Out of Office

My American family came to visit so I took the rest of my vacation days and haven't been online much  at all lately. I'll be back in Senegal (all too) soon and will be post pictures and updates as regularly as the internet connection allows. 

In the mean time here is a photo of the ocean in Praia. It's very much a postcard-come-to-life-type-place, lots of warm waves and tropical fruit. Hope your year is also off to a beautiful start! 

Praia, Cape Verde

St Louis

After my Mid-Service stuff I had a couple free days so I headed up to St Louis for JazzFest, an annual music festival of jazz musicians from around the world. Some of the other Kédougou Volunteers and I got a room at a hostel on the island, right next to the Mairie on this map. (The mainland is on the right and that strip of land on the left is actually a peninsula that goes up and connects to Mauritania.) As an added bonus, Youssou N'Dour (the incredibly, unbelievable popular Senegalese musician-turned-Minister-of-Culture) paid for everyone’s entry into all of the shows, so it wound up being a bit like an African version of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

(Map courtesy of anonali.com)

As the name suggests, St Louis was a major hub of activity during French colonial times. It’s much more developed than Kédougou, and for those of us coming up from the South, everything felt very fancy and tourist-y. The city has a bustling, run-down but somehow distinctly European air about it, maybe kind of like a seldom-used guesthouse in a forgotten corner of Sicily.

In any case, we spent a couple days listening to a lot of really good (and some mediocre/really not very good at all) music, eating real cheese and other delicious foods, and relishing the fact that our hostel was right on the island, so we never had to walk more than a few blocks to get anywhere except the beach (which was littered with dead fish, a dead porpoise, two dolphin carcasses, and the bodies of several enormous rams, so no big loss there). There was a big Peace Corps turnout, so everywhere we went we ran into friends from other regions and stages (training groups), and it was really nice to see people and catch up.In the evenings there were band playing on a large boat parked (docked? moored?) just down the way, so we got to go listen to music and sip cool drinks on the upper decks while the sun went down. It was not a bad deal. 

So, there was all these lovely sunsets and scenery and music and whatnot and the only pictures I took were of us eating big wedges of brie, the wall of a broken-down building, and a few of my stage-mates and I in front of said wall, inexplicably and unintentionally dressed like two very match-y middle-aged couples on vacation. Good times! 

Fête Noël

I spent Christmas in Popenguine, a little beach town just south of Dakar, it was wonderful, and here are a few of the highlights. 

Mbour!

After Dakar we all headed south, stopping along the way to spend a night in Mbour, a little beach town a little ways down the coast from Dakar. (These are the sorts of photos that I post to show people exactly why they should come visit.)

Mural on the campement balcony

View from the balcony

View from the beach

After the beach we celebrated Wilma's birthday by went tasting at Les Liqueurs de Warang, a Hangar One-styleSenegalese distillery started by Belgian family, where they make flavors like ginger-bissap, chocolate-banana cream, baobab, and cashew-fruit.

Wilma, the birthday girl, and Leah

Birthdayapalooza

On August 1st, 2011 I turned 28, Marielle turned 25, Switzerland turned 720, and a good time was had by all. On July 31st, after the SeneGAD meeting, a bunch of us came in to Dakar and got all cleaned up.

I had a little beer to celebrate...

We all went out for fancy pizza and it was delicious. Ben and I shared one that was half "H&M" (merguez sausage and garlic) and half "Hammam" (caramelized onion and goat cheese, no idea how they chose these names), Nic and Ivy split something similar, Sarah ordered a calzone, and Nathaniel opted to slaughter his own pizza.

Afterwards everyone went out for beers, and Marielle came thisclose to pulling off the opening-a-beer-with-another-beer trick. 

Sharing a birthday (and a delicious birthday cake) with Marielle was great because she is awesome, as you can clearly see. 

On August 1st, our actual birthday, we all went out to Ngor Island. It's a tiny island along the northern part of Dakar, and for about a dollar you can take a 3-minute ride out to it in a pirogue, which is exactly what we all did. 

Even though it was overcast, it was warm and the waves we beautiful. Emma enjoyed the view of the coastline, and Kayla, Ivy and I had a nice time strolling around the cliffs. 

It was a good day for fancy fancy coffees. Ben treated Emma and I to cappuccinos and tiramisu, and then a little while later we treated ourselves to beachside Nescafes.

It rained for a little while, but it was hot, so we swam anyway, doing our best to avoid all the plastic bags and bits if junk floating around in the surf. We looked at a bunch of sea urchins and little fish, and after successfully clambering around on all sorts of slippery rocks, I stubbed my toe walking out of the water and wound up making a little bandage out of a piece of my skirt-towel-fabric. Then it was naptime, and then we hopped in a boat back to the mainland.

After showers at the regional house it was time for N'ice Cream, more espresso, and then out for Thai food at the Jardin Thaïlandais, and it was fantastic. Really just amazing. (When we sat down I was saying they should tell the waiters it's my birthday and maybe they would give us a free dessert, and then was so wrapped up in how lovely the food was that I actually completely forgot about it and so was genuinely surprised when there was a candle and singing with my caramelized bananas.)

AND THEN the next day Marielle and I went into town with Kayla and her visiting friends, to check out a giant fabric market, eat more ice cream (I was not such an ice cream person in the US, but lately my love for cold things knows no bounds), and go on the trampolines. 

Kayla and her friend Sabrina decided to reenact the Scar/Mufasa (Mufasa!!) fight scene from The Lion King. 

Obviously, it was a pretty epic few days, and I'm extremely lucky to have such wonderful, fun, photogenic people in my life. And not just in Senegal - when we stopped for internet and I read all the birthday messages I may or may not have teared up a little bit right there in the CyberCafe. Many, many thanks to everyone for being so great ~