En mission

 We had an FIP (fairly important person) visiting from DC, and he wanted to visit our sites, so we drove three and a half hours north of Dakar to visit where the irrigation works will be, outside Saint-Louis.
Saint-Louis was the French capital of Dakar, and it has a lot of old colonial buildings, now universally run down. It is on an island in the Senegal river, and you can walk from end to end in maybe half an hour. Less? I thought it was quite lovely.

Sheep, kids, palms, river.

Our hotel (and vehicle, too.)

View of the Barbary Coast (la langue du Barbarie) from my room.

Fishing boat, Senegalese flag.

A mosque under construction next to our hotel.

Anti-President Wade graffiti in 'downtown' Saint-Louis.

Oh, also we worked. Sort of. We "engaged with stakeholders" some. Here we are engaging with rice producers drying out paddy rice. 

Here I am engaging with a rice grower on the irrigation perimeter. He had two false teeth in front that bounced when he talked. We couldn't tell if they were joking when they said he was an imam.

Not a spy.

 Engaging with a map of irrigation projects.

And of course the best thing about coming back from outside Dakar in my opinion: Mangoes are sold in units of buckets. Un sceau, 1500 CFA. Yes, please! These particular mangoes became mango bread. True story : Cooked mangoes taste like peaches. Amazing tropical peaches.