Animals, Rain, Jumma Prayers
FRIDAY - 8 Sept - "Animals, Rain, and Jumma"
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SKEETERS
After our first night, Noura and Moby both, with some small degree of pride, pointed out the extent to which they'd gotten eaten alive (even with mosquito nets). Moby counted 18 on one hand. I could only find 16, but he pointed out that one big one was actually three small bites. Noura claims to have 70 on her whole body - so now they have something to compare to my 8 on one finger story from Egypt when I was 8. They made for quite a picture, but were in surprisingly good spirits about it. I figure with Noura, the net wasn't tight enough, and with Moby, since he moves so much during sleep, he put parts of his body against the net, and then the mosquitoes had a field day.
ZOO
While Elizabeth took a nap, we all went to the Senegalese zoo. It was quite different from what we've got, and sad in a way, to a tree-hugger environmentalist like me- but the kids enjoyed it. They thought that the porcupines were horribly cute, counted the alligators hiding in the murky water, and were amazed by the size of some ancient lions. After walking around and seeing most of the animals, we went to a small gazeboed (sp?) area and they all got the Senegalese equivalent of freeze pops and I had a Coke (and a smile).
RAIN
While we were there, it started to rain - REALLY really hard. It's nice though, when it rains in dustry hot countries, because it brings down all the dust, and cools the airs - and I occurred to me it must be really nice for the zoo animals- though unfortunately of little help to those in small covered concrete cages. When the rain lessened, we walked thru a very minor drizzle, all the way down the long straight driveway to the zoo entrance. There was a beautiful picture of the kids walking ahead of us, all in a row down the fresh wet road between the trees- but alas, I'd not brought the camera and so didn't get it.
JUMMA
Sheikh Harun then took Elizabeth and me to to Jumma prayers - and we had to go around all kinds of resultant flooding. Like in Egypt, it appears there's not quite enough rain to have a reasonable drainage system- so the water just collects at the low points, and then burns off in the sun over a few days- but they had to reroute one major road just to get around a 3-foot puddle. The prayer was nice- with some very cool chanting before and after - and a short Arabic-only lecture for the khutba itself. Everbody is very black with white clothing - and I of course, being very white, dressed in black - hat, shirt, pants - except of course my newly-aquired slippers.
CYBERCAFE - CAFE
Hassan, Sheikh Harun's son - who's an interesting and intelligent (and lively) Senegalese/South Carolinian hybrid - took us to the cyber center just a few hundred feet from the school. It's narrow room, with a couple game stations and about 10 computers on a high-speed connection. They allowed us to connect our laptops directly and we got busy, catching up on email, updates, work, etc... While I disdain the idea of needing to be "connected" I have found myself stressed to be disconnected during my work time- on vacation I'll go without the web for weeks- but I'm not on vacation, and so feel very vulnerable to dropping the ball at my job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SKEETERS
After our first night, Noura and Moby both, with some small degree of pride, pointed out the extent to which they'd gotten eaten alive (even with mosquito nets). Moby counted 18 on one hand. I could only find 16, but he pointed out that one big one was actually three small bites. Noura claims to have 70 on her whole body - so now they have something to compare to my 8 on one finger story from Egypt when I was 8. They made for quite a picture, but were in surprisingly good spirits about it. I figure with Noura, the net wasn't tight enough, and with Moby, since he moves so much during sleep, he put parts of his body against the net, and then the mosquitoes had a field day.
ZOO
While Elizabeth took a nap, we all went to the Senegalese zoo. It was quite different from what we've got, and sad in a way, to a tree-hugger environmentalist like me- but the kids enjoyed it. They thought that the porcupines were horribly cute, counted the alligators hiding in the murky water, and were amazed by the size of some ancient lions. After walking around and seeing most of the animals, we went to a small gazeboed (sp?) area and they all got the Senegalese equivalent of freeze pops and I had a Coke (and a smile).
RAIN
While we were there, it started to rain - REALLY really hard. It's nice though, when it rains in dustry hot countries, because it brings down all the dust, and cools the airs - and I occurred to me it must be really nice for the zoo animals- though unfortunately of little help to those in small covered concrete cages. When the rain lessened, we walked thru a very minor drizzle, all the way down the long straight driveway to the zoo entrance. There was a beautiful picture of the kids walking ahead of us, all in a row down the fresh wet road between the trees- but alas, I'd not brought the camera and so didn't get it.
JUMMA
Sheikh Harun then took Elizabeth and me to to Jumma prayers - and we had to go around all kinds of resultant flooding. Like in Egypt, it appears there's not quite enough rain to have a reasonable drainage system- so the water just collects at the low points, and then burns off in the sun over a few days- but they had to reroute one major road just to get around a 3-foot puddle. The prayer was nice- with some very cool chanting before and after - and a short Arabic-only lecture for the khutba itself. Everbody is very black with white clothing - and I of course, being very white, dressed in black - hat, shirt, pants - except of course my newly-aquired slippers.
CYBERCAFE - CAFE
Hassan, Sheikh Harun's son - who's an interesting and intelligent (and lively) Senegalese/South Carolinian hybrid - took us to the cyber center just a few hundred feet from the school. It's narrow room, with a couple game stations and about 10 computers on a high-speed connection. They allowed us to connect our laptops directly and we got busy, catching up on email, updates, work, etc... While I disdain the idea of needing to be "connected" I have found myself stressed to be disconnected during my work time- on vacation I'll go without the web for weeks- but I'm not on vacation, and so feel very vulnerable to dropping the ball at my job.
posted by divb at
21:01
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