The Election and Associated Riots

When a developing country comes to a point where the constitution dictates the time has come to have an election all hell breaks loose. This is what happened from January through March of this year in Senegal. The people of Senegal were angry and willing to point fingers in any direction. I will say before I go on that no PCVs were seriously hurt due to the civil unrest. I experienced three events in this time which served as visuals of this unrest. The first was the riot in Kaolack when the late President Abdulaye Wade came for a visit. People were running like crazy throught he streets. The police came and fired gas at them. I got the shot below from the safety of the roof of the Kaolack regional house. When the presidential candidate left things immediately calmed down.

After this event I knew it would be better to stay in the bush, but I didn't. One day I decided to go to the market. I smelled smoke and saw policeman and knew I needed to get out of there. I called our security director and he told me to get back to the house. I followed his instructions almost exactly. I had to take a little peek as I found a taxi. It turns out either by "electrical failure" or malintent the front 1/3 of the market had been burnt down. This was a major blow to the cities economy. My favorite seed store happened to be in this area. Lucky for me they were able to relocate.

The last experience I had with the riots before I literally stayed in village only until it was over was a bad one. We were driving down the road one morning on the way to the market to get some veggies. A group of outraged teens started throwing bricks into the road just ahead of us while others started rollingin tires. This is what they use to start fires. Our cab hit it in reverse and we got out of there. Unfortunately on the next road was yet another fire. We turned down a third street and were almost back to our house when another driver waved to us. He told our driver there was another fire just ahead. We turned and took yet another street before finally getting back to our house. It was scary and I can't say I have ever experienced anything like it.

When it's all said and done, the good guy won, the old guy accepted it, and the country calmed down. I am now safe to travel, go to the market, and live the way I had the previous 15 months.