100% Tourist

This weekend I was a true tourist. This started out by being scammed for money. When I tell the story it’s so obvious I was conned but what can I say, I’m a very gullible person. A seemingly decent guy approached me, we started a conversation, which led to him wanting me to send him a post card from Alaska…. all right innocent enough. Then he “randomly” ran into his friend who recognized me from Parcelle, though I couldn’t place him. With enthusiasm he explained to me that he was heading to the hospital because his wife just had a baby girl. He explained how it’s tradition to give a gift to the first foreigner he meets to ensure good fortune. At first I declined but then I totally fell for his detailed explanation and my role to accept this pendant on behave of the good fortune of his new enfant. After accepting, I was explained that for the baptism everyone gives a gift in return. I was late, he was in a hurry, and I ended up giving him four dollars because I didn’t have time buy food to give. I even gave him a heart felt “Félicitations.” Once we parted and after five minutes of reflection, I realized I was totally a sucker and completely scammed. You live, you learn.

As for the rest of my tourist experience… I travelled with four other girls to Toubab Diallo, a small town 40 km south of Dakar. We stayed in a hotel, maybe it was more like villa, which was right on the quiet coast. This place was ideal for a young adult crowd and offered different courses. I went to the African dance class and picked up a few moves, but came nowhere near to perfecting them with the natural energy and grace that the African dancers do. Saturday night there was a concert of dancing, singing and drumming… the dancers were amazing. I’m going to practice the moves every night so Mary and Roomy- be ready for some dance parties- African style when I get backJ. I woke up Sunday morning and went running along the coast and had a chorus of kids cheering Toubab (meaning whitely in Wolof) with grand enthusiasm and arms in the air as I passed by. I also went for my first swim in the ocean and back floated on the waves (I thought of you Grandma). When I made it back to the hotel I went down to the kitchen and got a bucket of hot water for the shower. It really was a divine moment to bath myself in warmth. Usually I take a shower in turbo speed, while kind of dancing around to stay warm.

I visited my first wild reserve! We drove around the Réserve Bandia, where I saw monkeys, boars, giraffes and many different types of antelope (okay I don’t know if they were all antelope, but large mammal animals). Some of these animals are natural to Senegal and others were imported from South Africa. We asked all the tourist questions that the guide had probably answered thousands of times before, though I do believe Dorothée did ask an especially unique question with: “Les antelopes, ils courent avec leurs pattes? (translation = do the antelopes run with their legs?)” The guide was laughing with us as we gave her a hard time suggesting that the antelope probably run on their heads. During the tour you can rest assure that we did break out in song as we recited all we could remember from the Lion King.

We came across a large Baobab tree that has the remnants of some skeletons resting inside the tree. The guide explained to us that this is where the Griots are buried. Griots are the keepers of the oral tradition. Every family has a griot that knows the history of their ancestry for hundreds of years except for members of the Diola tribe. I found this so intriguing and would love to sit down and listen to a Griot tell all the stories of a family history. These people are buried in the heart of the Baobab trees and not in the ground because they never work the earth. Senghor, the previous president, outlawed this practice because he viewed it disrespectful that these people could not be buried amongst everyone else. Since this time Senegal has been experiencing a drought, which follows the ancient belief that if griots were buried in the earth, water would not fall from the sky. The guide left us to question to whether this was mere coincidence or something more.

During our crammed taxi ride home, which took us 1.5 hours to go less than 25 miles due to traffic, dirt roads and constant speed bumps, we kept our minds off the pain of our rear-ends falling asleep by sharing funny/embarrassing stories. We had a few winner stories. One was the story I told of Andrea loosing a misplacing a pop-tart while on an airplane and only while walking down the aisle to go to the bathroom did we find it because the frosting had melting and cemented the pop tart to her rear-end… I can’t even type this without laughing. The other winner was a compilation of all the moments Sarah experienced of flying objects hitting her head. I felt very fortunate to have found some travelling buddies that I can genuinely laugh with.

Definitely this was a quality weekend. I had several moments where I was just amazed by my surroundings and where God has taken me on this adventure. I hope all of you are celebrating this day dedicated to love back in the U.S. God Bless!