我喜歡中國食物！

Yummy!

I love one of the Chinese restaurants in town. Tonight I went with some friends, and it was delicious once again. My favorite dishes are chow mein and the green beans. The picture I'm posting is actually from January when Hillary visited and we went to Chinese, so this demonstrates to you the many times I've been to eat there!

School Happenings

We had Sports Day and some entertainment to go along with it last month.

Check out one of the videos a colleague put together after the event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcL-wlvPd8Y&feature=player_embedded

Goodbye & Goodbye

I've had to say goodbye to two lovely friends in the past week.

First, Jill continued with her vacation and went to Morocco to do some charity work after Senegal. We had a great time catching up and seeing the sights around Dakar and beyond. She was game for anything, and is the type of person that is consistently upbeat and generous with others. I'll miss her!

Then, Hillary came back to visit me for a week after spending 2 months studying art in Paris. We laughed a lot and enjoyed beach time, chilling, and good talks. Her surf instructor, Aliou, came along on some of our outings. Love both of them!

Controversial

Dakar's controversial African Renaissance statue was opened to the public this past weekend.


Read the following articles if you're interested --

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36158049/ns/world_news-africa/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/2010/01/100129_senegal_statue.shtml

The Beach

I started taking photos of all the odds and ends you can find on a beach in Senegal. The Palmarin beach was a bit trashy, so the photo opportunities were rich. The dead animal in a bag was definitely the freakest.

Also, there was an old ship wreck that sat slightly off the coast. I found it fascinating, and it had my mind buzzing with all the possibilities of why it was there.

Salt & Hyenas

One night while in Palmarin, we took a horse ride out to the salt flats to see hyenas in the wild. They live on a protected nature preserve, and they have a favorite gathering place each day around dusk. Waiting for them involved patience and hushed voices...

Along the way, we stopped and viewed some areas where families harvest salt from pools. A 50 kilogram bag of salt is sold for less than a dollar. A lot of work for little profit. Much of the salt gathered in this region is shipped down to The Gambia for sale.

Tam Tam Jam

A Tam Tam is a type of drum. In one hand, you hold and play with a stick from a tree. The other hand is free to bang on the drum. You alternate rhythms by using your hand and the stick on the top of the tam tam.

One afternoon, we decided to take tam tam lessons. Directions in hand, we headed out to the third (or was it the second?) village in Palmarin to meet up with our Tam Tam instructors by the Catholic church. Turns out, a Peace Corps volunteer that Steve knows from Dakar was with the guys because he is stationed in Palmarin. We all jammed and had a good time. I'm not going to lie, we rocked the tam tam in a serious way!

A Near Perfect Dinner

Ingredients for A Near Perfect Dinner:

• nondescript blue and white building (aka a restaurant)
• t.v. playing Latino or Senegalese soap operas
• plastic chairs and table
• ridiculously small kitchen
  
• room temperature Gazelles
• yassa poulet
• broken rice
  
• no electricity on the second night
• candle light
• locals drinking palm wine
  

Oh man! We had the best dinner out at the local (and I believe only) restaurant in Palmarin. The building was dingy, the t.v. was behind a metal grating and constantly played soaps, but you could tell this was the place to be SEEN in Palmarin. We were pretty much celebrities being the only tourists in the room, and everyone was super friendly. This was the sort of place frequented by locals, and it was pretty cool because most people around Palmarin spoke some English because of the close proximity to The Gambia (where English is spoken opposed to French).

To sum it up, it was one of the best meals I've ever had. We loved it so much we went back the next night, but due to my broken French, we ate fish that time instead of the more beloved chicken. Still delicious though!

Island School

Definite highlight here...

We got to visit and stay for 10 - 15 minutes in the village school. It consisted of a smaller building divided into two rooms. The room I spent my time in was filled with elementary students - the oldest was 9 years old. There were about 24 students in this room. The other room had maybe 10 students that were middle school aged. The younger students were studying the numbers 1 - 12, writing as well as speaking them. They were also learning to write the letter 'e.' Obviously, there were some other studies mapped out on the board, but the lesson we observed concerned the numbers and letters. The headmaster had a leather strip that coiled up into a circle, and when the students misbehaved, he marched over to their area and forcefully slapped an end of the coil on their desk. I've never seen students quiet down so quickly. The burning question on my mind? Where can I get one of those leather coils for my classroom???!!!

Island Living

We also visited a traditional island village on our pirogue tour. Children followed us all over during our walking tour of the village, asking for a cadeaux (a gift)!

A Muddy Job

At one point on the pirogue tour, we pulled up to a wet 'sand bar' to witness some families digging through mud, collecting small clams to eat and sell. We joined right in, digging away and collecting our own pile of mollusks (okay, I honestly only contributed two to the bucket). It was dirty work, and there was a girl as young as 4 1/2 digging and collecting as well. The most amazing part were the conditions... all of us promptly sank into the mud as soon as we stepped off the boat. I went down a bit more than the others and had to be rescued as I tried to pull myself out of sucking mud that was knee deep! Anyway, the work is hard and the ladies and kids were all smiling and seemed to be having a good enough time. Unbelievable to me how easy my life is. I wanted to clean the kids up and take them away from such back breaking work.

Winding Through the Mangroves by Pirogue

We rented a pirogue for a day to explore the mangroves.