first week at site

So I’ve had about my first week at site. My family is extremely nice and the village is great. I kind of mentioned both back in my volunteer visit post. I’m going to stop trying to give the play by play of everything that’s been going on here with me in Senegal and from now on the posts will be more targeted entries, specific events, etc.

The Pellel Kindessa Falls

Last week I got my host brother, Yousuphu, to head out with me in search of the Pellel Kindessa Waterfall (the Dindefelo one is great but it’s a bit touristy and I was positive my town had a more exclusive and better set of falls). We were supposed to leave immediately after lunch, but Hannah, my closest neighbor was supposed to be making her first visit to my family, of course I had no phone credit to find out when she’d actually show up. I convinced Yousuphu to wait until after the first cup of attaaya (the extremely sugary tea the Senegalese drink in shot form, imagine 12 sugar cubes in about 8oz of tea….), we drank, and magically Hannah showed up just as I had hoped. She and her host dad stayed awhile so we still got an even later start and by that point an obvious thunderstorm was coming over the mountains where we were headed. Despite my family suggesting that it might not be a good idea to go, I looked at 15 year old Yousuphu who said, yeah let’s go. Walking through open fields with my new machete in hand, as the lightning approached us, I decided that I should maybe not blindly follow the suggestions of a 15 year old in the future... Luckily I was not struck by lightning. The walk took a little over an hour and all along the way Yousuphu had to yell at the top of his lungs to scare off the troops of baboons that weren’t very afraid of us and were following us through the valley. We continued along making our own path at many points since one doesn’t really exist, as the mountains on either side of us closed in on each other. We reached a point where Yousuphu said he hadn’t been past before because he had been too afraid, we decided to continue despite the fact that it started to rain and the rock faces of the mountains on either side drowned out most of the light. This place was amazing. The rock faces on both sides went up as steep steps and there were trees that had managed to grow in them with their roots cascading down reminiscent of something from the legends of the hidden temple, or some Indiana Jones movie. We arrived at the main pool, and found that there are a number of different falls all in this one area, all on different levels. We decided to climb to the furthest point back; the view from there was wonderful. At this point I was thankful for the rain because since its still dry season here, there wouldn’t have been any water at these falls. The rain that had been pouring for about 20 minutes started to make its way down the rock front; I watched as it start cascading from 50 or 60 feet up. It was absolutely beautiful. We stood there for almost 20 minutes until we decided to climb down to where the first pool was, now we found the main waterfall pouring from the rocks that hadn’t yet started when we arrived. It was definitely an awesome sight. Judging by the rocks and where the water was dripping from just this one short afternoon thundershower I can only imagine how great this area looks during rainy/wet season. I’ll definitely be going back when that happens next month, and with a camera if I can (so no pictures this time around…).