beach adventures

while i've been waiting for the necessary meetings and people to start my tour of senegal and disability work, i decided to take this weekend to explore somewhere new and have an adventure and what better place to do that then the beach! i found a spot close to dakar on the coast and found some transport to a village called toubab diallo. the beach was beautiful, even though it was a pretty big touristy place and i was able to find a cheap room for the night. it was so nice to be on the coast, but i got a bit annoyed by the pestering of locals "come visit this gallery" or "come listen to our music" translation: come buy our stuff. so i stayed for the night, but then i decided it was time to move on and i started to walk south along the beach where i knew there would be more villages and hopefully some off the tourist map. i started walking on the beach, and it wasn't long before i came upon another hotel, but pretty isolated. i passed the hotel, and it wasn't long before i heard a group of women calling to me in wolof to come over to the shade and rest because it was too hot (which it was). i went over to the women, and they told me to "nopuluku" (rest) for a bit. they were very nice and i agreed. the women made beaded jewelry and sold it on the beach to the people in the hotel next door. we talked for a while and i had lunch with them (first time i officially ate with my hands!!) and i was so relieved because they didnt ask me to buy anything. (trust me that's rare) so i felt much more comfortable with them. here's a picture of a few of them walking down the beach to sell some of their work.

not only did i spend the day with them but they invited me to come stay in their village, which i was pretty happy about because i was hoping to find a way to avoid the hotel scene. after that i became another part of their group and spent 2 days out on the beach with them. the second day, we went out on some of the big rocks in the ocean to pull oysters off for dinner. that was pretty fun, even though the water was freezing. when i ate the oysters later though, it was just a little extra crunchy with the sand-- can't get more fresh than that! overall though i had a really nice time with them and they were very laid back and easy to get along with. my time there really made me want to find a way to live on the coast, i could get used to beach life! the picture below is of a group of kids out on a pirogue who i guess were helping with the fishing (there were men on the shore pulling in nets) i had more pictures but the internet has been disappointing and it won't let me upload more right now.

now im back in dakar, trying to get things rolling with disabilities, but it's more of a challenge than i anticipated. i'll have more to update soon though!