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We were four American women who had never before met, though we’d all shared language and culture lessons by phone before our trip. Patricia, from Washington DC, felt a tenderness to the hurt and disadvantaged that would touch us all. Chhayal, a 30-year-old videojournalist living in downtown DC, was tiny, fast and energetic.
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Maria, a radio journalist from Los Angeles, had eyes that crinkle when she smiles and blonde curly hair she insists on disliking in its natural state—the only state possible for the next nine days.
Celia, another DC resident and a writer of books about strong women, was hungry for the new material this trip offered.
We were ready and eager to “help our sisters in need” when we arrived in Dakar in the middle of the night.
Linda Rivero, the maestra behind Women Travel for Peace, had been in Senegal for a week and was beaming when she met us at the airport, together with Sekou, her friend and assistant who handled all necessary communication and logistics.
In the morning we took the ferry to Gorée Island, two miles off the coast of Dakar.
From here thousands of slaves were sent to the New World from the 17th to the 19th centuries. This period of Gorée’s history is a horrifying story.
Those captured Africans who fell ill before departure were, shockingly, dumped into the shark-infested Atlantic.
Of those who survived internment, many died in shackles en route in vermin-infested ships.
The survivors of the brutal passage lived to be bought and sold as slaves in the Americas.
No one could stand in the Slave Museum on Gorée Island without shudders of fear and revulsion for man’s astounding inhumanity to man.
Men and women who were captives there had helped to build the country in which we live so comfortably, and singly or collectively we had no way to say “Thank you!” or “I’m sorry!”
Men and women who came through there were possibly the ancestors of people we love and honor, but nobody can ever know for certain.
Aside from testifying to an historic atrocity, Gorée is a pleasant island: for the most part the stuccoed French buildings have aged gracefully; baobab and citrus trees, oleanders and bougainvillea flourish. Cars are prohibited, and life for most of the island’s 700-odd inhabitants is leisurely. Cats dart hither and yon; winsome children play a Senegalese version of tag.
As we meandered through the narrow streets, we happened on a gate cracked open through which we saw girls dancing on a stage to radio music.
They were so lovely, we couldn’t resist stepping in quietly to watch them. What a joy! This was our first experience of Senegalese dancing, which is super-fast, high-stepping, arm-thrusting, and hugely energetic.
We all sat there amazed and beaming at the life and vibrancy in front of us.
We caught the last evening ferry back to the mainland, and it was late when we sat down around a big table in our hotel to order dinner.
But we did dine at last, after which we all collapsed in our beds. Between the jet lag, the balmy heat and the day’s activities, we were ready to rest in preparation of Day Two.
In our initial short trip from the airport to the hotel, we’d been introduced to the anomaly of Senegalese roads: a solid strip would suddenly give way to a section the rainy season had turned into a series of hills and dips that tossed us about the car like popcorn. With a certain amount of resignation, then, or perhaps frontier spirit, we piled into two taxis in the early morning to get to our plane for Ziguinchor.
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While awaiting the plane, we had the leisure to look at some of the Senegalese traveling in grand attire. One man, over six feet and hefty, had a long, light blue robe and wore an intricately woven head covering. He looked like a king. Two women sat chatting in tunics of brilliant yellow, brown, and green—brown, in Senegal, is not an understated color—with matching head scarves wrapped and tied imaginatively. We were to discover that women’s boubous (flowing garments) and (head scarves) are one of the artistic glories of Senegal.
We flew a prop plane to Ziguinchor, and when we emerged from the airport trailing our luggage, we were engulfed by Linda’s extraordinary colleagues who, under Linda’s overall direction, would spend the next six days making our lives work:: Luca and Marc, Linda’s partners, and our superb local guides: Mansour, French- and Diola-speaking, blue-black and about 25, whom I would pronounce the most beautiful man in the world; and Abou, almost as dark, English-, Wolof-, and Mandinka-speaking and one of the sweetest..
