and on your left…

My parents’ action-packed two weeks in Senegal:

They arrive in Dakar at 6:30am. After a brief stop at my homestay’s house for breakfast, we head to Ile de Goree for what is definitely the best way to experience Dakar:

The next day we went up to St-Louis, where we stayed/ate at a fantastic hotel/restaurant on the island and took a day trip to the Djoudj bird park. There we took a boat ride to see a massive pelican colony. It was kinda like being in the middle of a personal screening of Winged Migration:

We also wandered around St-Louis itself, a very chill, beautiful in a crumbling colonial kind of way city. The main attractions involved boats and, as always, livestock:

After fully appreciating the amazing food and beautiful scenery, we rented out a sept-place and practically flew down to Tamba, which features, um… food and scenery. We went to the market and bought fabric:

We then took a taxi out to my village, where my parents were happy to see the village and the village was happy to see my parents. On our second day there we had a big village meal (a goat, kilos upon kilos of rice, a metric ton of beignets) for a small village party:

The celebratory slaughter continued back in Tamba, where Josh and Glen slaughtered and butchered Brutus the pig for Christmas dinner:

Brutus ended up being very tasty, as was all the food that day:

We also got the visiting family members to dress up in their Senegalese finery and take pictures:

The next day the families and some volunteers went to Niokolo Koba to see the sights (lots of monkeys, one lone warthog, and distant lumps that the guide insisted were hippos):

All in all it was a great visit. It was exhausting to be chaperone/tour guide for two people for two weeks straight, but much easier than I had worried it might be. No major mishaps (Well, except for when the sept-place back to Dakar hit a woman who was crossing the road—she went flying into an Alham but then miraculously got up and started walking around looking for a lost earring. We took her to a nearby hospital, where the driver paid for her visit with the doctor, who declared it “pas de probleme” and gave her a prescription for ibuprofen.), lots of exciting sights and exciting food… good times. I would ask who’s up next, but I already know—Leslie comes to Dakar next Tuesday : )

Happy New Year, everybody.