Tamkharit is the Senegalese way of celebrating Islamic New Year. And it just so happened to coincide with Thanksgiving weekend so I was able to make the trip to Sokone to celebrate with the Mane/Ndiaye family. However, as many of you know from some of my stories of traveling in Senegal such as my infamous trip to Kaolack for an ATM (and to be back for lunch) that resulted in me bringing home a giant frozen fish at about 10:00pm at night, things don't always work out so nicely.
I had Thursday off for Thanksgiving, and so I decided to take Friday off. This originally was then supposed to be followed by Monday off for Tamkharit. But the dates for the Islamic holidays are usually only finalized a week beforehand and it was decreed that Tamkharit would be Saturday meaning no additional day of work off what-so-ever. What's the point of holiday if you don't get an extra day home to lounge around and watch movies all day? Well, there is the whole aspect of celebrating something, I suppose...
The plan was to get off work a little early on Wednesday at 4:30 rather than 6:00pm after putting in extra hours on Monday and Tuesday so that I could go to the bus station directly from work and catch a ride to Sokone in time for a late dinner. I should've known better.
My first mistake was thinking that I could get out of work at 4:30. While normally this would totally be possible, it's been somewhat hectic lately and so of course there were a million and one things to do before logging off for a 4-day weekend. And no way was I going to work from Sokone! But all in all, I still got to the gare routiere at a reasonable time - at 6:00pm rather than 5:00pm or earlier. Nothing too late.
But, then came my second mistake. I very naively imagined arriving at the bus station and finding a sept-place with all but one or two of the seven seats open. I could then still be on the road at a reasonable hour and arrive in Sokone before midnight. But of course this wasn't anywhere near the scene that I found when I arrived. Rather it was a completely empty sept-place, and I was the first passenger. This then meant waiting 3 hours (!!!) for the car to fill.
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| Now if only I had enough money for a private cab to Sokone. That would be oh so easy! |
While waiting for other passengers to arrive, there was nothing to do but wait alongside the modified station wagon. I tried not to look too long at the rusts, the rickety doors or the collapsed back seat. Rather, I decided to practice my wolof. And that was my third mistake. I didn't know that I would be there for three hours, and if I had, I probably wouldn't have either (a) struck up conversation or (b) let myself dig such a large hole. See, the problem is that the majority of my conversations here with strangers work themselves around to my marital status within the first five seconds. In order to make myself unavailable (otherwise the rest of the conversation would entail extremely complimentary but insincere professions of undying love) but also to appease their interest in adapting to Senegalese culture, I usually respond with the fact that yes, I'm married and yes, my husband is Senegalese. And so the story became to grow uncontrollably from there. By the time I actually boarded the sept-place, 3 hours later, I was married to a Senegalese man from Sokone. We lived in Dakar, but since his mother was sick, I was going to Sokone to be by her side and he was to follow after work on Friday. Which now means that every time I go to the bus station in Dakar and go to the station for Karang, I have to remember the fact that I'm married to a man who's from Sokone and lives in Dakar. And oh by the way, his mother is doing much better, thanks for asking.
You'd think after this it would've been smooth sailing? The rule of 3, and here I was already at mistake #3? But unfortunately, I made a fourth mistake. My travels thus far in Senegal have taught me that sept-places are unreliable, true, but at least more reliable than buses. However, this time I jinxed it. I repeatedly made comments about how I hoped that my sept-place wouldn't have any issues... and there you go. Of course we do. We finally left the bus station at 9:00pm, a whole three hours after I had gotten there. But still, I could still arrive there by 1:00am with no traffic. And there was none!
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| The car rapides in Dakar, and you find similar versions outside of Dakar. I'm sure that this would've broken down more than 4 times from Dakar to Sokone. So I guess I'd fared pretty well in my sept-place. |
* First time and second time, they had to fix something with the wheels. Don't know what. Don't know how. I just know that they were fiddling with a fairly key element to automobile travel.
* Third and fourth time, absolutely no idea. For some reason, there was a question of balance between the volume level of the radio and the headlights. Any time the driver would turn it too high, they would start to flicker. Turn it up even more, and they were out. Well, of course, when you're driving in the middle of the night, you're rolling down the windows to get the cool breeze and you're turning up the radio to stay awake. But each time the driver would push his luck too far, the lights would go out. We'd pull onto the side of the road and he'd fiddle with this, fiddle with that and poof! the lights would be working again.
All in all, though, not bad. 9.5 hours total from my front door in Dakar to my front door in Sokone. Who am I kidding?!?! To put it into perspective, Dakar to Sokone is 236km. Minneapolis to Duluth, 248km (2hrs 33min using Google Maps). Washington DC to Philadelphia, 223km (2hrs 53min). According to Google Maps, the trip should only take 3 hours and 15 minutes. Usually I'm happy with making it in 5 hours. This time, just driving, took 6 hours. And don't forget the 3 extra hours of waiting.
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| Proof that it shouldn't take 6 hours of driving. Courtesy of Google Maps. |
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