The 140 young Spaniards, aged between 16 and 18, who took part in the annual expedition of the Spain Rumbo al Sur (ERS) cooperation program in Senegal last July enjoyed an unconventional life, far from the comforts of the West. Even without cell phones. It’s what you were looking for. They toured the country for a little over a week. But everything changed on July 27 when the Senegalese government jailed key opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, whose party was later banned.
Subsequent uprisings, which resulted in two deaths, hastened the return of the expedition members. Or the intention to return because it was not immediately possible. “When we got to the beach, things got complicated,” explains Javier Pérez, one of the members of the group who had to be taken on domestic flights to the pilgrims’ pavilion in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) at Dakar Airport. “When we saw eight soldiers enter, accompanied by the Spanish consul, we were quite impressed and realized that it was no small matter,” he says. After three days of waiting, everyone was able to fly to Madrid in different groups.
But during the days in Senegal they were not afraid. “We never felt a sense of danger,” says Pérez, 17, who graduated from high school this year and plays for youth team Hércules CF, Alicante’s soccer team. The organization had warned them that there had been unrest in the Central African country in June, but everything seemed to have calmed down. This is confirmed by Telmo de la Quadra-Salcedo, nephew of the legendary Miguel and head of the ERS program. “We decided to go knowing we were traveling to a hot zone,” close to countries like Mali or Niger, he explains, “and that the June riots were not an ethnic or religious conflict let alone an armed conflict.” one, had been mitigated. However, when they reached the Casamanza region, “a green space near the Guineas and with a huge bridge to The Gambia,” popular rebellion against the government intensified. “We were unlucky that Sonko’s arrest caught us,” and that they were also near the hometown of the arrested opponent.
Convoy from Spain heading south blocked by the barricades on the road between Cap Skirring and Ziguinchor due to the political conflict in Senegal. Jose Luis Cuesta
“We were riding the bus and we saw that there were tree barricades on the road,” Pérez recalls, “and we had to turn back so they didn’t block us with another one from behind.” “You have all the roads and the capital of the region, Ziguinchor, locked,” says De la Quadra. “We left at four in the morning to avoid trouble, and some Piarist nuns lodged us in a convent.” The only way to evacuate the expedition members “was by plane,” “and it took us three days to to bring them all to Dakar.” “They told us that during one of the training workshops, the situation had become more complicated,” says the young man from Alicante, “and we all felt a lot of sadness, more than fear, because we were on a spectacular beach were locked up and we had to come back early. It remained to round off the adventure with a visit to The Gambia and another to the island of Gorea.
“We collected our backpacks,” continues Pérez, “and waited for three days at a very small airport for the flights to Dakar.” The student was one of the first to arrive in the Senegalese capital and one of the last to leave could go to Madrid. With the mediation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the army, the Spanish consul and the program’s sponsor, Mutua Madrileña insurance, the local authorities accommodated the expedition members in the pavilion reserved for the pilgrims to Mecca. “They gave us water and one day they gave us half a hamburger to eat, which tasted like heaven to us,” Pérez jokes after eating rice or military rations every day. A health team controlled intestinal diarrhea, the group members’ main medical problem. “Those who had mats slept on them. If not, you put your head on the sack,” says Pérez. Between August 3 and 4, they all made the four-hour flight between Senegal and Spain. Pérez entered the country “around four in the morning” and witnessed the reunion of his Madrid companions with their parents, with whom they had no contact throughout the trip. He took the first AVE to Alicante and by nine o’clock he was already hugging his family. “They were very intense days,” he sums up.
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“Military Lessons”
“It was a unique experience that changed my way of thinking,” admits the young man, who convinced his 15-year-old sister Marta to sign up for the 2024 edition of the ERS. After passing the selection process, he spent four days in Cerro Muriano (Córdoba) in late June, where they received “military education and training courses” that “prepare physically and mentally for the journey.” There they were already sleeping on a soccer field. “We didn’t touch a bed during the entire expedition,” he says. They went to missions where they donated computers and soccer balls. They cleaned beaches, cleared a school campus and went on “a 20-mile hike through a tropical forest.” And they were steeped in Senegalese culture. “One day it flooded us and we used it to shower because the water was scarce,” he says, “actually three or four of us hugged and showered with water from a single bucket.” And instead of cellphones, they all wrote down their experiences into a notebook. Parents were promptly informed via the ERS website, where they could access daily podcasts as well as photos and videos from the expedition.
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