Goodbye Paradise

December 28, 2005

Today we are leaving our oasis at St Louis. We had a very relaxing time and now we are moving to another beach south of Dakar. We have a long car ride before we get there. It was hard to vacate our tranquil little bungalow by the ocean, but we needed to move on.

I bought a Djembe from a fellow named Mamdou. I sat with him each day on the beach and played. He taught me rhythms and I did my best to keep up. Not bad considering he speaks little English and I speak little French. After two days my hands were killing me. After five days I could barely hold a cocktail so I decided to take a break.

Mamadou runs a little shop on the beach. There are three other fellows that work their shops as well. Every day they bugged us to buy stuff. Every day I told them no. You would think that after two or three days they would get the hint and leave me alone, but that is not the West African way. By our last day I did not even want to go to the beach because I didn’t want to be accosted.

The waves were tremendous. The ocean was green and refreshing. We played in the sand and the surf every day. When we arrived, Zachary wanted nothing to do with the water; by the time we left we had to drag him out. It is a beautiful thing to awaken to the sound of the surf. I could easily while away my days staring at the sea.
We spent a day at a park called Djoudj. It is a bird sanctuary. After paying the cab driver, the park fees, and boat fees, we had only to verify our citizenship before embarking on a pirogue ride on the lake. We saw cormorants, ducks, herons, egrets, crocodiles, monitor lizards, monkeys, and a huge pelican rookery. Of course the tour was completely in French so we understood nothing, but the dialogue we made up was quite entertaining.







Yesterday we took a tour of St Louis via horse cart. The town rests mostly on an island in the Senegal River. It is a French colonial town and as such it looks like a dilapidated version of the French Quarter. I quickly learned that, even if one was born in Missoura, they are not allowed to call it Saint Lewis (it is San Louee!). In its prime it must have been quite the spectacle. Now the buildings are crumbling and much of the luster has been lost. We found some cool bars and wandered the streets, dodging vendors and admiring the beauty of the citizens. The town’s big claim to fame today is its annual jazz festival in May.


















It is also home to a huge fishing industry. The pirogues leave every evening and return every morning with truckloads of fish. This is sorted, iced, smoked, dried, and loaded into trucks right there in the street. At this time of day it’s next to impossible to get through this area with all of the activity. At any time, the smell is unbearable. The loaded trucks head in all directions, delivering the catch to every nook and cranny of Senegal.
We will spend New Years at the beach in Toubab Dialao. Afterwards we spend two nights on the Ile De Goree. This was the major export point for the slave trade, as well as the location of the cliffs for the movie “The Guns of Navarone”. It should be quite fascinating, although I imagine it will also be somewhat overwhelming.
MJR