Senegalese Easter

Happy Easter to all of my Christian friends! It is hard to be away from home for a holiday- missing the girls and their Easter bunny morning, lunch with my family, dinner with my husband’s family, but I did get the chance to experience Easter here. Only 4% of the Senegalese people are Christian, but I am lucky enough to have a host teacher who is Catholic so I got to go to mass this morning. The Easter mass was 2 1/2 hours long, not counting the ‘after party’ in the choir loft. It was really cool to think that even though I didn’t understand exactly what they were saying all of the time, I (roughly) knew what was happening during the mass. I made a bunch of recordings of the songs for the students in my school, as I know they’ll love to hear it.

After mass, Sophie brought us up to the choir loft to see the musicians. It was like a party up there! The priest even came up and jumped in on the piano. After they were done, one of the drummers gave me a mini djembe lesson! I was giddy with excitement!

We went back to the hotel to change, and then headed to Lac Retba, also known as the Pink Lake. I had read previous to coming here that the lake was no longer pink due to floods, and that it would take a long time for it to come back, but it was indeed pink! Sophie verified that it used to be pinker, but that it also needs to be seen on a sunny day, or the pink will not appear. Lac Retba is one of the saltiest lakes in the world, and you can see the salt that is harvested from the lake. We took a boat ride through it, and were told it is impossible to drown in the lake due to its high salinity. We did not choose to test this theory out. We were also told that you can’t be in the lake for too long – workers harvesting the salt have to wear cocoa butter on their skin to protect it from all of the salt.

Next we went on a Jeep ride through the sand dunes that separate the Atlantic Ocean from the Lake. It was so much fun! We ended up on this one section of beach that had roaring waves and we were the only people there! Such an amazing time (and another Anthony Bourdain moment, for sure!).

The merchants selling in this area were relentless. They would give you a bracelet as a sign of ‘Teranga,’ which means hospitality and is the country motto. They would not let you give it back, but they would expect you to ‘come to their shop,’ which was really just a basket of their goods. It was like the Caribbean, but times 1,000 on desire for a sale…

After I made my very first souvenir purchase (the bracelet trick did not work on me- I went with a merchant who didn’t give me a present), it was time to go to Sophie’s mom’s house outside of Dakar for Easter dinner. We had a fantastic chicken and fries dish, along with some fried deliciousness made of ground up beans. Sophie’s family was so much fun- lots of dancing and joking. Though we may not have completely understand every word, we were all able to communicate the general idea with each other.

Another incredible day in Senegal – we were playing hard today, as we were going strong for 13 hours (but don’t feel too sorry for me – it was so much fun)! I still can’t believe I’m here!