True Size of Africa

Go to the link below--I knew Africa was big but this is really amazing.  Karen

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Bandia Reserve

Shops at Bandia

herd of giraffe with babies

Buffalo

The Bandia Reserve is an animal park--most of the animals were brought from other African countries. The only Senegalese native is the hyena; they are kept in  a cage for the safety of the other animals--as it is the only predator in the park.

The park has nice shops and a restaurant. We saw all the animals except the rhinos.  I was told that it is more likely to see them during the dry season, because they do come to the watering hole then.

We heard the story of the outcast giraffe. He fought with one of the other giraffes and lost.  The rest of the herd stays away from him, which we witnessed when he came over towards the herd.  The herd ran away.  It could be a sad children's story.

Scroll down towards the end to see the picture of the griot's scull in the baobab tree.  Griots are story tellers, and somewhat mystical.  This part of Senegal was predominately farmers, who disapproved of the girots not tending the land.  So they would not allow them to be buried in the ground.  When a griot died, the body was put inside a baobab tree.  The first president of Senegal, forbade the practice and said they had to allow the dead griots to be buried.

There were lots of crocodiles in the small lake next to the restaurant but I didn't bother to upload one of them because it was hard to see them.  At one point, the bread stealing monkey dropped a piece of bread in the water and a crocodile seemed to be aware of the bread, and the monkey considered his options to try to retrieve it.   The monkey backed off after his risk assessment and left it to a bird to try to get it.  The bird at one point darted into the water near to bread, but he was after a fish, which he got.  The bird hopped out onto the bank pretty quickly.  Just in case.

deer

Monitor lizard--really big!

Outcast Giraffe

Giraffes feeding--herd ran away from the outcast

Watering hole--but we never did see Rhinos

Truck for touring the reserve--everyone in our truck had skin rashes on arms afterwards

zebras near buffalos

Griots were buried in baobab trees

Ostriches

Monkey in tree

Monkey at restaurant stealing bread from tables

toubab dialao

 Last week about 20 staff members when for the weekend to Toubab Dialao, a resort town south of Dakar.  Most of staff who went are new this year.  These pictures were taken in front of the house where I stayed with Sam (HS counselor) and Stephanie (6th grade LA), they are from Florida and this is their first overseas post and Marje (in orange shirt) teaches PK3 and Special ed.  This is her second overseas post, she spent the last seven years in Cairo.

There were some nice beaches.  I opted for the more expensive accommodations with AC, but the AC didn't work but the fan did and it was cooler along the coast and I was comfortable.

The traffic was typical rush hour, Friday night commute type traffic and the trip down took 2 1/2 hours leaving at 5:30--I'm told if we left later like 8 pm it would have taken an hour.  The school provided the two buses and drivers, two families drove their own cars. The school buses are very comfortable and seat 10 in the back and 3 up front, including the driver. I was in the grown-ups bus, while the other one had families with a total of 7 little kids and seven adults. We spent Saturday at Bandia Reserve (see separate blog) and Sunday at Sobobade which offered workshops on different crafts (see separate blog)