Paved roads, electricity, clean running water, trash pickup- these are a few of my favorite things! (and healthcare, schools, housing, safety)

Bonjour! Ca va? Nanga def?
It's been a couple weeks since my last entry because I was on break from Wednesday the 1st to Sunday the 12th, and it was great! It started with Korite, which I did write about, and then some wandering around, and then the real "vacation" began on Friday morning at 4:30am when the five of us (Sarah, Tiffany, Amanda, Hannah, and myself) met at the Guare Routierre de Pompiers to negotiate the price for a sept-place to get to Tambacounda. It took about an hour of negotiating and waiting around and we were slightly overcharged, but off we went in our sept-place (a 30 year old station wagon) for a ten hour journey.
But before I go on, let me be tangential...
1) On Saturday (this past weekend) Senegal and the Gambia played an important soccer game in Dakar. It ended 1-1 so neither team has a chance at going on in the world cup (Algeria is going on). As a result, there were riots with tear gas and burning vehicles, and stone throwing. Senegal's soccer team has had 8 coaches since 2000, so there's frustration about how bad the team is, but that's not the only reason why the riots happened.
Last week while I was frollicking around the country on vacation, Dakar didn't have power for three whole days- power outages have been getting worse and prices for energy have gone up for households, all because the government has not been paying it's end for the energy. (This by the way is the same reason why trash doesn't get picked up-the government stopped making payments to the company involved.) After nearly three years of blackouts, there were riots about this last week too.
( Don't worry, I'm completely safe here- probably safer here than at home)
On the news here there are always a lot of stories about various conferences going on- to fight FGM/excision with girls, other health issues, agriculture, education, the environment, religion, etc. I was talking about this with my host dad and he was saying yea there are too many conferences! At some point you need to work! The Senegalese cannot be faulted for not trying to solve the problems facing their country, that's for sure. There are a lot of people who recognize what the problems are, talk about solutions, want to implement solutions, but don't have the means to do so.
A big part of the problem to me, from my small view of things, is not that there aren't enough "development" efforts going on or that people don't understand what's happening to them (that would mean lack of agency), but the problem has a lot to do with politics. The politics of money and the centralization of power and resources and how resources are distributed. You could call it corruption, but I don't like the connotations of that word. The legacy of how the French ran things, and the first president's (Leopold Senghor) close relationship with France ("I speak French better than I speak the language of my people" to paraphrase) and his legacy have something to do with it. There are many factors. In any case, politics and money.
On vacation this week we were in the far southeastern corner of Senegal. Tambacounda, which is really closer to the middle of the country, was the last place with a bank. Kedougou, where we spent most of our time, only has Western Union-where money can be wired out and in. There were about a million development groups in Kedougou, even the Peace Corps has their regional house there, but there aren't any banks for people to save their money safely, take out loans, access credit, facilitate opening new businesses, or access more tourist money through being able to take credit cards, etc. 10 miles outside Kedougou there wasn't any running water or electricity -however there were solar panels at our campement and there were cell phone towers 40 KM outside the city when we visited the waterfall at Dindefelo.
Also, and this goes back to the use of resources, there is the issue of paved roads. Once we got past Kaolack, the second largest city in Senegal (and a lot of fun, actually!) the road went from good to horrible. What should have taken four hours took seven because we spent the whole time swerving all over the road to avoid pot holes and rode on the edge of the road for the same reason. Many huge trucks were stopped, tumbled over because of the pot holes, or at the very least had popped tires and other niceties. At one point on our way in we saw a completely crashed truck with a person inside. We didn't see any blood. Our driver didn't notice and we didn't stop-there was no 911 to call. I don't know what we saw. Trucks drive on the opposite side of the road when their side is bad, so it could have been something like that. Apart from being horrible for safety and being very uncomfortable, roads like this prevent trade and transportation of goods. Yet, the Corniche, a decent highway in Dakar bordering some of the wealthiest neighborhoods, was just redone. It's interesting. It looked as if parts of this road are being repaired, to it's credit, but there is a long way to go, and it had to get this bad first! But, repairs are good! (The road from Tamba to Kedougou however was smooth sailing! Many tourists fly into Tamba and take that road farther east.)
Some things don't make sense. Some things are changing.
2) In completely other news, am going to volunteer at the US Embassy haloween party and am pretty stoked about that. Got to wear a costume, and get free dinner! What a bargain! Good thing Haloween is a Friday this year.
I didn't even write about vacation yet! It was entertaining- ate warthog sandwiches (saw warthogs and baboons, as a matter of fact), ate rabbit spagetti, saw a huge waterfall, climbed 2km up a 50degree hill to see a little village and the amazing view-all with a fever and dysentary, went to Madame Wade's (first lady) rural hospital outside Kedougou and met a strange French doctor (I was better by then but someone else got sick), drank some palm wine, gave away kola nuts and candies, almost went to dinner with someone who used to be in Senegalese jail, went to a 1970s Bollywood film in Kaolack, saw the milkyway, swam in a pool, shared a whole watermellon for 50 cents, (jeez I like food....) rode a bike, got some indigo fabric, drank ataya with some Guineans in the market at Kedougou, got really dusty at all times. And some other stuff.
I may or may not update this but want to give some people time with the computers.
Ba ci kanam! (See you later!)