Back to Senegal

Here I am back to Senegal and in Somone since yesterday afternoon. The Emirates flight went pretty much smooth-sailing yet a tiresome one. An 8-hour journey from Hong Kong to Dubai followed by another 10-hour transit hop to Dakar. Just can't believe I'm back, after 7-months of "blog" absence and once again returned to activity. Was mulling at first as to whether I should keep this blog alive as my return to Senegal was kind of uncertain.


Went for a morning swim at the hotel pool where I'm currently residing, the Hotel Phoenix down in the Somone. Noticed the relatively hot weather on my first day here. The harmattan season is clearly out of the picture right now, and I'm already dreading this scorching summer! But anyways, it's good to be back:)

Food for The Soul

I wanted to post some photos of  the incredible foods I had when I was travelling around Senegal but somehow never got around to doing it. So here they are! Feast your eyes on these yummy dishes!

 

                        Grilled chicken with sauteed vegetable on rice!


      Fish steak with rice~

                        Fish steak coupled with sauteed vegetables

Sunshine in Ecuador :)

It's been nearly four months since my last entry. During this time I have been away in Ecuador on another fishery project and so as the title of this blog suggests "Senegal" I thought I'd wait to blog until I get back to West Africa. At this present moment I'm back home in Taiwan arranging my dad's funeral so I guess my next entry about Senegal will take a while longer. However, in the meantime I'd like to share some beautiful photos of Ecuador with you:)

                              At the beachfront in Salenas, Ecuador

                                                    Catholic church in downtown Guayaquil

                    An iguana basking in Central Park, downtown Guayaquil

St.Louis in Senegal

Two weeks ago I headed off on a 2-day research trip to St. Louis, a former capital city of Senegal during its colonial era. Once again I had several fishermen help me plant the prawn traps in the Senegal River.

                           Off we go in this little piroque~

                     As usual we caught more unwelcomed critters other than prawns!


St. Louis was the one place in Senegal which I thought the climate was more pleasant than the rest of the country. The air was cooler, and more importantly, dust-free! I could deal with the crazy traffic and trash-ridden sidewalks, but spare me the hamattan dusts.

                            The streets are clean and orderly, and there are concrete sidewalks! 

Crawling to Dakar

I've only had a few occasions to visit Dakar since my arrival in Senegal last December. Unless I have to run an errand downtown, I would avoid it like a plague. It's just too much of a burden to get there. And from where I'm currently located in Somone, heading 90km up to Dakar can take a painstaking 3-hour drive. It's basically crawling bumper-to-bumper, I shit you not!

                     Street vendors in Dakar sell everything from used clothing to kitchenware

Leaving Port-au-Prince behind and coming down to Dakar has given me some kind of nostalgia. And I mean it in a good way. It's a real bustling place filled with all kinds of economic activities ranging from street vendors selling traditional arts and eateries to mid-range office buildings. I wouldn't call it heaven here, but what this city stands out from Port-au-Prince and Haiti as a whole is political stability and security.  

                             Dakar was rated as one of the world's most expensive cities in 2010

Just by going to Dakar alone from Somone can drain away half of your day, which pretty much leaves you only the afternoon to do whatever you were headed out to do. But since Senegal is 90% Islamic, government offices and banks are closed for lunch break at 12:30pm. Work resumes at 2:30pm. I guess it has a lot to do with going to prayer, or something like that.

Trail Two: Planting Shrimp Cages in Guereo

Today was my second attempt at planting two shrimp cages 1km off the sea in a remote fishing village in Guereo, Senegal. The last time having lost one of the two cages due to the rough sea, plus the results weren't that fruitful. In the end the one cage we picked back up came out with nothing. Though I was glad this didn't entirely kill their enthusiasm. I decided to give it another go ahead this evening as time is pressing since the donations have to be made official within a few weeks, and we just have to make sure the cages work well for the people who need them.

Thanks to the calm sea we were actually able to go ahead without much trouble. During our last trial our little piroque actually sank right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean before the cages could be planted! Tommorow will be the big day! Hope things turn out as expected...plenty of rose prawns for the fishermen of Guereo!

Hamatan Bashing

I remember I used to love the hamatan season as a child growing up in Togo, where the cool dry wind coming down from the North was a drastic change from the hot scorching summers we get all year-round. Having left Africa for nearly two decades now since my return last December, I can't say the same anymore. Now I have come to hate this crappy weather! The last few days we were pretty hard hit by strong dusty wind which pretty much obscures the vision within a 100-meter radius. It's even harder to breathe through this thick cloud of dusty air particles and not choke on it!