Friday was a pretty relaxing day because it was Shannon’s birthday and she wanted to be able to take the day easy. As a result we spent the morning make French toast using some good baguette bread and tasty eggs- with syrup available to put on top. I had a really good time cooking actually, and makes me look forward to getting home to cook tasty things for myself! It was a lovely and lazy morning, and Shannon seemed quite happy to spend her birthday that way. Also, her cat Bullwinkle had three little kittens! It made for a fun birthday surprise (I had said at the beginning of the week that she would have her kittens on Shannon’s bday).
For the afternoon we went to a cool little hotel to have drinks and wander into the water. It was really cool hanging out and wandering into the water- you could wander out so far into the water at the low tide, but as we played more and more aller pecher (go fish!) the closer up the water came. Apparently there is a tide twice a day, so there’s a lot going on in that water.
Around 6pm two of Shannon’s Peace Corps friends came to Foundiougne to help celebrate her birthday. They joined Shannon and Kayleigh and I left the hotel under the pretext of taking showers, but instead we went into town and bought her birthday presents! We picked her up a broom and a teapot- both very quality and important gifts when you live in rural Senegal! Soon enough we went out to dinner at the local Italian restaurant (we had to go a few days ahead of time!) where we got to have a lovely three course meal. It truly was a whole week of good eating- much better than I had expected J
Saturday morning we got up to say goodbye to Shannon’s friends (and stopped to get a great omelet and potato sandwich along the way). We went back to her place, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes to the kittens and walked over to the port. Kayleigh and I decided to go through Mbour this time and take a different route, which involved a ferry to the other side of the river (which ran on time), take a taxi cab (expensive and we only took it bc the bus was broken), then a sept-place over to Mbour, and then a cab to our hotel!
It was a HOT day of travel and we were very happy to show up at a hotel, right on the beach, drop our stuff into a cute little room, and walk right into the ocean. As usual we were ambushed by vendors, but seeing as how I was really truly without money I was able to say ‘no, merci, amuma xaalis’ (no thank you, I don’t have any money). The water was quite full of seaweed, but there were a bunch of pretty shells to collect, and it really capped off the ‘rural visit’ quite well!
In the evening Kayleigh and I had ourselves a very nice dinner. I ordered a great salad that really could have qualified as a first course, but I was more than happy to have my chicken dish in addition (and profiteroles for dessert!). I NEVER thought I would come to Africa and nearly as much (and on occasion as well) as I thought I would.
Sunday morning we went to the beach again, read some more and then packed our stuff up. As much as the very lovely staff encouraged us to stay, we couldn’t, but they did provide us with a free ride to the bus/car station! We grabbed a sept-place in a decent amount of time and found ourselves back in Dakar by around 3pm. A quick trip, and after talking to my friends about their truly rural, HOT, visits, I’m quite happy with the weekend that I got to spend with Shannon and Kayleigh.
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