When we got to the Guest House, we met Kalilou, our ebullient French-trained chef, who would turn out delicious meals even when the electricity failed and the water cut off, and Silek, our lovely house-girl, who kissed us on both cheeks one at a time every morning and night and whose smile was enchanting.
Unlike the roads, the Guest House had no down side, unless you count the times the power went off or the tap dried up. It was a stucco building, with clean lines and airy spaces. Each of us had a room with private bath, fan, a narrow table, a rack for clothes, and a firm mattress. Mine had eight exquisite antique masks on the wall. The metal door had a small space at the bottom so frogs and lizards could scoot under to keep us company. At breakfast and dinner we would eat in the back garden terrace flanked by coconut palms and under a canopy of passion fruit, with large white/green flowers with deep maroon throats.
After unpacking, we piled into a van. Our goal was lunch at a nearby restaurant where, it turned out, the power was off, so the fans didn’t work, and the outside toilets had doors that didn’t shut. But for the first time we ate in the way we’d expected, each with a big spoon, serving ourselves from a large communal platter placed on the table between us. It was the national dish called cebb u jën-a wonderful, filling meal of fish with a base of rice-and a small crock of wicked tapenade that Maria was prepared to eat until her eyes watered. The adventure was in high gear, and every day the adventure included the afternoon and evening meals.
After a nap and a wander down the road to look out at the Casamance River and check out the hotels where the posh tourists stayed, we had our first delicious Kalilou dinner of shrimps, carrots, and French fries. So fortified, we resolved to go to a soccer game we were told started at 9. Mansour’s team was playing, and we expected to root for them. But by the time we got ourselves together, we were told not to rush because it didn’t start, after all, until 10—a wobble in the concept of time that we would discover to be typical of Senegal.
So in due time we climbed back into the van and got ourselves into the midst of a huge, enthusiastic crowd. When we looked up and behind us, we discovered that ours were the only white faces in the stadium. This too was a bonding experience for women accustomed to being on the other side of the equation. It turned out that Mansour’s team didn’t play until 1 AM—a time dictated by the climate—but we picked a side anyway and rooted loudly for them until halftime, when we decided that was enough.
This morning we took apirogue in the late morning for an exploratory tour of the Casamance River. The pirogues are brightly decorated traditional boats much like canoes but pointed on both ends and a good deal larger, with planks for seating, a motor on the back end, and operated by a burly merchant seaman.
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The trip on the water was glorious for all manner of sea birds, large and small, flocking the trees along the riverside, as well as cormorants, egrets, and storks. A bird sanctuary rested on a marsh-like island in the middle of the river, and we could see birds sitting on their nests and even feeding their young. The watery reflections of the paletuvier bushes and oysters that clung to their stems made a double image of branch, leaf and stem that would seem to embody tranquility, along with an occasional flash of a white wing and a high, long cry.
For a late lunch we hiked at least a mile and a half under a brutal sun, but our trek was lightened at the end by our discovery of a baby goat the size of a small dog cavorting in the tall grass. After lunch we stopped at a small building housing a museum with large, carved wooden figures illustrating scenes from the folklore of the Diola, the prominent ethnic group of Casamance. Our two guides, Mansour and Abou, took turns translating—undaunted by the bawdiness of some of the stories.
That evening, back in the Guest House, one of the highlights of the trip literally erupted in the garden after one of Kalilou’s first-rate dinners. A A crescendo of rumbling drums and shrieking whistles announced that a show was on the way. Suddenly from the side of the house burst a string of musicians prancing and wheeling, calling and shouting, spinning with more energy than it seemed could be contained in one place.
Senegalese music has a heavy rhythmic beat, which is produced by various percussive instruments and their feet as well. These guys were having what felt like a glorious time, and so were we. For we were clapping and shouting in return, when a troupe of five women and two girls leaped onto what had become the stage and began the nimblest dancing I’d ever seen: arms flailing, legs popping, heads snapping. Maria said quietly, “If I weren’t seeing this with my own eyes, I’d have thought it was on fast forward!”
