Day at the Beach

Thursday May 29^th is a holiday here, it’s Democracy Day. So a small group of us went to the Exxon Mobile Beach that day. It was Ryan, myself, Henry and his 3 boys (his wife was out of town, which was a huge bummer because she is one of my favorite humans here) Tony (our age, single, tall, HANDSOME black male from Louisiana) and Sangeeta (our age, single, gorgeous Indian woman from the Bronx) and then their Exxon friends Shaneeka and Rod and their son and daughter and another friend Gabe and his 2 sons. It was such a fun group and day. Perfect weather, overcast the first half which is my favorite because you still get super tanned but it’s only like 85 degrees instead of 95+ when the sun comes out. We each brought something to contribute to this BBQ. I still have minor panic attacks when such events come around because cooking is still a new thing to me. I’ve only been here 11 weeks, okay!! I’m comin’ from NO skills trying to pretend I have SOME. Before, I could cook a chicken breast and fry up veggies (wahoo…) but I could make a MEAN sandwhich. NOW? I’m practically professional/not at all. So I decided to make macaroni salad. I love macaroni salad. (Steve, I really needed you this day!! But I think you’d be proud of what a made! I could’ve really used your constructive criticism though) I noticed people went for seconds though, so I wiped the sweat off my brow and felt better at that point. We played Taboo, Spades, a few rounds of Uno with the kids and frolicked in the ocean all day. It was fabulous. But holy shit, the West African ocean has a STRONG current!! The surf was like pulling ME out and under, it was insane!!! Henry warned me right before I stripped off my maxi and went galloping into the ocean, to be wary of the strength of the waves and undercurrent..never underestimate a warning before diving into the wild ocean. I have sand burns. Ya, that’s a thing. It was fun getting tossed around though, the water is seriously room temperature. However, we had to call it quits and get

out of the water once Henry saw a knife float ashore. For real. So back to card games after that. We’re not in the caribbean, that’s for sure. Oh and the really fun part of this day? It’s the same beach that I eat lunch at right after volunteering at the Ishahayi Beach School! The kids all know we are coming when we reserve the beach, so the older kids meet us at the boat dock and carry ALL our stuff for us and make sure the beach is all groomed and pristine before we get there. Throughout the day they would come out and play/hang around. The kids that we came with loved it too. And the kids of the beach school recognized me and were all like “Hi Miss Tara!! Happy to see you!” I died. So I took LOADS of pictures with them making faces and being silly and just having fun. These kids are just the sweetest. I truly hope the best for them and am so happy they are getting some education and being fed regularly.