Landing in D.C. after another full day of flying was like exhaling after holding my breath for two months. I had no idea how much I missed the familiar smell of D.C. urban decay, and plastic suburbia of my parents city. It was like smelling spring flowers after the dust, pollution, and rotting fish and veggies of developing cities. Though even this I grew to love after several weeks time.
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The Journey Continues
So after the Great Bike Adventure! we decided to take it a bit easy and headed (on a two day sept place journey - because that is obviously the start to taking it easy) to the beach at Cap Skirring. Apparently the cows needed just as much R&R as we did. We sun bathed (with care considering most of us were taking doxycycline for malaria which makes your skin highly sensitive to sun), we went for long walks on the beach, and we stuffed our mouths and bellies with amazing Senegalese seafood.
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Biking - Peace Corps Style
Biking is a primary means of transportation for a lot of Peace Corps volunteers. Cars may come and go, but bikes are the only "reliable" form of transportation, especially for those who live in remote parts of Senegal off the beaten bush path where sept plus' and buses are infrequent. This is why no one particularly found it daunting when it was suggested that 17 Peace Corps members, and myself venture on a 25 km (which turns out to be a lie - it was much farther) bike ride through the bush to camp for a night by a waterfall that even most locals have not trekked to.
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Best Day Ever!
Life in Peace Corps: Senegal is not always easy for the volunteers. Living in a hut, trying to dance around unfamiliar customs of locals, while also dealing with Western bureaucracy of the Peace Corps, while simultaneously learning to use a hole for a bathroom, a bucket for a shower, and function while undernourished because of the lack of nutrition in the village meals is as far away from the night I spent in the Radisson Blu as the moon is (phew end of run on sentence, but I think you get the point)!
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Welcome to Senegal!
After flying from Istanbul - sketchy stopover in Tunisia included, I finally landed in Dakar, Senegal at 1 a.m. I was instantly confused by the lack of queuing observed at the Immigration line, but finally managed to work my way through the mobs of people there. Getting around baggage claim and through Customs was like being a running back in football and dodging opponents left and right! And then I was free.
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