Mangroves

For this post I’ll have to reach way back into the recesses of my mind to recall the details of it.  For this reason, I apologize if it is scatter-brained or vague.  Like I said, my memory will bring me back to the early days in September 2013, what, almost half a year ago.  The topic of this post will be the mangrove replanting program that took place in Toubacouta, Fatick.  Of course, if you want a lengthy and technical explanation of the program, I’m sure that it could be found on the Peace Corps Senegal website or other publications.  As such, I will not go into much detail about the program itself, but my experience with it.  And the context of my experience begins a bit before the mangroves themselves, at a magical time called IST and a magical place called Thies.

It seems apt to write about IST now, when the new agriculture stage is currently in their in service training, but mine was in mid august 2013.  After about 3 months at site, we, the health stage, all came together for two weeks of more technical training.  I had a great time seeing everyone again and getting a true feel for what it meant to be a health volunteer in Senegal.  Of course, there are some pretty ridiculous stories from that time, some of which would be best not to get into.  I remember walking through dense rain at 4am trying to get to the phoenix nightclub, dancing up a storm at palais-des-artes, other palais-des-artes related stories.  Anyway, rest assured that it was an amazing time.

And all too soon, it was over, but there was still a good week or so before the Toubacouta mangrove replanting.  So what do you do with less time to go back to site, but more time than just waiting in Thies?  Popenguine!!!  I’m not sure if I’ve talked about Popenguine before, but it’s a beach resort town south in Dakar on the Petit-Cote. 

 The life of a Peace Corps volunteer

Anyway, Popenguine was amazing and a great way to blow off some steam after two long weeks of intense training.  We were at Popenguine for three evenings, which was great, but exhausting in its own way.

And then came mangroves.  As I hope to have shown, we had spent about 3 weeks of trainings and social scenes, and most everyone was just plain spent.  There wasn’t much excitement for the mangrove replanting.  Of course, I was full of energy, but a different type of energy, one that storms within, in secret.  So we were getting an alham, basically a mini bus, to take us to Toubacouta, and that’s where it all went wrong.

We call them alhams because they usually have alhamdoulilah written on the front

  First off, to Miles’ credit, he took charge of talking to the driver and trying to give him a sense of where we were going.  Unfortunately, none of us really knew how to get to Toubacouta.  So Miles kept saying “Toubacouta, en Fatick, Toubacouta Fatick!!!” And the driver just gave a blank look them occasionally would say “Fatick?!” “Yes, Toubacouta, Fatick!” Let me explain, Fatick is the name of the region we were going to, and we wanted to go to the city of Toubacouta in that region.  Of course, Fatick is the name of a city too.  Eventually after saying "Toubacouta, Fatick!" much more than was needed, he just nodded and we were off.  So after a few hours, lo and behold, we were in the city of Fatick.  We had another confusing conversation with the driver…. Yeah, he didn’t know how to get to Toubacouta.

So we had to transfer cars, get a new driver, and go on our bumpy way.  Along the way we had to wait for over an hour for the ferry we weren’t expecting.  Though the scenery was beautiful, most people were just frustrated.

Lots of water

It was really was a lovely ferry

We finally make it across the ferry as night descends, and oh wait, it starts raining.  The driver has to get out and put a tarp over our baggage, but it has holes and the roof has holes so we’re now having water streaming through the roof onto us.  Ok, I can deal with that, when BAM!  We feel a jerk, sparks erupt everywhere, and we swerve to a stop.  Apparently the axle fell off or something, I don’t know.  All I know is we had to wait around for the mechanic to come.  The stars were brilliant, reflected off the flooded plains below us, but this was lost on us as we were just wanting to get to our destination.  Oh, and at some point an old Pular man without pants came over and started talking to us.  In his defense, he was wearing a grand bou-bou that went down to his knees, but after a while we realized that he indeed had no pants on under that.

The mechanic came with a new car and we eventually stumbled our way into Toubacouta.

The moral of this story?  Just roll with the punches dudes.  People were getting really upset, and I understand, and people still look back with anger to the whole trip, but I had a great time.  We got to cross an amazing river delta at sunset, and see one of the more beautiful parts of the country.  It was really a bonding experience and I wouldn’t have given it up for 1,000,000 CFA.

So now to the mangroves themselves.  I’m not sure if you know what mangroves are, if not, look it up on Wikipedia. 

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove

Anyway, mangrove deforestation is a big problem in this region of Senegal.  People cut them down because it gives easy access to the oysters that attach to the roots.  Also, I hear it makes great firewood and great wood for boats.  Whatever the reason, Senegal is losing much of its wild mangroves.  The point of this activity was to go to a place that had recently been deforested, and plant new mangroves.  It seems simple enough.  So we got in a boat, rode out to the middle of nowhere, and started to plant before the tide came in.  It is really quite amazing. 

Hard day's work planting mangroves

  When you get there at low tide there’s this giant dry sand basin, but as the tide rolls in eventually it all gets flooded to the point where no land is showing.  It was spectacular planting these plants in the ground and see them slowly get submerged by the rising tide.  When we were almost done there were still a few bags full of mangrove seeds.  Since we had covered all the land we intended to, we decided to just take handfuls and throw them into the wind!  Let fate chose where they will end up!

I had a great time doing it, though I was in a bit of a funk for personal reasons.  So yeah, that’s an activity in Senegal working to reestablish ecological diversity.  Also, mangroves sequester salt, so its good to keep the trees around.

An unrelated story: when we first got there we had the rest of the day free.  I thought I’d go swimming or kayaking, but when I looked down at my ankle there was a giant blister on it.  We weren’t sure if it was a blister beetle or something else, that ankle had been submerged, who knows what lurks in the shallows?  Anyway, I was in a predicament.  Do I leave it be or pop it?  To leave it be would be the better idea, but it was in a place that could rub against my sandal, or catch a rock in the mangroves.  As such, it would probably burst at some point regardless, and it would be better to just lance it now in a controlled environment.  I have never had a blister lanced, and I assumed it would be excruciatingly painful.  As such, I thought I’d take a page out of the ol’ British sailor’s book and use alcohol as an anesthetic.  So I took a shot of whiskey.  I still felt queasy about the thought of lancing it, so I took another.  After 2 more shots, I felt ready.  We all gathered around in anticipation, but it was really anticlimactic.  It just kind of slowly drained, and I didn’t really feel a thing.  Great, so I didn’t have to take those shots of whiskey after all.  But after 4 shots of whiskey in fear of pain, I was actually pretty drunk.  So there I was at 2pm, pretty intoxicated while everyone was sober around me.  Good times man, good times.