Our Fruit Guy and a trip to the beach!

Bonjour amis et famille!

We hope this post finds you doing well!  This week, we have finally gotten some rain.  Unfortunately, the streets of Dakar are not well equipped for drainage, so when it does rain, there tends to be some flooding.  It does make for an adventurous walk to school as the roads near our house flood a bit, so you have to strategically choose which sidewalk on which side of the street carefully or you may find yourself with no way to go but in deep water!  This is a funny post that has been going around on FB around here from a local restaurant called Willy's:


Now, some places in Dakar do flood like this most times when it rains, but not really near where we live.  I had to be at school early Friday morning for a staff meeting and had to run there in the rain.  I was pretty wet when I arrived, but dried pretty quickly once I got into my air conditioned classroom.

Let me introduce you to Soh, our local fruit vendor.  We met him a few days after we arrived.  He is from Guinea.  He walks around our neighborhood selling fruit from his cart.  He is often waiting outside the DA gate as we leave, especially on the days we tell him we will buy fruit from him.  This is where the relationship part of the Senegalese culture comes in.  In his eyes, he is our fruit guy.  If we buy fruit from anyone else around, we have to make sure he doesn't see us or our relationship with him will be fractured.  He charges a bit more than the local grocery stores, but the slightly higher price we pay is worth the relationship we have with him.  We always greet him and he always gives Sam a hug and calls him "Le Petit" or little one in French.  He had mangos, bananas, clementines, and apples.  We are sad to see mango season end (they were so good).  When we buy fruit from him, he always puts in a few extras after we pay him, and even if we see him and do not buy fruit, he always gives the kids a banana or clementine for the walk home.


We finally made it to the beach!  We didn't have the adventure of taking a taxi because we went with some friends who could drive.  Since Dakar is a peninsula, there are many beaches here to choose from.  Some are public and free, but usually have lots of trash and are crowded.  Some are privately owned by hotels, which are clean and not as crowded, but expensive to access.  We chose the in-between option near our house called Bel Air beach.  It is right beside Dakar's main port, so driving to it definitely does not feel like you are going to the beach, but rather to an industrial section of town.  It definitely was different than NC beaches, but we had a great time and great weather!

Coconut trees on the beach provided us a shady spot.

Daisy & Reid playing on the volcanic rock on the beach

We found lots of these crabs along where the waves washed up, even managed to catch one!

Here is a quick update on each of us:

Lindsay: Continuing to organize student health records and care for student health needs.  She is building great relationships with many of the student as she cares for them., especially the teenage girls  Her 9th grade health class will begin a group project on human anatomy.

Daisy: Really enjoying her French class! She has her first soccer game this week.

Reid: Loves playing after school with his friends, looking for chameleons.  Basketball practice Monday & Thursday.

Sam: Also loves playing with friends after school and hates to leave!  He and Reid practice French together (mostly counting and greetings)

Tim: Still working on French, coaching with Reid in Jr. basketball, helping with middle school youth group on Thursday evenings, enjoying teaching math.


We are definitely reaching that point after being here a month that we really miss seeing and talking with you.  We have made great friends here, but find ourselves missing the familiarity of home.  Anytime we are able to connect with friends and family is special for us, whether through email, Facetime, Facebook messenger, What's App, texts, especially if you have an iphone.  imessage works great and is free for us.

We love and miss you all!

-The Mussers







Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 13, 2018 at 11:26 AM

    Was it weird seeing the Atlantic from the other side? What are, if any, the differences in beaches between NC and Senegal?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tim MusserSeptember 16, 2018 at 12:29 AM

      much more trash on the beach, driving through an industrial access to the parking access, coconut trees on the beach. Next week we are going to a much nicer beach for our DA staff retreat.

      Delete

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