Les enfants tortue

This story is an oldie but goodie.  For those of you that were reading way back in 2002, I told it before.  But  it is one of my favorites so we are going to do it again.  For Christmas 2002 a few of my fellow Burkina Peace Corps volunteers and I went down to Benin.  It was a wild trip, including a high speed donkey accident and lots of voodoo, but we eventually made it to the beach.  One morning while we were having a beer (come on - I was in my early 20s and on vacation - don't judge), two local guys came up to us and asked us for money to release "les enfants tortue" (the baby turtles), which my tipsy garbled French misheard as "les enfants tortures" (the tortured children).  And hilarity ensued.  

So that story goes with these pictures that I took this weekend.  To take a break from the three weeks that I had already spent on road and gear up for this week here in Saudi Arabia (which is a fascinating place that I will write about next week), I spent the weekend at a fancy little beach resort just south of Dar.  Sea turtles nest on the grounds, and while I was there one group hatched and made their way down to the waves and whatever life had in store for it.  I of course was there with a 200mm zoom to document the moment.  See below.

And on a sad note, this post is dedicated to Hilary Stevens.  She was one of the intrepid volunteers that made their way to Benin with me on this trip mentioned above.  She sadly lost her older brother, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in Libya last week.  My heartfelt condolences to her and her family.