Thies & Fandem (english)

A Canadian couple, Monique and Gervais, who lived in Senegal for many years and are part of the "Réseau du Capitaine" gave us the name and number of a friend who lives in Thies. We negotiated a taxi for the day since it's easier than renting a car and while we were waiting for our visa for Brazil to come through we went to visitVeronique. Thies is about 70 km from Dakar and looks somewhat like that city but smaller. Again, you get the impression that the Europeans built the infrastructure but the Africans rather live on the streets. Before arriving, we were under the impression that Veronique needed help. We soon realized the she is far from being without resources. In fact, she is so resourceful that if she lived in North America, she would make a fortune. It's harder in Senegal however since the clients don't have much money. She is a catholic who is married to a Moslem man who lives with his second wife. Still living with her is one of her three daughters who are all unmarried and in their thirties. It's not only in Canada that people don't get married anymore... We were fed like Kings! She started with fish fritters and fried mashed beans. Then we were served a generous salad with beef fritters. The main course was chicken yassa (an onion and hot pepper sauce but she left out the hot peppers knowing we wouldn't stand them) with rice. We finished it off with some oranges from her garden which are actually green. She even fed our taxi driver M. Diop who was very happy to share the meal. This gave us an occasion to discuss their different cultures since he was Wolof and Moslem and she was Siloh and Catholic. We learn that here they co-exist in harmony with a "live and let live" philosophy. Or as M. Diop would say: "It's cool." The Moslem celebrates the Christian holidays and vice-versa so everybody is off on X-mas and on Ramadan. Nice example to follow... After the meal, we headed to the market were Veronique negotiated a bag of rice for her father and some cola seeds for the rest of the family in his village. The cola is kind of like radishes but stronger. Let's just say we were happy to be giving these threats instead of eating them ourselves. Once we arrived in Fandème, we met with her father who is an eighty something year old man and a sister who lives with him. We were very happy to meet us and to get the rice. After, we visited all the members of the family and handed out the cola. They have a lot of family! We met Henriette who is a local school teacher who is so passionate about her work she made us want to go buy her all sorts of school supplies. A tradition of the generous people of the village is to not let a visitor leave empty handed. So since we visited many houses, we left with a big bag of peanuts (locally grown) and some monkey bread. The later is the inside of the baobab fruit. It dissolves when in contact with saliva or water. So I made juice with my gift by letting it sit in water overnight, putting it though a strainer to remove the seeds and adding sugar. It's not a great taste but it will cause constipation which is not a bag thing when eating in these parts. It's also full of vitamin C and calcium. During our trip, we noticed a bit everywhere some houses half built and empty. We learned that most people can't afford to buy an already built house or have a house built all at once. So they built their house has the money comes in. It can take years before the house is finished. We returned Veronique who was very happy with her day to Thies and returned to the CVD at nightfall. The lights on the cab were not working so the driver had to turn on the high beams on occasion to see what was in front. We were on a big boulevard where people were crossing everywhere. Since there are no street lights and everybody is black, they were not very easy to see. Gaston who was sitting in front is still suffering from post traumatic stress. Note that a taxi that doesn't work properly is pretty usual in these parts. The contrary doesn't exist. The driver of the first cab we used when we got here had to lift the hood when he was stopped and waiting for us in order for the engine to cool down. We were very happy with our day.