We wake up and leave between 6 and 7am and continue our hike to the next village. We first get to Ibel, a village at the foot of the hill that we’re about to climb.
I chat with a boy of around 12 years old. Like half of the guys I’ve seen in Senegal, he wears a football shirt. This time it’s Chelsea. He loves football and knows all the players and the clubs, but when I ask him if he plays too, he says with disappointment that there’s no ball in his village. He has an intelligent look in his eyes and asks more questions than any Senegalese I’ve met. He asks where I’m from, what I do, and how far Holland and China are from his village. When I tell him it’s that far that you have to take a plane for more than 14 hours, he has a blank look in his eyes, as if he has no idea how to process that type of information. I ask him if he likes living in his village and he looks down, shrugging his shoulders. “Nothing happens in his village,” he says. I mention that I have met several people already that have come from villages just like his, have gone to university and have moved all the way to Dakar or even abroad. He nods in agreement. I tell him he really has to do his best in school, because it will greatly enhance his chances of going away. He gives me a look that I’ll never forget, it is a mix of determination, hope, happiness that someone gives him advice he can relate to, and gratitude that there may be a way out.
We walk on and climb the hill, the sun has started rising so it’s gotten hot. As the buckets of sweat increase, so does the beauty of the view.
Every now and then, little boys and old men pass us by, leaping from rock to rock, effortless like mountain goats. Perhaps I should stop smoking.
We take a little break in the shade and have an animated discussion with Alpha and a 15 year old called Abdel Rachman from Ibel, about men and women, and their “rightful positions”. Abdel Rachman’s mother is the second wife of his father. In villages such as Iwol and Ibel, it is pretty common for a man to have several wives (up to four). While each wife and her children have a hut for themselves, the extended family regularly lives on the same compound. Vicious competition and backstabbing among different wives is a well known fact, but rarely talked about with foreigners. The best way to talk about it is indirectly, i.e. when talking about other families and their issues. While Abdel Rachman and Alpha have rather conservative views on the position of women in society, they both say they only want one wife, and perhaps two or three children. Abdel Rachman even says he could just live with his dog if he would have to.
We reach the top of the hill and arrive in Iwol. Cone-shaped straw roofs spread out peacefully among the green of the trees. Smoke from a small fire coming from somewhere in the village, probably for cooking.
Iwol
If Asterix and Obelix had any cousins in Africa, they would have lived in Iwol. There is no electricity or running water in Iwol, and people are clearly not really used to having tourists visit their village. This applies to most villages like Iwol, and it’s a key reason why a local guide that speaks the local language is needed. We had given Alpha extra money, which included fees to enter the village and presents (sweets, coca cola) for the villagers, so that we can walk around and take pictures of people. However, Alpha asks us not to walk around too much within the village yet, as tonight at 7pm we will get an “official village tour” by the village chief. The village chief is also the one who receives the entry fees and who will decide what communal purposes the money is spent for.
Def, Roswitha, Leif and I walk around in the area outside the village. We climb and hang on some big rocks and enjoy the beautiful view. It’s quite flat, with some hills in the distance. At a first glance, it just looks like pure nature with no trace of mankind. Then when you look closer, batches of little cone-shaped rooftops softly emerge from the landscape. It’s funny to think that a thousand years ago, the view from this same rock, including all the little villages, will have looked exactly the same. Now that more and more villages are starting to get electricity, I’m curious what the view will look like in 20 years.
I have met several people/westerners that have mentioned that the very first time they visited Africa, from the moment they left the airplane, they felt some special connection with the surroundings, as if it was coming back to a home they had never been. Something in the air, the smell, the feel, the look. I have not heard people say this about any other continent or country. As for myself, I have not felt an instant connection like that with any country that I’ve ever been. In any case, it is interesting and I wonder where that feeling is coming from. Is it a “going back to nature”-thing, a relief from an overly developed western world?
Iwol; notice the shower right next to the tree. who needs running water if you have a little round fence and a bucket of water?
The village chief is called Jean Baptiste. Our huts are part of Jean Baptiste’s home, which is positioned at the highest point of the village. We sit down in a little circle and as the sun sets in the background, Jean Baptiste gives us a full introduction of his village. He talks about the history of the village, going back over 600 years. Unfortunately I don’t get all the details, but I understand enough to hear that Jean Baptiste is a great storyteller. As with any great storyteller, his stories are mythical enough to entice the imagination, and realistic enough to remain credible.
Iwol has exactly 523 inhabitants, who are partly Christian and partly animist.
The village church in Iwol
The village even has a real church; one with a very large cone-shaped straw rooftop. The animist part (i.e. belief in spirits inhabiting all objects around us) comes alive in many of the stories that Jean Baptiste tells us. One story is about the age-old, sacred (former) tree in the middle of the village, of which now only a little burnt stump remains. About 30 years ago, the tree was struck and destroyed by lightning. Since then, several people have tried to remove the stump, with each attempt failing miserably. At two or three occasions, the tree started screaming loudly; when Jean Baptiste attempted to tear it down 15 years ago, his father got seriously ill for two weeks. Now, the remains of the sacred tree, and the spirits living within, are left in peace.
Jean Baptiste’s father was Iwol village chief before him; his son, who is now studying mechanics in Dakar, will be village chief after him. There are four families in the village, the Keita, the Camara, and two others. Each family has their traditional roles to play in the village. Jean Baptiste’s family provides the village chiefs, the Camara organize the village events, and others provide the doctors, teachers, and priests.
Alpha explains that in general, in villages like Iwol, the village will vote for a new village chief in case a village chief does not have a son. When asked if everyone can vote, the answer is yes, everyone can vote. When asked whether that includes women, the answer is no, only the men. We talk about next year’s national elections and like Marcel Camara from Bandafassi, Jean Baptiste gives a skeptical smile. “It would make more sense for us to participate in elections of a European government, than for us to vote for a Senegalese one.”
Nevertheless, lots of people vote in Iwol, and for the last elections, the wife of current President Wade actually visited Iwol to give a speech and hand out presents and food. Any “modern improvements” to the village do seem to be undertaken solely by Europeans and Americans.
Jean Bernard digging the weeds, in front of the hut where Leif and I are staying
This year is the first year that Jean Baptiste is allowing tourists to come visit the village, providing an extra source of income. There’s a solar panel in Iwol that has been supplied and connected by Spanish individuals, providing for a tiny bit of electricity.
In the meantime, it has gotten completely dark and we sit around a little candle that we have to light up again every so often as the wind has just blown it out. As it has also started to rain heavily, the “official village tour” is canceled unfortunately. Dev, Roswitha, Leif and I have dinner and Jean Baptiste’s wife serves us a typical Iwol dish that has been passed on from generation to generation: spaghetti. I’m not sure whether they gave us spaghetti because Dev and Leif are vegetarians and they wanted to feed us something special as a replacement for meat or fish, or whether they just think that all tourists like spaghetti…
Later that evening, we sit and chat with the four of us, and discuss the next day. Partly because the next day would mostly consist of walking back the same way, only passing by one other village, and partly because some of us have gotten rather fed up with Alpha’s “services”, we decide to relieve Alpha from his duties a day earlier than initially planned and to each go our own way the next day. Dev and Roswitha will stay in Iwol for another day, Leif will go back to Dakar, and I will travel on to Mali. We drink the gin and tonics that we had brought along from Kedougou and go to sleep in a cool and rainy night.
Huihan in West Africa 