By Ian Jablonsky

It was very hot in Niognani, Kecouta’s village.  It felt like the hottest I have ever been.  It was an uncomfortable heat.  When we were running around playing with the kids I immediately started sweating and immediately ran out of breath and needed water right away.  At night, it felt great sleeping outside.  It was in the 60s but by 2 PM, when you are actually doing things, it got really, really hot.

Kecouta did a lot of things for us to make the heat better.  He gave us a bucket full of ice to keep our water bottles cool and to make the big water bottles colder.  He gave us frozen drinks – bissap, bouye (baobab fruit), and coconut.  I loved them so much because it felt so good to have a refreshing drink.  At home, I always have a juice or something when it’s hot so it was really comforting in the heat to have one of the frozen drinks.  The frozen drinks are served in plastic bags and you bite the side to eat/drink the delicious contents.

Kecouta had also built a big shade structure.  It allowed us to do a lot of things without the heat of the sun coming to our faces.  It was made out of thatch, leaves, and branches.  People have been making those for a long time and we learned that when they moved people out of the park, shade was the first thing they built.  I could see why!

The first day we got to play soccer was extremely hot.  11 v 11, CCS Team against Village Team. After a long hour of us playing, CCS Team took a loss. After the game was over the village kids cheered for us and the other team. We held hands and walked back to the Kecouta’s House. Seeing the smile on the kids’ faces and happiness of them winning, I knew what they were thinking just because of their emotion. This experience was life-changing for me and hopefully others because I have never seen young kids like them so talented and passionate about soccer.  But we played too early in the day.

It was extremely hot on the soccer field.  All of us kept needing to take breaks because we were overheating.  It felt like we were instantly dehydrated.  We learned to play later.  The second time we played as the sun was going down.  We did need some water but it was much better.  The dust was the bigger issue – I had to put my shirt over my nose.

I wore the same shirt on safari.  Driving through the national park, I rode on the top of the van.  Cece and her friends rode in the back of the pickup truck.  Every time we stopped, dust came flying up.  It wasn’t as bad on the van but Cece and her friends looked totally different covered in the dust.  It was just hot on top of the van but I felt like I could understand how people had to live here. My CCS shirt will probably never look the same…

The people of Kecouta’s village have learned to adapt to the heat in general.  For us, adapting means going into A/C.  Here, it means real skills.  It means making things like the shade and the frozen drinks and ice (all made by people).  The people here are more connected to their natural world.  They’re more hard working to thrive and make sure they’re comfortable.  It really made me appreciate that.

In the end, it’s not how hot it is.  It’s what you do to deal with the heat.  The Senegalese people taught me how strong we can be.