Le Grand Puyconnieux randonnée

We went on a lovely 13 km walk through fields and woods and picturesque villages with Cindy & Rich. It is a regional system that is wonderful, combines farm roads with official national walking trails with occasional use of regular roads. 

complete with pit stop & cool drink at halfway pt.

The patio: Part III

 The barn patio: Part III. Hopefully there will only be IV parts! Peter and Rich have dug out at least another few inches at the level of the ‘French drain‘ of gravel put in last year as well as several deeper trenches to fill with gravel (to deal with water removal/flow during winter storms).

 Now the gravel is in (will need a few more loads next spring) and then paving tiles will go down as final surface. It will be great when it’s done and it’s really getting there!!
Now just need to cut/build steps in to next level and put step in front of doors into the house (and of course render block wall built last year). 

 

The patio of the barn, which will be gîte #2!

pre-excation

The barn patio: Part II. Well, this is really a work in progress, hopefully with an end date of this week with Cindy & Rich here. The barn is the large area we are renovating to be a 2-3 bedroom, 2.5 bath rental. The living room has two large doors which open onto what will eventually be a nice patio. Last year I put in a retaining wall (part I). The patio area is well below the level of the land around it, it floods in a good storm and it was just plain too far down and cavelike. So we had Johnny Digger remove many inches of dirt with his excavator, and we’ve had it terraced. P&I have then dug another 4” of sand/clay (an interesting combination) from the patio itself in preparation for a perimeter drain followed by 3-4” of gravel and paving stones. Looking forward to trying it out once it’s done!

growing grass & start of dig

excavated, raked, decent dirt, grass seed added

soon to follow, serve as bed for paving stones

la visite de D & D

La taverne au chateau de Montbrun

 I returned to France just in time to meet my father & Dencie at CDG. Peter drove up and picked us all up from our travels. It was great to spend a week with D&D and be able to show them what we’ve been up to over here for the last few summers and visit some familiar haunts, like the Taverne, le chateau at Rochechouart and the Relais de Gorre. We had good weather and visited the ‘jardins sonores’ at La Borie. It was lovely & hot, perfect weather for cold rosé while waiting for the blues/jazz music to begin.

Rochechouart

les jardins de la Borie: apéro concert

Paris

 I went with them back up to Paris, visited a couple of old, familiar places and saw a couple of new places, including the new and somewhat odd “Paris plages”, where they set up a beach for sunbathing along the Seine river in the middle of Paris!

 

Popenguine: beach!

To finish up my visit, Kaitlyn decided we should go to the coast and relax on the beach. So she rented a house that a PC group had used for a meeting, near the house they stayed in as a big group at Thanksgiving. It was lovely, loads of tropical flowers. We had the whole house for $40/night. Town name Popenguine, may be misspelled. We spent a lot of time walking on the beach, swimming, talking to ladies trying to sell us things, cooking, talking, eating, playing cards, sleeping, using the wifi at the cafe up on the street level, walking more on the beach, drinking good coffee, eating more mangoes. It was a super way to wrap up my time in Senegal, gave us lots of time to chat and relax before heading back to Dakar and goodbye for now. I was sad to leave my girl, but she was with a couple of good friends, and we’re planning to get the family together again in a few months, at Christmas.

Our covered deck overlooking the beach.

Diouly II

K & Babakar

Baobab grove at her village

It’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed being in Kaitlyn’s village. The twice or thrice daily bucket showers under the African sky [combat dust and SWEAT!], hearing Kaitlyn converse in Wolof with so many different people and families, hearing them call out to her to visit or ask a question (Diougol Cissé! over & over: Joogul- her Wolof name, I was Janeba Cissé), the kids shy laughter & curiosity at seeing an older Toubab (white person), the amazing simple beauty of the women and girls (sorry guys, some of the men/boys were too, but not like the women), sitting around in the evening chatting while the men listened to World Cup on radios, breaking the Ramadan fast at the communal bowl with them (and the ladies breaking up the big pieces and tossing the choicest pieces in front of us, even though they had been fasting since before dawn), the joy on the kids’ faces as they played with the simple toys I brought, the wise looking baobab trees, meeting Simba kitty, getting Kaitlyn to rescue me when there was a big squiggly centiede AND an opposum hanging out at K’s ‘bathroom’ before we went to sleep under the canopy of stars. It was pretty special.

