Les Retrouvailles

One Tuesday I get a surprise message on Facebook from my French host mom Blandine: “Hi Shane, are you still working in Senegal? We leave on Friday for a week-long vacation in Saly, 80 km from Dakar with Flore and Sixtine. It would be great if we could see each other!” This is the family I lived with in 2008 when I first went to France! While I wasn’t going to be able to take a whole week off, I was able to arrange a couple of days free, so I quickly booked a room at the same resort as them, which happened to be the same one I stayed at for the conference the first week I was in Senegal!  

I took a taxi down on Saturday and met them poolside. It was go great to see them after so many years! I saw Yves, Blandine, and Sixtine when I passed through Lyon 5 years ago, but Flore wasn’t home when I was there, so I hadn’t seen her in about 9 years. When I got there they were just finishing lunch, so we lounged poolside for a few hours before heading out on a short excursion to the fish market not far from Saly.

We took a horse-cart out to the market and saw all the different types of fish. There were a ton of people around because a few of the large, deep-sea fishing pirogues that go out for a month at a time had come in that day. There were fish and people everywhere! Some of the fish were in containers, but some of the big ones were just sitting on the ground with a bunch of other fish. One type that really stood out to me were the very large sea-snails… mostly because they were just on the beach and obviously still alive and pulsating. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten one of those, and I’m not sure I’d be very interested… I guess it’s all in how it’s prepared?

We stopped in the area where they build the large pirogues and learned a little about how they’re made. It takes about a month to make a large pirogue, but only if all the supplies are available, which is rare, so most of the time it takes 3-6 months. We asked about how someone gets enough money to buy one/get one made and whether or not people take out loans to finance the building of a large pirogue. Loans are not really a part of their culture, so that’s not an option.

The money has to be saved up, and the people who end up buying boats are those who have worked on someone else’s boat long enough to have the money saved up, say, about 25 years or so. Family patriarchs will eventually save enough money to pay for their own boat, on which their male family members will work. If well taken care of, the boat can be used by the family for a few generations until enough money is earned by the son/grandson to buy the next pirogue. It was super interesting to learn about how the fishing industry works in that area.

The next day we went to Joal-Fadiouth, which is an island not too far from Saly that is made completely out of shells. We decided to go out there for Sunday morning Mass, since the population of the island is predominantly Catholic. It actually has the opposite percentages compared to the whole of Senegal, which is 95% Muslim and 5% Christian. The island’s population is 5% Muslim and 95% Christian, and is the most known for their cemetery, which is an entire island itself, connected to the large island by a beautiful wooden bridge.

When the tide is low, you can reach both islands by just walking across the sand that is usually covered with a couple of feet of water. The guide told us that at the lowest tide, the boys play their soccer games on the exposed land, but the games can only last a short amount of time before the tide starts rising again.

We started out our visit of the island by going to Mass, then visited various areas of the island. There are a ton of pigs running around, as well as chickens, donkeys and horses in makeshift shelters. We walked around the island, then over to the cemetery to see all the graves, which were mostly Christian. There was a small Muslim section of the cemetery, but it was only a very small corner. After we visited the island, we stopped and had lunch (fish of course) at a nice spot on the water.

Our next stop was just a quick one to see the open-air fish smoking area, which was huge. Probably a few acres of huge troughs or raised platformsfull of fish being smoked. The fires were located underneath the troughs, and were fed whatever trash they could find to burn. When we got out of the car, the smell was overwhelming, what with the trash in piles all around, plus what was burning, and the smell of the fish… we didn’t stay very long, but it was interesting to see how they cook/smoke the fish that then gets packaged up and sent all over West Africa. I think that experience made Flore and Sixtine decide to never eat packaged fish from Senegal…

The rest of that day was spent poolside, but the next day we took a trip out to the Somone Delta where we did a boat tour of the delta. We saw a good amount of pelicans, as well as people fishing, as we floated around the shallow delta in our little boat. The mangroves there are the same as those I saw while in Martinique, as they’re trees that grow in the mixed salt/fresh water of the delta.

At one point the water wasn’t deep enough, so we actually got out and walked around in about a foot of water. We were able to get close to some birds, and see a sacred, mini-baobab up close. We stopped for drinks at a Rastafarian place at the end of our little boat tour, and the owner/server wanted Flore to be his 3^rd  wife… technically he’s allowed to have four, so he wants at least one of them to be a Toubab. Not sure that explanation was working in his favor, ha ha!

Shhhh.... the rhino is sleeeeeping

Our last day together was spent seeing the animals out at the Bandia Reserve. I had just been there with Angela, but you can’t get too much of rhinos and giraffes, can you?? When we saw the rhinos this time, they were sleeping, so that was cute!! We also tasted Warang liqueur, which is locally made from Bissap (hibiscus), ginger, or another local fruit. I ended up getting some Bissap liqueur, and then my taxi driver was waiting for me to continue on to Dakar while the Emerys were going to head back to Saly. It was amazing to get to spend a few days with them, catching up! I hope it’s not another 5 years before I see them again.