Palmarin - it's a different world

This past weekend I went to Palmarin with my friends Taryn and Nancy. Palmarin is a set of 4 small villages on the Petite Cote, just north of the Sine Saloum Delta. It's claim to fame is ecotourism since it sits on some of the richest mangrove preserves in West Africa.



We had to take 2 sept-places to get there - a 4-hour trip total. BUT, you've got to remember that this isn't just any 4-hour car trip. You're in Senegal in a sept-place, and the quality of the ride depends on your strategic decision to sit in the right places - i.e., not the back. In sept-places there's the driver and passenger up front, then there's two rows of 3 seats behind. The last row of seats is above the back wheels, so if you're my height, your head is literally 1" from the ceiling. God save the anyone over 5'4". That's a problem on roads where potholes and pigs spring up out of nowhere.



Palmarin is forested with mostly palm trees, acacia, ditakh, and mangroves. And don't forget the mighty baobabs that spring up every once in a while. The village is such a different place than Dakar. For one, you can actually breathe without smelling car fumes since there are about twice as many donkeys & horses as cars. The village where we stayed had about 500 people, a total of 60 or 70 houses, I believe.



In Palmarin we met up with Chris -a Peace Corps volunteer who works with the community on developing ecotourism. Two other Peace Corps volunteers were visiting as well - Chris2 who works on environmental education in a more inland village and Lauren who works up in Podor on the border of Mauritania and Senegal on gender equality & health. I learned a lot from them about the different cultures within Senegal and their individual work as Peace Corps volunteers. I'll touch on that more later.



After wandering through a maze of concrete-brick walls (the village was rebuilt about 15 years ago after coastal erosion made their original village uninhabitable) we met the family that Chris lives with - so many little kids and you never really know who's kids are who because they all just run around everywhere and their names overlap so much that I always mix them up, sorry little guys. We munched on freshly-boiled mussels caught just off the nearby sandbar that morning. They were delicious, although the texture kept me from gorging myself. A little later Chris' host mom made us some of the most delicious ceebu jenn I've ever had.



We then walked about a kilometer out to the port where the local fishermen bring in the catches each day to take a pirogue out to an island for the night. At the port, I saw domestic overfishing in action as the fishermen piled the day's catch onto the shore. A pile of sand sharks about 2 meters long, and then piles of increasing smallers sand sharks, right down to the babies. The coasts are getting more and more pressure from migrant fishers who come during certain seasons to fish to make a quick buck, and then leave until the next season. Although this area was supposed to be a marine protected area, there's absolutely no enforcement.



We met Tillay, a local guy who owns a pirogue and takes visitors out to the islands within the mangroves. A Senegalese woman (Sophie) came along with us to cook. We waded out into the water and boarded the colorfully painted pirogue, which sped us across the inlet toward the mangroves. I'm not sure how people here know where to go in the mangroves, because they're such a maze! We followed several channels throughout these mangroves, sometimes catching the calls of red mangrove monkeys and spotting giant dark blue herons, which I call teradactyls. I'd heard that manatees (lamantins in French) live in parts of the delta area, so I asked Tillay and Sophie if they'd ever seen them there. They didn't recognize the word in French, and none of us knew the word in Serrer or Wolof, so it took a while to explain what we were talking about. Finally, after we had given up, Tillay said something like "Ginamar" and explained what it was and we were like Yeah! That's a lamantin! Have you seen them? His response was hilarious, "Oh yeah, I've eaten them!" Manatees here are incredibly endangered and are very rare now in many parts of their original habitat. In the south, it's mostly humans hunting them and deforestation of mangroves, and their skin is highly valued as a gris-gris (charm to keep away evil spirits). In the north, in the Senegal river it's mostly dams that have altered their habitat. Unfortunately we didn't see any this weekend :(



We settled on a small island (about 1 acre big) surrounded by mangroves on all sides. Some of us went swimming in the warm, calm sea water, which was so much fun since the beaches in Dakar are so frigid, polluted, and ravaged by giant waves. Although, I cut my foot on an open clam and Lauren got stung by a rather large purple jellyfish. We sat around talking about lots of things, learning some Serrer and Pulaar phrases and words (which I have now mostly forgotten). We ate ceebu jenn again for dinner, with a few fish that Tillay had just caught in the channel. The meal was interrupted every once in a while by the calls of red and green mangrove monkeys (we never actually saw them though) and the splash of who knows what in the water.



We made a fire, and sat around for while (even though it gets to like 95 degrees during the day, th nights can be frigid, especially with the coastal winds). Tillay brought out some Patis (a licorice-flavored liquer) that we mixed with water. And, silly me, I thought it would be good. If you like the black jelly beans, you'dlike this. But, that's definitely not me. We heard some jackals howling and some giant white birds (egrets, I believe) perched in the dead baobab above our tents - oops, bad camp planning. I found out where Senegal got its name. In Wolof, Sene=our, and Gal=boat. So, Senegal literally means Our Boat. It was really fun listening to Lauren speak Wolof fluently to Sophie and Tillay. She had it down - if didn't know who she was I'd have thought she was Senegalaise.



The next morning we woke up to find jackal tracks around our fire pit. We cleaned up camp and reboarded the pirogue to head for another island to play on the beach. Unfortunately, we didn't see any dolphins during this trip either, although people have told me they're pretty common. We arrived at a large island, with a long, narrow stretch of beach where we hit up a game of ultimate frisbee - 2 on 2. So intense, especially diving into the water and skipping over giant hermit crabs. I found a dead purple jellyfish on the beach, just likehe one that stung Lauren. We had some delicious yassa poisson for lunch, made with fresh caught fish again. The hermit crabs that lived in these waters were about 10 or 15 times as big as any I've ever seen - and so beautiful! Blue hermit crabs!!!

