Le Dimanche//Sunday
I spent the entire at the beach in Yoff. This is a very long beach lined with little "cas" or cabanas for rent. The beach break here is supposed to just get better as the sand bar builds, and the water is nice and will get even warmer
In the morning the wind was offshore and I had fun surfing. This is a good place to learn to surf (Louise, Liz Carolyn we can rent boards for you if you like!)
As the day progressed more and more people came to the beach. Loads of guys come to play football//soccer. By 6pm there were thousands of people on the beach.
Footballers, runners, people doing push ups, wrestling matches, galloping horses (crazy), people bathing horses, guys doing handsprings and back flips on the sand, dogs, kids, a mass evangelical baptism, drum circles, people making thé a la menthe//mint tea over little charcoal stoves, boom boxes, drum circles. Walking down the beach its impossible for your feet not to make contact with a football.
Most of the people here do not know how to swim, and the currents can be strong, so people wade into the ocean in groups.
The atmosphere here is great. People are friendly in a way that is unknown in the states. And its not just the tourist-local interaction. Here, people greet eachother all the time, strangers chat, and when you meet someone they always ask, usually more than once 'ça va'//how are you? Or in Wolof, 'nen ge def?' and the response 'man gi fii'
In the morning the wind was offshore and I had fun surfing. This is a good place to learn to surf (Louise, Liz Carolyn we can rent boards for you if you like!)
The atmosphere here is great. People are friendly in a way that is unknown in the states. And its not just the tourist-local interaction. Here, people greet eachother all the time, strangers chat, and when you meet someone they always ask, usually more than once 'ça va'//how are you? Or in Wolof, 'nen ge def?' and the response 'man gi fii'
Walking down this street a guy walked up and started talking to me, he wanted me to buy his CDs but I told him I spent all my money. Which is true, there are beautiful things here! He continued walking with us, asking me questions about home, then just as we parted he said "I want to see your eyes" (practicing his sparse English) and I heard, "I want to see your ass". I got so mad at him - I yelled at him in French that that was no way to talk to a woman. Poor guy you should have seen the look on his face, he had no idea what was wrong, he said "But but thats a nice thing to say to a girl here, to see your eyes." I burst out lauging and explained to him what I though he said. Pronunciation is everything. God knows what I've said to some people with my French...
I found some French surfers who very kindly picked me and my board up this weekend, we went to a beach called Secret (no secret, but not crowded) and it was beautiful on Saturday, and alright Sunday. The hill in the background is one of two "mamelles" meaning breasts, which is also the name of this neighbourhood: "les Mamelles"
Yaaay ocean time! That was before I put a huge ding in my board....and later had to do a wee bit of self surgery to remove urchin spines from my foot. ouch!
On this beach there's a shack that does ding repairs, and this restaurant.
On Sunday morning, (click on the picture to see a larger image) these boys were washing their goat in a tide pool. They washed the whole herd. it was pretty fully to see them dragging the reluctant goats, one by one, by their front legs - like an awkward dance - towards the water.
Serge
