Sunday with the Monks
Bright sunshine illuminated the grounds of Keur Moussa when we rolled in at 8:30 a.m. Not entirely sure when the mass would start, we had left Dakar at 7 a.m. sharp in order to get to this Benedictine monastery (founded about an hour outside of Senegal’s capital back in 1962) on time. On the way, we stopped at a tangana to have a delectable smooshed pea sandwich (see http://www.traveling-stories-
Mass did not actually begin until 10, but many of the monks were walking about chatting quietly to one another while others were practicing their music. The brothers wore extremely simple tunics made of coarse white cloth tied with slender brown ropes around their waists, and most wore sandals. There were a few older white monks, generally French or Franco-Canadian, but many were young Senegalese who appeared to be no older than their late twenties, leading me to wonder what it was that made them decide to enter monastic life so early on.
Was that a CAT I Saw?!
“Now I see why this place is undiscovered,” Kerri remarked wryly. We had just spent 2.5 hours sitting in Dakar traffic trying to make our way to a resort area called Toubab Dialaw. Once we got to Rufisque, we had arranged to rendezvous at the big baobab tree so that we could be shown the shortcut to the highway.
“Promise me we’re not really meeting at a TREE,” I said in utter disbelief. “It is a hotel or something called the Great Baobab, right?” Sure enough, it was in fact a tree – on est en Afrique - but as always, things did work out as planned; we got to the highway in record time thanks to our guide and turned off at a village called Yene. From there we spotted various hand-lettered signs for Sobobade, our hotel, and found ourselves bouncing down a pitted dirt road guaranteed to set your granny’s hemorrhoids aflame.
From Sunny Senegal to Gray Britain
Over the summer, I took a trip to see friends in the UK, and my hostess did me the great honor of wanting to throw me a party in her lovingly planted and very spacious garden.
In typical British style, prep time was spent putting caviar decoratively on blintzes and raspberries on beds of whipped cream whilst looking fearfully out of the window to see if the weather would hold or whether we would have to move all the lawn chairs back into the garage. (Ultimately you will be glad to learn that the weather did hold and that we were able to swill champagne on the lawn just as my hostess had envisioned).
To Expat or Not?
One of the biggest difficulties you are confronted with when living and working abroad is developing a social circle. As a schoolteacher, you have plenty of daily social interaction, but of course evenings and weekends are a different story altogether. High-minded and lofty idealist that I am, I had decided not to seek out the local expatriate circles here in Dakar, arguing that if I just wanted to spend my time with US citizens, I could just as easily have stayed at home.
But take it from me: no matter how seasoned a traveler you may be, there is something inherently wonderful in interacting with someone who knows your culture intimately, who can laugh with you at a random reference to an Entenmann’s crumb cake or a Brady Bunch episode, who can enjoy the subtleties of your native tongue or appreciate a play on words.
