1 month to go and a trip to Ethiolo

Well today marks 1 month until my COS date (Close of Service), that’s April 20^th, when I’ll officially become an ex-Peace Corps volunteer, or as we’re called Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV).  And on the 20^th I’m flying to Sierra Leone with some fellow COSers to celebrate the end of our service with cheap lobster on the beautiful beaches! But like I said before, more on that when we get to it.

Over the weekend I traveled out to Salemata (about 80km west of Kedougou) to meet up with Meera and Tatiana and to make a visit to Tatiana’s village, Ethiolo (pronounced etch-o-lo). We met up in the district capital Salemata, had lunch there and then toured the local medieval castle….yeah that’s right there’s a medieval castle in Salemata. A few years ago Bob, a French pedophile who lives in Salemata, started constructing a castle. I’ve heard about it for the last two years and now I finally got to take the grand tour, didn’t meet Bob though, luckily. It’s supposed to serve as a Dance Club / Meeting Hall, whatever it might be it’s certainly out-of-place but amazing nonetheless.

Bob's Castle in Salemata, not sure if those are traditional Medieval colors...

We biked the 10km further out to Tatiana’s village.  Ethiolo is a Bassari village, so they are predominantly Animist and Christian, which also means they have a lot of fun culture.  We made this trip because there was supposed to be a party starting Saturday night through Sunday.  In fact the party didn’t start until Sunday, so Saturday night we just bought some locally made Honey Wine and went to bed early.  The next morning I decided to drink the honey wine all day long as we toured the village.  This was great because it’s delicious, and only got me a little tipsy, that is until we bought a different batch that afternoon.  Before lunch we met with Joseph, a local artisan who makes Bassari masks, I’ve bought 2 through Tatiana in the past and I wanted to buy some more, I got 3 this time…drunk shopping is the best!

Me and Joseph the Bassari Mask artisan of Ethiolo, and the 3 masks I bought  in between us

Just before dinner and after a failed sexual health discussion we were hoping to conduct at the town’s middle school, we bought a second batch of honey wine, this stuff a bit stronger.  Actually it was a lot stronger, I passed out before I could eat dinner, and I wound up missing the party Sunday night (the girls said it was kind of low-key and boring and they left early anyway), Tatiana’s family thought me sleeping next to the dinner bowl was the funniest thing.  Now I know this may sound slightly pathetic, or that I was being dumb and irresponsible, but drinking honey wine like that earned me a ton of respect with her family, oh how cultures work.  Either way the next morning we packed up, me and my 3 masks and my hangover and biked back out to Salemata, where Meera and I waited 9 hours for a ride back to Kedougou.  If my little drinking problem the day before earned me any bad karma, it was definitely served out during that boring 9 hour wait.

Meera, Balingo (Tatiana's hilarious village father) and I. check out those bags under my eyes, those honey wine hangovers will get you! even though I was still a little drunk when we took this photo the next morning...