Petit Vacance in Saly

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Near the end of May, I took a few days of vacation to visit Saly, a beach town on the west coast of Senegal, with a couple friends from my stage. It was great to take a little break from the heat of Kedougou and the challenge of Ramadan fasting in my village. We spent a lot of time reading, doing crossword puzzles, hanging out by the pool, and cooking. Including our transit days, I read 4 books (all pretty quick reads) during the trip.

Everything that we had and did in Saly was something that I don't do in my village: cooking in a European-style kitchen with running water, swimming in the pool and ocean, using a washing machine, having a refrigerator, sleeping in a cool room, going to the grocery store. Other than walking around the streets of Saly, the only part of our trip that reminded me I was in Senegal was when the water stopped working for the last 24 hours of our visit. I got one bucket of water from a spicket that was connected to a well (so it did not shut off when the city water shut off) and we bought some water from the grocery store. The power also cut out for a few minutes one night, but that is pretty standard in most cities.


Doing crossword puzzles in our AirBnb

More crossword puzzles

I know this looks staged, but I did not know the picture being taken

Salad for dinner

The beach in Saly



Comments

  1. Charron AndrewsJune 9, 2019 at 1:53 PM

    Thanks for the short book reviews, Tavish. I'm particularly interested in FACTFULNESS, which I knew nothing about. So I watched a presentation by Rosling on YouTube, which was enlightening. He insists that too many people have a bleaker view of the world than is factual and then he goes on to discuss the world's progress on matters such as immunization or the educational opportunities of girls and ends up with a glass-half-full-glass-half-empty conclusion. Things may be getting better than we think, but things are still far from fair or just. He has an important point. Thanks for writing about Rosling's argument.



    We had a great visit with Brock a couple of weeks ago when Charron and I visited Boston. He seems to have a job that is interesting and he seems to like what he's doing at Northeastern generally. I enjoyed the dinner we had with him a lot.



    Uncle Bill

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