An Afternoon At the Beach

Since we have been experiencing some rather hot days lately, it was decided that an afternoon trip to the beach was in order.  My neighbor's children had not been to a pool/beach so we all headed to Mbour together to enjoy an afternoon of fun.

We had the pool to ourselves as well as the beach.  The water has begun to warm up but I still declined to go swimming.  It was fun just watching the kids play in the water, sit and listen to the waves, and walk around taking pictures.

Just before leaving we took a walk along the beach.  The kids enjoyed finding some shells to bring home.

I always have a good time taking pictures of anything I think is interesting.

Salt

There is an inland waterway that comes up through Fatick from the ocean.  The water is high in salt content so there are those who work to harvest the salt.  They will build a wall of dirt and allow it to fill with water.  Over time the water will evaporate and leave the salt.  The salt is then piled and made ready to be bagged and carried away for processing.  

Dry salt beds

Salt just beneath the water that is evaporating

Mound of salt

Close up of salt mound

Hand on the left is salt from the mound.  Hand on the right is salt from the water.

Some of the kids' friends went with us to swim and play in the water.  It was a nice break from the heat that we have been experiencing here in Fatick (111+ degrees).  

Dust!

April has finally started living up to its reputation:  hot and dusty.  This weekend the winds blew in which caused the dust to fly.  My floors and furniture were covered in dust!  I swept my floors three times in the space of a few hours and tried to wipe the dust off of my furniture.  I was fighting a losing battle!  It was so dusty that you couldn't even see the shape of the sun in the sky.  Not only was the dust bad but it was also very hot.  I checked the temperature in Fatick at 1:30 am on Sunday and it was 95 degrees.  The high during the day was over 108 degrees!  At least my house stays fairly cool as long as I keep the fans blowing.   These two pictures illustrate what it is like when the dust is blowing.