Life is Hard
December 21, 2005
Last night I watched the sun set on the Atlantic. We marveled at the idea that although we have seen many sun sets, we have never watched it set over the Atlantic. We are in Africa! Sometimes I forget that. It seems so strange still, like a wild dream that could not possibly have come true. I never would have believed that I would end up here.
Yet when I pinch myself, it hurts, so this must be real. We have our own bungalow on the Barbary Coast. There is a beautiful pool, a great staff, and the ocean just footsteps away. We started our day playing in the sand and the surf. I am now sunburned and we both have skid marks where the waves pounded us into the sand and dragged us like rag dolls into the beach. Is there anything better then that?
A fellow approached and convinced me to learn how to play the Djembe. He will give me one hour lessons for the next few days. Ultimately, he wants me to buy a drum, but meanwhile I had a great time this morning banging on the goat skin, watching the waves break behind Carrie and Zman as they danced in the sand. Tomorrow morning I will do it again.
Senegal is much better off than Mali. The villages we saw on the drive here were not of mud and sticks, but concrete and wood. There are still a lot of beggars and vendors and the people are definitely poor, but there is a little more to go around here. There is also more thievery and higher costs, but that is the price of modernity.
Sometime in the next few days we will go to the bird sanctuary. We are in one of the main flight lines for migrating birds. Thousands of different birds winter here. There are flocks of Flamingoes, Pelicans, and song birds, all hanging out a short distance away. We have been told that it is quite spectacular.
We will be here a week in Saint Louis. The town is a French colonial village that was first settled in the late eighteenth century. The city is an island in the Senegal River, just a few short kilometers from its confluence with the ocean. There is a spit of land separating the ocean from the river and we are on the end of that spit. We are away from the village and fairly isolated. It feels safe. The bird noises are crazy and the pulse of the ocean permeates the day. Occasionally, dual prop planes fly low overhead preparing to land. It is still on oddity to hear an airplane and I watch each one as it descends.
Hopefully our plane tickets for the trip home will arrive soon or else we may be stuck here (shucks). I have already forgotten about time. I had to turn on the computer to figure out what day it is. Only four more days until Christmas; the rest of the world is freezing, covered in blankets of snow and I am sunburned and contemplating a swim to cool down. It’s a tough life this ex-pat thing.
MJR
Last night I watched the sun set on the Atlantic. We marveled at the idea that although we have seen many sun sets, we have never watched it set over the Atlantic. We are in Africa! Sometimes I forget that. It seems so strange still, like a wild dream that could not possibly have come true. I never would have believed that I would end up here.
Yet when I pinch myself, it hurts, so this must be real. We have our own bungalow on the Barbary Coast. There is a beautiful pool, a great staff, and the ocean just footsteps away. We started our day playing in the sand and the surf. I am now sunburned and we both have skid marks where the waves pounded us into the sand and dragged us like rag dolls into the beach. Is there anything better then that?
A fellow approached and convinced me to learn how to play the Djembe. He will give me one hour lessons for the next few days. Ultimately, he wants me to buy a drum, but meanwhile I had a great time this morning banging on the goat skin, watching the waves break behind Carrie and Zman as they danced in the sand. Tomorrow morning I will do it again.
Senegal is much better off than Mali. The villages we saw on the drive here were not of mud and sticks, but concrete and wood. There are still a lot of beggars and vendors and the people are definitely poor, but there is a little more to go around here. There is also more thievery and higher costs, but that is the price of modernity.
Sometime in the next few days we will go to the bird sanctuary. We are in one of the main flight lines for migrating birds. Thousands of different birds winter here. There are flocks of Flamingoes, Pelicans, and song birds, all hanging out a short distance away. We have been told that it is quite spectacular.
We will be here a week in Saint Louis. The town is a French colonial village that was first settled in the late eighteenth century. The city is an island in the Senegal River, just a few short kilometers from its confluence with the ocean. There is a spit of land separating the ocean from the river and we are on the end of that spit. We are away from the village and fairly isolated. It feels safe. The bird noises are crazy and the pulse of the ocean permeates the day. Occasionally, dual prop planes fly low overhead preparing to land. It is still on oddity to hear an airplane and I watch each one as it descends.
Hopefully our plane tickets for the trip home will arrive soon or else we may be stuck here (shucks). I have already forgotten about time. I had to turn on the computer to figure out what day it is. Only four more days until Christmas; the rest of the world is freezing, covered in blankets of snow and I am sunburned and contemplating a swim to cool down. It’s a tough life this ex-pat thing.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 1:48 PM
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