Part XI: “Mai ma sama xaalis léegi!”

One of the true highlights of the trip occurred when we arrived in Pita after leaving the village. The driver, who had concluded a deal with our guide for fare from the village to Pita, and a separate fare from Pita to Dalaba, tried to tell us that we would have to pay significantly more. He insisted that he had discussed the price with our guide, but our guide had expressly told us a much lower (and much more realistic) price. Unfortunately we had unwisely paid half of the total sum, which more than covered the short trip from the village to Pita, before leaving the village. Deciding that the best solution was to extricate ourselves completely from the situation and find a different driver, we commenced attempts to recover our extra money from the driver. As the conversation intensified more townspeople wandered over trying to “help” but as the confusion mounted and our frustrations erupted, Kyle yelled loudly at the driver in Wolof: “Mai ma sama xaalis léegi!” (Give me my money right now!) Surprisingly the driver understood, even though he only spoke Pulaar. In fact, he was so surprised and delighted that he actually did give us our money (after he had a good laugh on our behalf).

We got another driver to drive us- all seven of us- to Dalaba in his compact car. (Yes, Morgan I realize that this counteracts my good behavior earlier in the day…) He showed us all kinds of wonderful things along the way though. First, he brought us to his native village; the entrance was right on the side of the road and we walked through trees, bushes, and over a little stream with a log bridge. It was so quaint. His mother was not home so he took us to an orange tree, which he climbed without delay, and began to rain down oranges upon us. Jen (the other one) and I grabbed the containers he had brought for us and put them on our heads, filling them with oranges. I felt thoroughly African. The best part is that when he dropped us off at our hotel, he gave us all the oranges! We also stopped at an amazing little village in the middle of a huge pine grove. I felt right at home among all those tall coniferous trees, and the smell was heavenly!

When we got to the hotel we freshened up and ate enough oranges to give ourselves stomach aches before we set out to find the town. After walking in the wrong direction for about ten minutes, we finally asked someone directions. Then, when we had almost gotten to town, we decided to turn back because everyone was hungry. We were almost run over by numerous motorcycles, always with three people, all of them, including the driver, usually younger than seventeen. And we passed a soccer game letting out- masses of young boys in uniforms and pads, and spectators flooding down the road toward us were definitely a bit intimidating.
Anyway, turns out most of the restaurants in the guide book are no longer in operation, but we did find an auberge-restaurant that made us the best meal we had all vacation: grilled chicken (as fresh as can be- pretty sure that chicken was alive when we walked in…), fries, and a salad with lots of tomatoes and onions. It took an hour and a half to prepare (that’s fast by African standards) but we played 20 questions and interviewed each other on the couches in the covered porch for amusement.

After dinner I retired, exhausted, to our room to read while everyone else talked on the patio with Mathieu, a French tourist backpacking through West Africa. He had already seen Morocco, Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea, and was heading to Mali. Sounds like a good game plan to me…anyone else in?