June 1st: Fishing Village and Dune Riding

Hello Family!

I just wanted everyone to have access of my day to day activities should they wonder what I’m up to! The two commodities other than running water and air-conditioning that I lack currently are consistent wifi and the hours in a day. So, I thought a private blog would be a fun way to connect my family and friends (cue Bill Wood “Grace you don’t have any friends”) to my travels and numerous adventures here in Dakar Senegal. For those of you that do not know exactly where that is like I didn’t a year ago here is a visual!

We had a full day tour with Oumar, our local tour guide. We went to Cayar, which is a fishing village about an hour and a half from Dakar. 

As you can see from the photo, there are thousands of colorful wooden fishing boats lining the beach and out at sea. The men go out to fish and bring back the catch for the women and wholesalers  to bargain over as well. The women then offer their service of preparing the fish, which includes descaling and gutting. We wanted to buy fish for our host family because fish is more expensive in the city, so we bought 3 large white tuna and a few other types of fish for only 6 dollars TOTAL! After asking politely, a woman on the beach gave me a knife to participate in the gutting and descaling the fish. It was really fun, but in all honesty, I’m pretty sure I missed a couple scales! 

We then went dune riding in a 1940’s car. The car’s gas tank was a tank of open gas in the front seat that had a tube connecting it to the engine. You also started the engine in a similar way to a lawn mower. There were also loose wires by the steering wheel that the driver had to spark together in order to start the engine. Our diver had us whipping around the dunes, and it was a blast! 

I have dozens more pictures and videos, so if you’re interested I can try to send them to whoever is interested! I miss you all! There will be more updates to come!