Independence Day

written Wednesday, April 4, 2007


Today is Senegal's independence day. I have a much-needed day off from Peace Corps training (I feel like they are trying to prepare us for slowness and inefficiency in the villages by being slow and inefficient themselves). There is supposed to be a parade this morning, which I am planning to go to and will hopefully be able to take some pictures of. There was also a quasi-parade last night - my family had told me that the army was supposed to make a tour of the city with torches and tam-tam drums, but all I ever saw was a huge mass of people walking to the Place de France (basically the main square), where nothing was happening.

I did discover, however, that Thies has bumper cars! My host mom took me and my siblings to watch people riding in them after we got to the Place de France and saw that nothing was happening. I found bumper cars in Thies to be very typically Senegalese - five or six people crammed in each bumper car made to hold only two small people, and everyone driving very carefully, not liking to crash into the other cars at all. And of course one car that would only drive in reverse.

I'll try to write more later today, after the parade.