Over the course of the last two weeks here in Senegal we have had the opportunity to visit many important sites, take part in service at Waranka GR as well as take some pretty epic photos as well. In the last two weeks there have been quite a lot of pictures taken from all the sites we’ve seen. There are however a few photos for me personally that are the best ones I could have possibly taken and the ones with the most meaning behind them. The first photo is a photo of one of the largest Baobab trees in all of Senegal. The size of it was something else entirely and I haven’t seen a tree so big in all my life, not even back in the states for the most part. The most interesting part about this is is that the tree itself age wise was 850 years old which stunned me upon learning about it. I didn’t even realize trees could live that long. It still stuns me even now. Going to be honest now i’m a little interested to see how long certain trees live back in the United States and compare it to the Baobab lifespan. We even got to climb inside the tree, although i will say it was a little cramped and there were some bats flying around which kind of freaked me out. I’m not much of a bat person myself I must admit.
The Second photo posted is a photo of the Great Mosque of Touba. To start things off I’ve never seen a mosque before in my life, so I figured this would be a great opportunity for this. In my town back in the United States its nothing but Churches or Synagogues. At first glance at the mosque upon arrival I was stunned at the immense size of it. I’ve seen Churches relatively large but this mosque was on another level, no church I’ve been in or seen compares to the size of this. We took a tour around the outside of the mosque, as certain areas were off limits but it was still something special. I always found it interesting to learn about another religion and this visit to the mosque surely influenced and enhanced my learning on the topic as a whole. Being able to learn about a different religion is in my eyes anyway a privilege. Its not everyday that you get to visit a major religious site in another country. This is something i’ll definitely cherish and take with me moving forward.
Senegal: Culture and Service 