Touba

              Last Tuesday, we left the Alafifa hotel at around 9:00 am because of a delay with the taxis and the baggage. We were told that instead of going straight to Saint Louis, we would be taking a detour through the city of Touba. Each year (based on a lunar calendar) there is a sort of pilgrimage that Muslims from all over Africa take to Touba. It’s the burial site of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, who is said to be one of the most famous Soufis in Senegal. Being able to see Touba during this pilgrimage is a once in a lifetime opportunity, apparently, so it was worth a few extra hours in the taxi. We got to see all different styles of living during our 11 hour drive. First we passed through the center of Dakar, where people were walking around with a purpose, some wearing traditional dress, some wearing clothes that you could find in Western countries. As we left Dakar on the main road, we were slowed because of all of the public transportation buses carrying people to Touba. Each bus was packed like sardines and had several men standing outside the bus on the bumpers and hanging on to the back door. Some even had people traveling on the top of the bus where the luggage is kept. It was because of all this traffic that I got to see the differences between Senegalese driving and driving in the United States. In Senegal, even though there is a “speed limit,” there is no speed limit, because there is usually nobody around to enforce it. Our taxi driver would drift to the left to see if anyone was coming, and either drift back if there was a car or speed along the wrong side of the road until we had passed the slower drivers or until a car was coming at us head-on.

            The next style of living we saw was that of the outskirts of the city. The streets were packed with a hundred people on either side, waiting for buses or taxis to take them to Touba. We cut down a side street to avoid the crowds, and there we saw the kind of living that we had seen in Senegalese movies. We saw small houses that were basically all courtyards, where you could see women inside washing clothes and children running around, with maybe one or two rooms that were covered that probably contained beds. Next we passed through towns that were not quite suburbs, but were not rural either. We passed donkeys and horses pulling carts carrying people or products. In one of these towns, we stopped to wait for the other taxi, and Professor Joseph bought us all our first Gazelle Limonade from a small store on the side of the road. After 4 hours of sitting in a packed car with our bags on our laps in 90 degree weather, it was extremely refreshing. Once the other taxi had caught up, we drove around the corner to have coffee and bread and local juice with Papa’s mother and father and sisters (Papa is our advisor in Senegal) in their home.

            Once we left there we went directly to Touba, which took another couple hours because of the bus, taxi, horse, and donkey traffic, even though it was only about 20 or so miles away. As we got closer to Touba, the crowds became more and more dense. Finally we were in the city but were barely moving because of all the people in the road. We were lucky enough to get close to the enormous mosque in the town center, but had to turn and drive past it because we couldn’t possibly drive around it like we had planned. Before leaving the Touba, we stopped at a random house at the edge of the city to try the famous café Touba that is so popular around here. To steal Michaela and Patrice’s way of describing it, it tasted like a mixture of barbeque sauce, alcohol, and mint. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but it made me nauseous and still does every time I smell it, which is a lot. Either way I plan to try it later on in the semester and see if my tastes have changed.

            Finally, we were on our way to Saint Louis. Between Touba and Saint Louis we were able to see a third style of living. On both sides of the road, in the middle of the savannah, there were villages scattered every couple hundred meters with huts made of straw and a straw fence surrounding each village. There were tons of cows, sheep, goats and donkeys along each side of the road. As we drove there were fewer and fewer villages, but every once in a while we’d see a group of goats or sheep or cows or donkeys, so we knew there were villages nearby. The women were outside talking or grinding grains and the men were outside sitting in the shade. Both groups wore very colorful and traditional clothing. As the sun began to set we had passed all of the villages and were driving through the savannah. We made it to Saint Louis by around 8:30 pm, and moved in to a hostel in the city for the night because it was too late to move into the dorms. 

                                                    Center of Dakar

                                    Bus in Dakar that would take people to Touba

                                        First style of living: Outskirts of the city

                          Second style: Papa's house was in a neighborhood like this

                                         Minaret of the huge mosque in Touba

                                                 Mosque in Touba

                                               Crowded street in Touba

                                Third style of living: One of the villages we passed

                          Savannah as the sun began to set on our way to St. Louis

                                         Our room in the hostel in St. Louis

                                                    Outside the hostel