Big Hair Days

Homesick

Every year during the New York State Fair, I am homesick. I am missing the rides on the midway, the Dinosaur BBQ, elephant ear, the animal barns, the freaks and mullets. I am missing the free stage!!!!!!!! Last night was Ted Nugent. Is Charlie Daniels still playing free stages all over the USA? Man I love the fair.

Elinkine

Elinkine is also a major fishing village in the Cassamance. They say that many Ghanaians live in this village and transport fish back to Ghana. I did find MILO in one of the shops, evidence that the chocolate drink famous in Ghana has found it's way to the shores of Elinkine.

Elinkine

In order to get to Karabane you need to pass through the very transitory town of Elinkine. It appears as if you could tear down all the houses built of tin and pounded out barrels and rebuild it anywhere. Sadly, it's not a very permanent place. I do know people from there and we ran into Katherine from the Thursday night Bible Study and another girl from Loudia.

Île de Karabane: The Journey

The journey is the adventure in Africa. We left our house for Karabane in pursuit of a car going towards Elinkine, the port village where we could catch a boat to Karabane. We found a taxi, then while waiting for the public boat to Karabane, we were approached by another sailor. He said he was ready to leave right away and well we'd been waiting for a couple of hours, we were ready. Then we saw the boat, I had a moment, where I was deciding betweeng the adventure of taking this crazy, tiny, not safe boat to Karabane and the fun and adventure of doing it. Hey, we were both wearing our life jackets. And the guy had a bucket to bail out the water collecting in the bottom of the boat. We did arrive, and the driver of the boat ended up being the chief's son. It was all cool and didn't cost us any extra money but gave us fun! The swells were huge and my pants got soaked. I ended up wearing my pajama pants the rest of the weekend. Luckily, my pajama pants look just like what the French normally wear for regular clothes on beach adventures like this.

Île de Karabane: The Cemetary

Now I found the cemetery to be intriguing. The grave of the first settler is there, who was buried with his dog. The graves appeared to be rotting apart and there were families of crosses accompanying graves. On many of the graves it said "Ici Repose" which in French is "here lies" I would assume. But for me I here the word repose for naps. Did you have a good nap? or rest..

"Pick" was a pelican we found on the island. He is actually the pet of some kids, who seem determined to make some money from him. We only took pictures and paid no fee but he did give Erin a run for her money and she received her first pelican bite. We are hoping it's also her last.

Île de Karabane: The old Catholic church on the Island

Île de Karabane

Île de Karabane

This is the hotel we stayed at on the island, called appropriately Hotel Karaban. The home was the former residence of Jean Baudin. The island was the first trading outpost in this area for the French, in 1836.

Loudia Ouoluf

Loudia Ouoluf

We have been talking about a visit to Loudia for awhile now. We asked a bunch of people how far it was to Loudia. We got anywhere from 12 kilometers to 6. So we decided to walk. It took us 1H and 14 minutes to walk to Loudia. Not bad when the conversation is good. This was my first visit to Loudia, a village I had heard is primarily Muslim, with no Christians. Upon arriving we saw a friend of Matthew's on his way out of town, he told us there are four neighborhoods in Loudia that we can just keep walking till we get to the river. We headed into town, checking out the old moldy buildings, black from layers and layers of mold. We stopped for bread at the local shop and wouldn't you know it, one of the students who lives behind our house works at the store. I know that several of my neighbors are from Loudia and I was hoping we would see one of them who could show us around. Not only did we see one of them, we saw all nine and their families homes. We got the grand tour, of Loudia. It was an amazing first trip to Loudia.

Beautiful World

Erin came into the living room the other night and said I really should come out and see the sunset. I was wondering what could be so special about this nights sky than others. But it was truly breathtaking. I went up to the roof and sat for awhile amazed at how beautiful the sky can become. An artist could never render a more amazing picture than what was before my eyes.

Formed to kill a chicken

Life in the village is all natural. We wanted to buy a chicken and learn how to kill it, pluck it, cook it and eat it. So, we set out to do so. Marcel just happens to raise chickens and we purchased one. The other day Erin was there for the killing and then helped pluck parts of it. We'll take this one step further and bring a chicken home to kill ourselves one of these days. And......as always the dog gets the left over parts. Although Marcel eat the chicken feet, we decided to to give them to the dog.