Sunday, May 22, 2011

Descente du fleuve en pirogue!

It's about time for a good post, huh? We have been so busy lately that we haven't had much down time... and what free time we do have we've spent working on our papers that are due on Tuesday. I, happily, have six pages out of the 7-10 it needs to be, so I think I'm doing okay. We had a fun weekend though, here are some of the highlights:

We had our last class at the Cirlac on Friday, so here's everyone in front of it with Aminata Sow Fall, the author of two of the books we've read and one of the co-directors of the program:
The Faidherbe Bridge that connects Saint Louis to the mainland:
On Friday we loitered around the Mosque to see the prayer again (not quite as big as the turnout in Dakar, but still pretty cool). There was this dad with his two sons in matching blue boubous that we thought was adorable.

SATURDAY. We had fun. We first went to this animal reserve place to look at these deer things (I don't know what they're called) and turtles. Miles was obviously pretty excited about being there.
Me and Grace holding some little baby turtles!
Look how scary its face it...
This was a really big mistake-- I really hurt my back trying to lift the giant thing. The guy told me afterwards that it weighs 40 kilos... how many pounds is that?
Voila the animal that they are trying to preserve
A pink lake! I know there's an explanation as to why it's pink, but I don't know it
So the langue de Barbarie is like this little strip of land in between the ocean and the river. We floated down the river, not the ocean.
My favorite french verb: se ballader :)
Prof. Lee
Me and Chelsey
Purple crabs! Different from the yellow ones that we saw the other day
Waiting patiently to get on the canoe
I somehow always end up with life jackets that are way too big for me...
This was what we saw at the end of our little canoe trip: bird island. There are like hundreds of pelicans and other birds on this little tiny island. Pretty... noisy!
We parked the canoe (no, I obviously don't know the proper boat terminology here), crossed over the langue de barbarie to the other side where we found the ocean! We were too tired and hungry to really play much, but it was pretty and fun and we found tons of cool sea shells that I was working on making necklaces out of this morning with dental floss.
On the way back with our tour guide guy who was telling me about the times he's been bitten or stung by various creatures.
All in all, Saturday was fun. By the time we got home it was like 5:30, and we hadn't eaten all day. Bleh. But somehow we were all beyond hunger, so it wasn't too bad. We went and picked up the dresses that we ordered, and we're all going to wear them to church today, which starts in fifteen minutes so I'd better go get ready! I'll try to put a picture of us in our dresses up later!

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Uh, 40 kilos = 88.185 lbs. Nice. And you're looking so great! Love that bathing suit. :)

Lisa said...

OH, and picture walking toward the Arc de Triomphe or around la Tour Eiffel and seeing random people (one or two here and there) doing those prayers. It was hard at first not to stop and gape.