We headed back for the village shore. When we jumped out of the pirogue to pull it ashore, I noticed that all the hundreds of things I thought were rocks were actually little crabs!! I tried to get close to take a picture, but they loored me into a section of dee, black mangrove mud. One of my feet sunk in about a foot! Sneaky little crabs.

Later in the afternoon, we met Pierre, a local nature guide. He took us kayaking through the mangrove mazes. He was amazing - knew the French, Wolof, Serrer, and latin names for all the animals and plants we saw! We saw these lizards that looked lik mini-monitor lizards(verron in French). We saw a bunch of different birds - cormorants, herons, egrets, and a bunch of others. After turning one bend in the channel, we went on shore for a "surprise". Pierre pointed to 3 enormous baobab trees a little ways on shore. There was one that looks like a fat little person with a belt around the middle. And that's the one where we drank coffee inside!!! Yes, we went inside the trunk of the baobab, chilled, and drank some coffee. So cool! Pierre told us that this area, way back on the islands of the mangroves was a major hideout safe-place for the Serrer people during the slave trade. When the French and other people came to take people as slaves to the US, the Serrer retreated into these mazes which were difficult for outsiders to navigate. It was really moving to realize what that must have been like for them just a hundred or two years ago. Now, the area is a protected area.

We made our way back through the mangroves and met Pierre's friend Jean who took us on a ride on his "charette" - horse cart. The horse's name was Michelle and she pulled us on a big slab of wood on top of two big wheels - it took a while to get used to he bumps all over the dirt road. I almost fell off countless times. By the way, this is the part of Senegal where Catholicism is big and that's why most of these people have French names. So, we drove through the countryside, past mighty baobab forests, and other forests (ditakh, palm, acacia). Pierre explained what the Serrer traditionally use each tree for. They make juice from ditakh leaves (like bissap juice, a bit), palm wine from the sap of palm trees, buoy juice from the fruit of the baobab, and nutritious animal feed from the seeds of a kind of acacia (I believe it was acacia). We actually met a man who comes from the Casamance region of Senegal (way south, it's kind of a country of it's own and it's where the longest civil war has been going on in Africa) who comes to Palmarin to gather Palm sap. We bought a bottle of the freshly collected palm sap, which they ferment into palm wine (Which i've heard is absolutely disgusting, but the Casamance people like it). The fresh sap tasted like nothing I can really describe well - like a funky carbonated, lemony, tingly, very strong nectar.

We road the charrette through the outskirts of several villages and met many people heading home on their own charrettes from work. We passed the salt pools, whichpeople in the area have been digging for generations. Men dig into the ground, and the salt water from underground fills the depression. The women wait until the water evaporates, and then collect the residual salt from the edges of the pool and sell it all over Senegal. The cool thing is, the water in the pools is all different colors! Check out the pics. I'm not totally sure why that is yet - something to do with the different soil composition at different levels or areas, I think. But, they were beautiful! Reminded me of the hot springs in places like Yellowstone.

As we rode through the brush, we saw tons of new birds. I've forgotten the names of most of them, because I learned them in French, and that's a bit harder to remember. My absolute favorite was the Robodo Abyssine (or something like that). Anyway, it was this metallic turquoise blue bird that youcould see from way far awaybecause it was so bright! Definitely one of the most beautiful birds I've ever seen.

Finally, we arrived at our destination - the island of a pack of hyenas. There's a group of about 8-10 hyenas who live around this one set of islands in the mangroves. They sleep on the island during the day, and come out to the mainland to scavenge and hunt in the evening. These were the biggest hyenas I've ever seen! I didn't know they got that big! Way bigger than any wolf I've seen and their front ends, giant necks and all, looked so powerful. We waited in the bushes about 100 yards away and watched 6 of them come out of the mangroves onto the mainland. Then, Jean drove our charrette right through the middlf of their group!!! I guess they're used to it. They scattered a bit, and then stopped and just watched us. Got some nice close-ups, but I would definitely never want to meet one of them alone.

On our charrette ride back to the village Pierre and Jean taught us a song in Wolof. It goes like this:
"Mafe mata Diolor. An degula! Ceebu jenn mata Wolof. An degula! Tcheeri mata Serrer. An degula! Attaya mata Nbar. An degula! Cafe mata Tubab. An degula! Dola ma, dola ma, dola ma, dola ma!"

It's a song about the different food dishes that the ethnicities of Senegal prefer. An degula means yes, we love it!!! And dola ma means "it gives us force"!

When Nancy and I got back to the village, we found that Taryn and Chris had butchered a chicken themselves - caught it, killed it, plucked it, gutted it, and cooked it. You should see the video of Taryn chasing the chicken they bought all over the village with all the litte kids watching and falling down laughing!

The next morning before heading back to Dakar, we got some ndembe. That is one of the best food I've ever had here. It's village bread - shaped like a baguette, but rich and chewy. YOu buy the bread at one person's house and then go to another person's house and they put these amazing beans inside. So so good!!! I would say that I'd make it for you allwhen I get back, but I highly doubt that I could do ndembe justice. Yes, it's that good.

We took a sept-place back to Dakar, and on the way there, Taryn had a conversation with the guy sitting next to here. He was a Bi-fall Muslim (I definitely did not spell that right) and it was so intense listening to him. Because once you asked him a question about ANYTHING, he'd alway bring it back around to how Bi-fall Muslims are supposed to live and trying to preach to us about Islam. Bi-fall Muslims are a sect of Islam that could be described as the hippies of Islam. I need to find out more about them though before I say more.

But, if you ever come to Senegal, you must check out Palmarin! I felt like I was in a different world the entire time! Such an amazing place with amazing people!!!