Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Tambacounda, Senegal
Senegal is building roads! Beautiful ones with no potholes, funded by the European Union. I guess it pays off to become a HIPC (highly impoverished poor country). We could not help to compare Senegal's infrastructure to the Gambia's. The initial differences between these two countries is staggering, defying the World Bank's logic of ranking the Gambia as wealthier than Senegal with its poverty index. In the Gambia, there is hassle, threats from men in uniform, and electricity that stays off for most of the day. In Senegal, as we drove through a war zone, we drank pure water from the tap, witnessed roads being built, and never experienced a power outage. We even heard of a new law that was recently passed which legalized prostitution, offering women trying to survive in the sex trade a way to get free medical care and regular tests for AIDS and other STDs. Volunteers we spoke to told us to talk with women in the sex trade in Tambacounda, who would reportedly carried identification cards that registered them as legal workers.
Despite all of this forward thinking and great infrastructure, as we pulled into Tambacounda (which we were warned by several people would be hot), I was tired and not the only one in the car about to explode when we drove past the hotel four times in search of its sign. It started to rain, hard, the night that I was writing this and the internet café lost its fabulous DSL connection to the lightning and thunder. Along with two hours work. The rain also prevented us from searching out women to talk to in the city center. Infrastructure or not, this is Africa, and loss is to be expected...
Senegal is building roads! Beautiful ones with no potholes, funded by the European Union. I guess it pays off to become a HIPC (highly impoverished poor country). We could not help to compare Senegal's infrastructure to the Gambia's. The initial differences between these two countries is staggering, defying the World Bank's logic of ranking the Gambia as wealthier than Senegal with its poverty index. In the Gambia, there is hassle, threats from men in uniform, and electricity that stays off for most of the day. In Senegal, as we drove through a war zone, we drank pure water from the tap, witnessed roads being built, and never experienced a power outage. We even heard of a new law that was recently passed which legalized prostitution, offering women trying to survive in the sex trade a way to get free medical care and regular tests for AIDS and other STDs. Volunteers we spoke to told us to talk with women in the sex trade in Tambacounda, who would reportedly carried identification cards that registered them as legal workers.
Despite all of this forward thinking and great infrastructure, as we pulled into Tambacounda (which we were warned by several people would be hot), I was tired and not the only one in the car about to explode when we drove past the hotel four times in search of its sign. It started to rain, hard, the night that I was writing this and the internet café lost its fabulous DSL connection to the lightning and thunder. Along with two hours work. The rain also prevented us from searching out women to talk to in the city center. Infrastructure or not, this is Africa, and loss is to be expected...
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