All the women were lean and fit, and for a moment I thought they were going to levitate. The two young girls, who turned out to be sisters, were keeping up with the grown-ups, and in not so long a time, we were up there dancing with them. All the men who’d been our guardians turned out for the show, and all of us were dancing. For a glorious, exhausting hour, every time we seemed to be winding down, somebody would start up again, and we’d all get caught up in the rhythm and the fun.
I could scarcely believe that this fabulous entertainment was all for us.
Waiting is a major activity in Senegal, and visitors would do well to school themselves in patience. This morning we were to have our first glimpse of Marsassoum, the village where we were contributing a well. We learned that the ferry didn’t operate until 10 AM, and we didn’t need to get going until 9. So we met the morning slowly. Our driver, Youssouf, arrived at last, and we climbed into the van with excitement.
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The roads in the Casamance are lined with shops and dwellings made of tin, stucco, bamboo, or straw, and tin roofs are held down with heavy rocks and more often than not, old tires. Roosters cross the road with a proprietary air as though cars did not exist, and so do four-legged creatures of every size imaginable: goats, pigs, dogs, cats, donkeys, and whatever. The land looks parched, though we were there shortly after the rainy season—a fact that helped us understand the key role water plays in village life.
After 45 minutes we came to the ferry, a humble conveyance for beat-up trucks and vans, a handful of pedestrians, and a chicken or two. It took 15 minutes to get to the other shore, and in another 10 minutes we were walking through a big field of waist-high rice and wonderful-smelling mint down a dirt path towards “our” village. Marsassoum has several thousand people, but we were to work in just a small corner of it.
We were of course expected, and eagerly so. Linda was in the lead, and as soon as she burst into the clearing where the well was, she was mobbed—and so, in turn, were we. Faces we shall never forget smiled upon us; hugs we welcomed welcomed us. At some point a song started, and then a dance, and we found ourselves dancing too.
They spoke Mandinka, and the language we had tried to learn was Wolof, which many of the women did not speak, so gestures had to do. More than once I saw Patricia holding a woman’s hands, looking into her eyes, and talking earnestly as though the second woman could understand. And since she was bound to understand the good will of the gesture, perhaps the key message was communicated.
Always the women showed us how they did things: they took pride in being our teachers. The well that was the focus of all our efforts was almost finished, and we were taken to inspect it. It was made of concrete rings, each one about three feet across and two feet deep, one piled firmly upon another. Our immediate job was to get as much water as possible out of the well so the well-digger could shovel out more mud and make it deeper.
The women showed us how to drop a plastic bucket fastened to a rope down into the well and pull up as much water as possible. Several of these women in Marsassoum had cell phones dangling from cords around their necks—our sole reminder in that scene of the world we lived in.
For a break, the women showed us, too, how to separate seedlings and replant them. This gave them a rare opportunity for leisure as we practiced what they taught—and it gave us a rare opportunity to emulate lives our ancestors had lived. It was a humbling experience.
We enjoyed a late lunch at the home of a handsome woman who fed us cebb u jën and perhaps more important, had an outhouse with a door that shut. We then returned to the village for a prearranged gathering of the women.
When they all came together under the cashew nut tree, we immediately noticed their brilliantly colored clothes and the fact that none of the elaborate patterns were the same. We had never seen or even imagined poverty so gaily suited up. And some of the women were stunning. As Maria would put it, the beauty of the women—in their demeanor, in their expressions, and in their attire—floored us. They are luscious looking, even in the fields.
The idea behind this gathering was for these Senegalese women to discuss what they might do to maximize their new well and make their work more profitable and thus their lives better. Like most non-profits, we worked on the principle that the women had to help themselves and know they were doing it.
The meeting required translation through four languages: Mandinka to Wolof (the job of “Tall Ami,” a willowy beauty and the local elementary-school teacher), Wolof to French (by Ami, the wife of Marc, one of Linda’s colleagues), and French to English, by Linda. Despite the time lapse of this process, the women clearly enjoyed the opportunity to discuss group interests together and to take a break from their round-the-clock labor.
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