My Peace Corps experience: My first Christmas and New Year in Senegal!!

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I just want to take a minute and share something that I realized while I’ve been here. I know most people look at the holiday season and think what a headache, all the things to do before Christmas and then there is the family to deal with. Being here has made me realize what a special time the holidays are, once all the hassle of pre-Christmas is over with and you’re sitting at Christmas dinner with your family it’s really a wonderful time and we need to take a minute and cherish that time because we never know where we will all be for the next holiday season.

So my first Christmas in Senegal was really nice and I got to spend it with some great people. After I left Dakar I headed up to St. Louis to visit my friend Julia. I arrived on the Wed before Christmas and she took the next two days to show me around the city. Everyone talks about how St. Louis has this great European influence, it was the former French capital of West Africa, but unfortunately any of that influence has fallen into disrepair. However, it’s still a nice city that sits right on the beach. We went walking around one of the islands of St. Louis, it’s referred to as The Island and it looks similar to the French quarter in New Orleans but a dirtier. After two days of walking around the city and The Island we were ready for Christmas. On Christmas Eve we spent all day shopping for ingredients for our Christmas day meals, so when dinner time rolled around we really didn’t feel like making anything. Instead we went out to a delicious Moroccan restaurant. We were hoping that they might do something special for Christmas Eve but alas they didn’t. After dinner we roamed around until midnight mass. The funny thing about that was that Senegalese are notorious for being late for everything, but their midnight mass starts at 11pm!! So we stroll in at midnight an hour late and they were half way through the mass!! Oops!! However, it was really nice and I really liked the choir singing carols with African drum beats to them. After midnight mass we decided we had had a long day and headed home for bed. On Christmas morning we got down to some cooking, I made potato pancakes, but I’ll admit, I had to call the expert, my Mom, to get some help (Thanks Mom!), another girl made a frittata, and we had a fruit salad. Everything turned out wonderful and I got quite a lot of praise for the pancakes. After that we just sat around and watched a movie. Around 7pm we started to prepare Christmas dinner. We had shrimp scampi pasta (fresh shrimp!!), pesto pasta, bruscetta, and a cucumber salad, might I point out that everything was made from scratch. We figured out that you don’t need a food processor to make fresh pesto, all you need is a hammer, a plastic bag, and some time to just pound away. Once again everything was great!! I spent another few days in St. Louis where Julia and I decided to treat ourselves with pedicures. My feet have not been completely clean since I got to this country so I figured they needed some well deserved scrubbing. The next day after the pedicures, Julia and I headed to Dakar to ring in the New Year.

In Dakar we met up with our friend Lyzz and her friend who came in from the States, it was nice because we got to do some tourist things. On New Year’s Eve day, we went to Goree Island, this is the island where the slaves from West Africa were housed until they were ready to be shipped to the Americas. Also, this island house different militaries throughout its history because it was the entry way into West Africa. It was controlled by the Dutch, English, Portuguese, and finally the French. Even though there is some terrible history behind the island it really was a beautiful place. We walked around a bit and lucky joined up with a tour group so we could find out a bit more of the history behind the island. They haven’t really figured out how to make tourists spots in Senegal; we had no idea what happened on the island or where anything was, there weren’t any descriptive signs saying “such and such happened here”. For example, our map said there was a castle on the island and we walked around the whole island looking for it but couldn’t find it, it wasn’t until we ran into the tour group that we found out that at the top of the island there was the “castle” but it was actually bunkers that were used by the soldiers that tried to control Senegal.

After visiting the island we all returned to our places and got ready for New Year’s. We joined Lyzz and her friend in their hotel room for a few drinks and then we headed to the main square in Dakar to ring in the New Year. I must say that New Year’s here is a bit lackluster, we got to the square a little before midnight and waited for the countdown. I realized that they don’t really do that here when I looked at my watch and realized that it was 12:03am. So we all said our Happy New Years, hugs all around and then we figured it was a good idea to head out of the square because even if the Senegalese don’t do a countdown for New Year, they do like to shoot off fireworks. Now I was in the Netherlands one New Year’s Eve and they too have the same tradition, however, in Senegal they haven’t really figured out that you’re supposed to shoot the fireworks into the sky and not into the crowds of people on the street. After that it was just going to some bars and clubs, it was fun but nothing out of the unusual. The next day we headed off to the beach for some much needed relaxation. For dinner we took Lyzz’s American friend for the food court in the mall and then we went bowling, OK maybe that was more for us then for him, but it was a lot of fun to feel for just a few hours like you’re back in the States. The next day Julia left to go back and I hung out at our regional house till Tuesday when I took the overnight bus back home.

Normally the bus is supposed to leave Dakar at 10pm and arrive in Kedougou at 10am, however, I didn’t get back to Kedougou till 5pm the next day!!! It took me 18 hours to get home! The bus kept breaking down and they kept trying to fix it and once the other passengers started to get angry they sent another bus to take us the rest of the way. However, the second bus didn’t have enough seats for everyone so the other Peace Corps volunteer and I got the company to take us to a garage (their bus/sept-place depot) and buy us 2 seats in the next sept-place leaving for Kedougou. When we finally made it home I came home to a layer of dust about an inch deep on everything, it’s the dry season so everything is always covered with dust, and a new roommate, a mouse!! I’m still trying to find the mouse to shoo it out of my room and trying to wash everything that’s covered in dust, it’s still a work in prgoress. All in all it was a good trip and a nice break, but it’s also nice to be back in my own bed.

Here is a view of one of the islands, in St. Louis, from the apartment I was staying in.

My friend Julia and I at a Moroccan restaurant on Christmas Eve.

Julia helping me prepare Christmas breakfast. She's grating the potatoes for potato pancakes.

Here are the potato pancakes, delicious!!

Julia and Sarah making Christmas cookies from scratch. Their butter cream frosting was awesome!

Every girl needs a day off, a relaxing pedicure :)

Here is the final product of the pedicure, nice, CLEAN feet (Finally!!)

Leaving the port to go to Goree Island (aka Slave Island). Note that the temperature is 35C that's 95F, HOT!!! Sorry about the pic for all of you on the East coast covered in snow!!