Chanting Monks, a (Kind of) Pink Lake, and a Whole Lot of Turtles



My New Namesake, the mini Amy Diallo!



After one very, very long week, I headed up the coast with a few friends to make a final visit out of Dakar.  Saturday morning, we swung by the neighboring city of Rufisque to check out the Village de Tortues, a refuge for over 400 injured and neglected turtles.  After introducing us to the sanctuary’s most harmonious couples, African spurred tortoises sporting the names Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, our oh-so-friendly tour-guide let us climb in with the giant turtles (the third largest in the world), handed us some of the smaller ones, and even promised to name one of the funnier-looking ones after me!

            The next stop on our expedition was Lac Rose, a lake which gets its name from the pinkish hue it takes on under certain lights thanks to an unusually high salt content.  We enjoyed a few luxuriously lazy hours taking advantage of the local hotel’s pool, hammocks, and our hut’s amazingly hot shower (the first one of the semester!), before going on a beautifully cliché sunset walk around the lake.  With an unusually gray sky and sporadic salt mines lining the lake that could conceivably pass as snow, we all agreed that it was almost beginning to look a lot like Christmas— if one happened to have a very active imagination!  Really getting into the spirit, we decided that for the rest of our walk we would start singing Christmas carols to anyone who came up to us with offers of merchandise or marriage, a technique which, to our surprise and delight, worked remarkably well!
            The next morning we made the short trip over to Keur Moussa Monastery, making it just in time for the 10:00 mass.  It was a truly special service, with Gregorian chants in Wolof accompanied by kora playing and some French hymns.  After mass, a group of ten of us stocked up on the monks’ jams and famous goat cheese and had a quiet little picnic in the shade, and for a moment we almost convinced ourselves we were studying abroad in France—that is, until we made the dusty 5K trek back to the main road to catch a crowded bus back to Dakar!  Funny thing is though, we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
           
Ciao Ciao!

Amy Diallo