We wake up this morning to no electricity. Apparently, Dakar has numerous blackouts, some last a few minutes, some last for hours. Lyn arrived the day before us and that Thursday they had no electricity all day. Good thing we're heading to Thies. We all carry our luggage (we condensed to four days worth of stuff) down to the van, dressed in our "traditional" outfits that Jeanne and Aaron had made for all of us. We make quite a nice looking party of "toubobs." (Toubobs is the word for white people.) After we take a few pictures we head out in the van. Chiekh (our driver), Ricci,(the photographer), Bea (Jeanne's sister) in the front seat; Aaron and Jeanne in the 2nd row; then Lyn, Si and me in the 3rd row; Chris, Jerry, and Julien in the next row, and then Don, Patti and Fatime in the back. We had originally thought we'd put the luggage inside, but after counting bodies we decided it was going to have to go on the top of the van. Chiekh did a great job of getting everything on top and tied down and off we go.
There is a lot of traffic leaving Dakar and I have no real distance guess, but after about a half hour of stop and go traffic, a lot of the stopping is due to Chiekh's having to negotiate the giant pot holes in the road, we finally got up to speed. One of the advantages to the stop and go traffic, however, wad the many photo opportunities we had. There were many interesting and unique things to take pictures of. So, we're moving right along for a little while (I don't have a watch either) and we're looking at the traffic heading into Dakar, grateful we aren't going that way. Its kind of like heading north on Loop 12 in the morning. Wishing you were on the other side of the road. Anyways, we're all settling into the ride and I guess about halfway to Thies we come to Rufisque, the last major city (town) between Dakar and Theis. Once again, another traffic jam but this one doesn't last near as long.
Foam mattress pads for sale.
When we arrive in Thies we go to Jeanne's house. We greeted a number of family members and Aaron gave us a short "tour" of the outside of the house, actually the courtyard. The courtyard is shaped like a big square and there are three houses making up three of the walls, with the other wall being the gated wall. Jeanne's family lives in one of the houses, Julien's family lives in one, and George rents the other house out. The courtyard is full of chairs and ready for the guests to arrive to help celebrate Jeanne and Aaron's marriage. We leave Aaron,
Jeanne, Julien and Ricci at the house and George takes us in the van to the hotel we will be staying at. The proprietor is a friend of George's and George has negotiated a good price on the rooms for us. After checking in, the proprietor begins leading us to our rooms. Interesting note -- they leave the doors of the rooms open until they are rented. So, as you go by the rooms you can see the insides of all the rooms we are passing. Its a little scary, the view from outside looking in, but not near as scary as the real view of our rooms. Bear in mind, this is a very nice hotel by Thies standards, but obviously I have never seen anything like it. My dorm rooms in college were bigger than this. But it is air conditioned and there is a real toilet. The reason I mention the toilet is because last night at the reception I was introduced to the "Turkish toilet." A hole in the ground that you squat over. Not fun! 
Julien and Fatime came to the hotel about 2:00 to walk with us back to the house. We are quite a procession of toubobs walking down the streets of Thies. We see this random donkey just grazing in the grass and some goats as we walk to the house. 
When we arrive back at the house, George meets us at the gate and leads us to a line of chairs against the wall of their house. He instructs someone to bring out a couple of fans which they plug in to blow directly on us. George really made us feel welcomed and honored with all of this. George also promises us that we are a little further from the music and that he would ask them to not play it quite as loud as at the church reception. Yes, we were further away but it was still very loud. We spent the day sitting in the courtyard while numerous friends, friends of the family, family and anyone else just came by to greet Aaron and Jeanne and to wish them well.
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Food preparations...........
Bringing the food to all of the guests..........
About 3:00, lunch is served. We're sitting in the courtyard and women begin coming in with these HUGE round trays filled with food. The food is called "Thieb ou yapp" and consisted of a brown rice, with beef (George had a cow butchered that morning) and chicken. Its a communal style of dining; serving about 6 - 8 people per tray. You kind of lay claim to the section of the tray in front of you and everyone digs in. The food was actually very good. There were only 5 of us eating off out tray and I think we did an admirable job of making a dent in the amount of food on our tray. We were also offered Coke, Sprite and Fanta Orange. Then, guys would come around with wine, bourbon, gin, vodka, whatever you wanted. One of the things you notice when you eat outside, is the flies. You swat off and on before the food arrives, but once there is food or drink around, they just swarm to it. That was the hardest part about eating. You have to wave one had over the food while you're putting food in your mouth. I know I could never get used to that! We are all finding very creative ways of trying to keep our drink glasses covered. Aaron managed to (unintentionally) drown a few flies in his bourbon and coke. Yuck!
After a few more hours of sitting around and talking, etc. the photographer, Ricci, decides we'd better take some more group photos before we lose the sunlight. So, she gathers together all the women of Jeanne's family and everyone else who is similarly dressed. Its quite a large, but very stunning group.
Then, she gathers all of us "toubobs" together to get a picture of us in our outfits.
The sun sets and shortly thereafter more food is brought in. Mercifully, with the sun gone all of the flies seem to magically disappear. Not sure where they all go, but as long as they weren't all over our food we were grateful. They served two different dishes for dinner. We had a plate of vermicelli with some seasonings, raisins (I believe) and chicken. It was very good! Aaron had been sitting with us, but decided he wanted the other dish which he said he really enjoys. It was a coucous dish with meats, called "Thiere." Aaron describes it as, "at first it tastes like sand" and he doesn't know too many Westerners who like it. Doesn't sound very appealing to any of us, though Chris is brave enough to at least try it. She didn't say it tasted like sand, but she only had one bite and came back to our "plate." Guess that says it all!
There's music and dancing after dinner, but awhile later (Aaron has told us this was "Sabar" coming), we hear drum beats from outside the courtyard. It starts off very low, but as the group gets closer to the gate, the volume gets louder and louder. It is a live African "drum band," for lack of a better word. There are about 8-10 of them and they enter the courtyard beating the drums.
Some really serious "dancing" ensues once all the drummers have entered the courtyard. It is very interesting, exciting and entertaining watching this whole thing. The play two different "songs" and then they move to the other end of the courtyard. Aaron comes over to tell us this will go on till the wee hours of the morning and if we are ready to go he will get Fatime and Julien to walk us back to our hotel. We all decide to call it a night and head off to the hotel.
Its about a mile walk to the hotel, so we had a nice little walk through Thies at night. Interesting, as there are still many people out and about.
When we get back to the hotel there's nothing to do and its been a long day so we decide to go to bed. Si drifts off to sleep pretty quickly, but it was a lot harder for me. I think I counted backwards from 99 to 0 about 15 times or more. This is a technique I read about in a magazine to help clear your mind and help you fall asleep. Usually, it works!!!
As I'm laying there trying to go to sleep I notice light coming through the bottom of the door. My only thought is......I should get up and spray the insect repellant along the bottom of the door to keep the mosquitos out. But I don't. Instead, even though its a little warm in our room I just cover myself up to my neck with my sheet and continued counting. I finally fall asleep.
To be continued........
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