics of a typical Senegalese car is as follows: multi-cracked windshield, bent or broken bumpers and mirrors, wire-rigged handles, the worst possible emissions test, and lets not get into the general aesthetics.
On the first bus, we crammed more people in than we ever got close to in college (and that says alot). It took an hour to drive to get to the Velingara garage because we stopped ever 5 minutes to pick people up on the side of the Route National. What are bus stops?
During my hour wait to fill a 7 passenger car at the garage, only one man sat and chatted until he was bored of me. By the end of the conversation, I was "married" to a strapping toubob American lad in Keougou, the next region over. I still had to bluntly refuse to give him my phone number after using 5 different get-the-hint lines.
The last sprinkle on top of this trip was the nice bungee cord that secured the broken passenger door.
Summary: It took me 5.5 hours to go 140 Km (googlemaps suggests less than 2) and I will now enjoy the company of my friends :)
I FOUND MY VILLAGE ON GOOGLEMAPS. My hut is located at the yellow star.
Saare Meta
Thanksgiving news to come soon!

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