Trip to Pikine

Today the group went on a trip to the suburb of Pikine for our International Development course, which I found to be a very rewarding and eye opening experience. This trip was the first time that I had really been outside of the main city of Dakar, other than our trip to Goree island. It was also the first time that any of us rode in one of the buses that we see transporting people around Dakar very often. These buses definitely serve as a principle form of transportation for many people here in Dakar, however I am unsure if people pay for them or not. I always see men and women hoping into the buses without giving anyone money so I think they are either for free or the men and women tip the bus driver an amount after getting off. From my personal observations I think that public transportation is very important here in Dakar because there are so many taxis and buses that I see around the city. Additionally not many of the families have cars so I would assume that whenever they need to get somewhere they use a taxi or the bus. This has been the case with my family as well because my mom picked me up from the WARC at the beginning in a taxi and I am pretty sure that my host brother takes taxis to work whenever necessary. The taxis here are far from as pricey as the ones in New York as you can pretty much get anywhere in the city with 1500-2000 CFA ($3-$4).

Our Bus

After we loaded onto the bus we realized that the bus needed some assistance to start up so I got out and helped 3 other guys push the bus as the bus driver started the engine. We pushed it around the corner and down the street next to the school until the bus was rolling on its own and then I jumped in. I did jump in a little early because I was nervous about waiting too long to do so, but I got another chance to help push it to start when we were on the freeway. That time was much more exhausting because we pushed it a long distance and we were pretty much running the entire time. It was the first time I had done something like that and I appreciated the experience a lot because we see the buses everywhere in Dakar as it is clear that they are an important element of the culture here. Not only not only did I get on the bus, but I actually helped to start it and I found that aspect of participation important. On the highway there was a lot of traffic and as I looked through the back of the bus I saw vendors selling various things as they were walking in the middle of the highway. This was also a first experience for me because it was something I would never see in the United States, especially on a main highway.

Me helping push the bus

The bus stopped on the freeway

The ride to Pikine was about 45min and I initially thought that we would be going to the village, but when we arrived at the suburb of Pikine I realized this was not the case. The purpose of our trip was to conduct interviews with people who lived in various households in Pikine in regards to the areas of economics, environmental studies, health and education; my group focused on the micro-economic situation in Pikine. On arrival it was clear that the economic state of the suburbs is more serious than the most populated region of Dakar by the state of infrastructure in the suburbs. When I arrived in Dakar I was surprised by the fact that many of the large buildings were not finished and I never see or hear construction going on like I do so often in New York. However, here in the suburbs there was not any construction going on and I saw an inordinate amount of buildings and structures being broken down by the residents. All around Pikine the homes seemed to be slowly disintegrating over time as many did not have roofs or entrances. In addition there were very few paved roads and there was a lot of waste water in the streets too.

When we walked in the first house I was sad to see the conditions that the people who lived there had to endure. There was no covering on about half of the house and it had the most standing water from flooding on the inside out of all of the homes that we visited.  I knew before coming to Pikine that those living conditions existed in the world, but I had never seen with my own eyes. Additionally, I felt very uncomfortable with the idea that we just walked in the home of people whom we did not know and who did not know us. At the beginning there were about 12 of us from 3 different groups in the first household, because we had not split up yet, and I felt as though we entered without their permission. Although our professor had spoken with the households prior to our arrival and we were conducting these interviews for our class part of me felt very guilty for being there. I knew that the depth of our connection with these people was limited to the 15 questions we had composed to ask them and this felt uncomfortably impersonal. Each time we would enter a household all of the children and family members would come out to watch and listen, but we could not talk to them because of the language barrier. We had written all of our questions in French and our professor provided us with translators so that they could ask the questions in Wolof. The most we could say to any members of the families were the traditional Wolof greetings and the rest had to be translated. One thing that stayed on my mind was how after we received our responses, went on to the next houses and then returned to our houses in Mermoz and Baobab, the people in Pikine would still be living there is those circumstances. I recognized though that this was the best form of learning because we were able to see firsthand all of the things that were learning about and discussing in our classes. I also noticed that many of the families were happy to know that we were interested in learning about their situations and getting their perspective on these different subject areas which we were studying.

After completing the interviews some of the people in my class said they believe that people in this community were "trying to be western" because children were wearing shirts with Popeye and the American flag. They contrasted the situations of the people in the suburbs of Pikine to those in village who they thought were in no way interested in the "ways of the west" as they were content with the simplicity of life in the village. I though it was an interesting notion, the fact that one could identify the value system of the people here as being in pursuit of the "western way of life" just by their clothes. However, I did not interpret their clothing or lifestyle in the same way. I just thought that the people of Pikine had to make best out of their situations and limited resources as they probably do not have many other options. So if they were given shirts to wear, wherever the shirts came from, they would wear them because it was a piece of clothing that they needed.