This is a photo of Nouakchott, which was taken from an airplane. Compare with the photo below.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Photo #17
This is a photo of Nouakchott, which was taken from an airplane. Compare with the photo below.
"It's like having the flu or joining the Peace Corps..."
Happy 2009! I'm back in the Kaedi at the moment after quite a bit of traveling during the past three weeks. It was so nice to be on the road again and exploring the continent after more than 3 months either at site or in the regional capital. Living here now feels so different from the three and a half months I spent traveling in South America: I feel so much more tied to these communities because of my work here, whereas before, I was completely free to pick up and move at any moment. This seems obvious now, but I assumed they would feel the same at the beginning.
Shortly after my last blog post, I travelled from Kaedi to Nouakchott where I spent a few nights IN A HOTEL! Although the novelty of this wore off by the time I finished my Christmas vacation, I'm not sure anything can compare to the first time I unlocked my hotel door, checked out the hot water heater, mini-fridge, TV, and real bed! I was able to see the Peace Corps office in Nouakchott for the first time (really nice) and discover the capital before heading south to Rosso. While I was in Rosso, I ran into another volunteer who was heading to Dakar, so we decided to travel together. I'm so glad that she was able to help me cross the border, exchange money, and negotiate the taxi rides, especially for my first time. Plus, it's always nice to have someone to travel with. Our trek to Dakar should have taken about 5 hours, but it ended up taking between 8 and 9 hours to make it to our hotel -- so goes traveling in the developing world!
The next morning, I picked up my mom, dad, and sister at the airport in Dakar! Yay! We headed straight to our resort in Saly, Senegal where we spent four nights. Our resort was absolutely gorgeous! They had an extensive Christmas Eve celebration, and although I know it wasn't a typical Christmas, I'm truly happy that I was able to spend the holiday with my family.
From Saly, we traveled back to Dakar for three more nights in another really nice hotel (thank you, Mom and Dad!). We saw Dakar's natural history museum, presidential palace, and central market, as well as the Ile de Goree, an island of the coast which was used extensively for slave trading. Although the traffic in Dakar is horrendous, it's a pretty city, especially along it's jagged coast. I prefer it to Nouakchott, which is 1ok from the coast (for some unknown reason) and in the middle of the sand dunes.
My family left on New Year's Eve, and I left Dakar that same day for St. Louis where a lot of volunteers were spending the holiday. St. Louis is really cute. The city straddles the main land, an island in the middle of the Senegal river, and a peninsula, which borders the Atlantic. I was able to see some volunteers from different parts of the country who I hadn't seen since we swore in at the end of August. We got our fill of St. Louis's restaurants and bars before heading back to Nouakchott for an in-service training.
I spent the last week in Nouakchott for training. Although I didn't find the sessions very helpful, it was really good to exchange ideas with the other volunteers and plan for the next six months and really fun discovering the city. Half of the country's population lives in Nouakchott, and there's a lot there to discover (read: eat). It's so different from Kaedi and M'Bout. I feel like Nouakchott could eventually leave the rest of the country in the dust; it's developing faster and just feels like two different worlds. I'm not sure if this is really surprising, but it was to me.
On Thursday, my region mates and I bought out a taxi and came back to the Gorgol: home sweet home! It feels nice to be back, speaking Hassaniya again and knowing my way around town and just generally feeling comfortable because I know what's going on. As I was walking back along the dirt road from the market with a bag full of produce this morning, I was thinking about how weird it is that this life is normal to me now. Welcome to 2009.
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