Back to the village

Written Friday, 7 September 2007

 

 

Wednesday it was finally time for me to go back to the village, after being gone for over a month.   Around 5 pm I went to the garage in Tamba to catch an Alham (it's not safe to bike the road toward my village in the afternoons – apparently there are bandits – and anyway I had a lot of stuff).   Even though the car was almost full when I got there, we didn't leave til almost 6:00.  Then there were the usual stops at the gas station and at the police checkpoint for the driver to have his papers checked.   Then it seemed we were finally on our way.

 

But no.  After driving for only about ten minutes, one of the tires blew out.   (I for some reason immediately thought we had been shot at and jumped.  All the Senegalese in the car had a good time laughing at me for that one).   So we pulled over and everyone piled out, and they put on the spare tire.  Finally we got going again, but by the time we made it to Missira – about halfway to my village – it was after 7:00 and already getting dark.  I didn't want to make the thirty minute bike ride from the main road to my village in pitch blackness, so I decided to stay in Missira and spend the night at another volunteer's hut.

 

So Thursday morning I loaded up my bike and rode to my village, finally arriving about 18 hours after I'd originally planned to.   I feel like that's pretty typical of life here.  I was really happy to see my host family and other villagers, which was a relief because I wasn't entirely sure if I'd be happy to come back or if I'd feel like I was going back to prison.   Probably some of the feelings of being in prison will come back in time (hopefully not until it's about time to go to Tamba again), but for now I'm really happy to be back.