Happy New Years!!!

After returning home from the camping trip, myself and the other volunteers decided to go on another day trip to a waterfall closer to the regional capital.  We got a taxi which had 4 seats and we filled it with an 5 persons including the driver.  We headed to the waterfall where we were stopped by the military personnel whom were guarding the dam.  We didn’t know it at the time, but the Chinese had come in previously and built a hydroelectric dam next to the waterfall, which supplies the regional capital and a few other bigger cities with electricity.  We were told we had to pay 10,000 francs each person, so we asked to see the ticket book were the price was written which was only 5,000 for all the other tickets.  We were quite annoyed.  We told him we were volunteers, teachers for various subjects, and he told us he didn’t care and that he had not heard or seen the affects of us here in the country.  That made me even more made so we finally ended up paying the 10,000 francs for each person in the car, our taxi driver even offered to pay it for us, and explained that he was uneducated and didn’t understand.  So once again, for every negative experience you see the positive side of things. 

Waterfall

We finally made it to the entrance of the waterfall and meet some of the Chinese engineers who were back working to fix the dam, they said the water had been stopped and that the waterfall was dry.  That sent me even more over the edge because the guards had not said anything about it.  But we continued on anyway and heard some running water, then stumbled upon this beautiful waterfall.  We were able to walk right to the edge of the waterfall and take pictures.  It was beautiful even with the dam closing off a bunch of the water.

Us sitting on the edge of the waterfall

Looking down from the top of the waterfall

We continued on and saw the plant were the water was actually running through the generators and transferred into electricity, entered the control room, got to see which cities the plant supplied electricity for.  It was really interesting to see such a developed system and structure and compare this to what is available in my village.  We then walked up to the dam which had a large bridge, and 4 different stair cases leading to the water.  We were able to walk right onto the bridge, down to the bottom of the dam, and up on top of the dam too.  It’s feels so wrong to walk into all these areas; the control room, the bridge, out to the edge of the waterfall, because in the States normally all of these areas would be blocked off or someone would be guarding each area.

The hydroelectric plant

The Dam

Then on the way home, we stopped and had tea with the Chinese men, who could not speak, French, English, or Pular, therefore we were communicating via hand movements and pointing to the maps to show where we were from.  Tomorrow I will be heading to the missionaries with Matt, the other volunteer, to celebrate the New Years, therefore I will chat with you all next month.  Happy New Years!!!

At the bottom of the Waterfall

At the top of the Dam

At the top of the waterfall.