Tuesday, October 14, 2008

DIAMA Dam

Today’s excursion was to a dam. No seriously. The whole morning was to ride over to a dam and look at it. We walked around at the dam and then rode back the 45 minutes to Saint Louis.

All joking aside I did enjoy the trip. It was nice to be out of the classroom. We only take one class while we are in Saint Louis which suites me well, I refer to intensely study one subject at a time rather than be all over the place with several classes. The course is about the Senegal River valley, looking at different aspects, the people and cultures, history, agriculture around it and, dams.

The Senegal River is also the border between Senegal and Mauritania in many parts, so in crossing the dam, and stepping to the other side we were able to set foot on Mauritanian soil. None of having the foresight to obtain Mauritanian visas we were not making border crossing, but really, there wasn’t much to see beyond the guard point anyway. We did rejoice on our placement of Mauritanian soil though, if just for the idea of it. Once we had reached Mauritania, we turned around and walked back across the dam. You might be wondering how walking back and forth across a dam could take 3 hours, but you have clearly forgotten the African pace of life. 

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