Djiouly: K's village I

Center of Kaitlyn's village

In K's hut w/Simba (filter & cooker in background)

Some of K's village family

Saint Louis to site via Kaffrine

From Saint Louis, we splurged and hired a taxi to take us to Kaffrine, the site of Kaitlyn’s regional PC house. We only broke down once, which was great. Passed many baobab trees. We left most of our gear at the house, which was wise, picked up a few veg from the market and then took a bus the couple hours it takes to go 30km or so (passing through many villages). It was very colorful, full of locals and actually made the ‘sept place’ ride seem pretty civilized. It was pretty hot inside, so most windows were open, very dusty and the gent next to me had live chickens and roosters which spent most of the time around my feet trying not to expire in the heat! It was an experience not to be missed and we arrived at Kaitlyn’s village in one of the first rains of the rainy season!

Blech

I’m glad I really liked our room at the hotel in Saint Louis, because I spent one day there very sick- thank goodness for the good drugs and and rehydrations salts.

Saint Louis

Then we were off to the French coastal city of Saint Louis, about 250 km or 160 mi. up the coast. It was about a 4 hr. ride in a 'sept (7) personnes', a station wagon that has had the back converted to another bench seat for 3 (can therefore carry 7 people) with no wheel wells for feet!
We stayed at a lovely hotel, Hotel de la Poste, right next to the Eiffel designed Pont Faidherbes.

We had a lovely time visiting K's friend Tim and breaking the Ramadan fast with his host family. We visited one of the sites where he works, a garden/place for young kids to come, wandering around the island and meeting other PCVolunteers.

Tim playing checkers w/some of his kids

Dakar / Ile de Gorée

I arrived to Dakar, and the airport experience lived up to what you would expect in a hot, dusty African capital. Longish lines for entry visa, not much order, hot. Funneled outside and found Kaitlyn waiting for me, o happy day! I had my first experience of her rather impressive haggling skills & techniques as we negotiated a taxi to our hotel, Hotel du Phare, which was super.

We spent a couple of nights there, watched some World Cup on their rooftop terrace, enjoyed the first of many mangoes

and visited Ile de Gorée, a reputed center for the west African slave trade, which is a very short ferry ride from Dakar's port (and where I had my first taste of mafe [peanut based sauce] and yassa [tomato/onion based spicy sauce]).

le Sénégal, pt 1

www.connectionivoirienne.net

Our oldest daughter, Kaitlyn, has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal since late September 2013, and was posted to her site about 2 months later. I was able to visit her early this summer for about 10 days. It's hard to see on this map, but we made a big loop from Dakar, up to St. Louis, over and down (SE) to Kaffrine (regional house and about 20 miles from her village) which is in the green close to the yellow, then west through Kaolack to the coast, at Popenguine. It was an amazing experience. Senegal is about the size of South Dakota, or twice as large (plus a bit) as Maine. More to follow!

France 2014!

So happy to be back in France and la Boissonnie. It's hard to believe that I'm already half way through my summer here; it has been a very busy month.
I'm very much looking forward to a perhaps less busy next 5 weeks (and hopefully helping complete some projects here on the barn!)

The end: summer 2013.

Well, another fabulous summer has come to an end. Here we are enjoying a last meal out at the relais de Gorre, the day before my return to Maine.
It was a super summer and it went by way too fast. We got tons done, had some fun, saw some new places, spoke lots of French and worked hard. Now I'm off to see our girls and the rest of the fam, then back to school.
'Til next year!!

Peter looking relaxed, waiting for his espresso.

Contemplating my yummy fruit & meringue.

Starters. Ate the other courses too quickly to take pix.