Dakar Streets

Dakar
(mostly straight from my journal) Eugene, Steven, Alex and I, along with two med-students that Steve met at his hospital, went to Dakar Sept 21. I thought I brought enough identification but I was wrong, I’ll explain. PC The Gambia and PC Senegal have a good relationship. With our PC ID cards, we can, in theory, cross over with only these ID cards and have it be no problem. Thus, I didn’t bring my passport. So we get all the way to the border and the Senegalese border patrol wont let me pass. So I got on the phone and called my Country Director (on a Sunday) and he helped me out. He got my PC Passport from the office and had a PC employee drive it to the Banjul-side ferry. So Alex and I had to pay a taxi to go all the way back to Barra from the border to retrieve my passport, and go all the way back. We crossed and on our way we went.
Got to Dakar a 5pm and were supposed to meet the personal driver of a family Steve knows in Dakar (the personal driver should give you a hint that this family has some money). We met him at the carpark and followed the drive in another taxi to the house. The house was more like a one bedroom apt, on the top floor of a 5-story apt building. Very nice compared to what we are all used to. We were so tired we just showered and crashed. Funny how the family only spoke French and Wollof, but luckily Eugene was trained to speak Wollof, and the two med students traveling with us are from Holland and spoke enough French to get us by.
The next morning we told our host we wanted to see downtown. After walking around on the water front/ beach road we found downtown and stopped for coffee and breakfast. (You see we’re in Dakar, we should be able to enjoy sitting down at a small café for a coffee, right…BUT they were so hard to find, believe it or not. I know!) Alex went outside right after we ordered from the menu and by luck met up with a Senegalese PCV. turns out he’s been working here from two years and is on his last few days in country. He agreed to show us around the city! We went to an annex building of the US Embassy to show us what he was currently working on before he bounced out—and agfo video in French. Pretty sweet. Visited a market—which was much more organized than any vendors market in The Gambia. Dakar, overall and as a whole, was MUCH more developed than any part of The Gambia; big(ger) and much more organized. There are actual streets and sidewalks---who would have thought. We stopped and got ice cream…like a shop just like 31 Flavors…and oh god was it good! Real ice cream for once…something cold and tasty!! WOW. I went to the bank next to take out some $ from the ATM because I wasted so much money traveling to get my passport, but the ATM ate my card AND the bank was closed…so we had to come back tomorrow. Went to dinner at an institutional park thing, very cultural. Afterwards went to a hotel that has a bar, which has a happy hour that PC’s go to often. We met other Senegalese volunteers there, nice to talk with them. Also met a fellow American that just flew in to Dakar on a whim to do community development work, kinda random to meet up with her.
The following day, after going to the bank to get my atm card, we want to go to a private-reserve island that is right off the coast of Dakar. After going to the market to get lunch-type food, we went to the beach to get a boat to go there. On the island was just us and the ‘tour guide’, which was basically a man to make sure we didn’t get into much trouble. The island has its own private lagoon, and big hills to walk up and view the sites. We went swimming and got sunburned and just relaxed. I ate watermelon on a beach in West Africa, that’s hard to beat my friends. After getting back to the main land we walked back to happy hour for a few drinks again. I felt so dirty from not showering prior but I am used to being dirty back at site. But after a beer on an empty stomach all was well. That night we had Korean food, which was a nice change of pace.
Next day we decided to split up from the girls and we each do our own thing. So we walked across down to the beach.. (part of the day I cannot put in this blog, but it was all legal). Found a small café for lunch, then I got lost trying to find another bank. When we regrouped we found dinner, met another Senegalese PCV and his visiting brother (you can always tell when you see another white person within a sea of non-white people…and then from there you can tell if the person is a tourist or a PCV because PC are usually dirty and can speak the local language, it’s a subtle rule we go by). Dinner was Lebanese.
Overall the Dakar trip was wonderful but kinda hard to go back to site after stay is such Westernized conditions for a few days…it puts things into perspective.

So, we don't have this in The Gambia.

So, this is a part of a sidewalk that vendors can sell things. I turned on my video camera and just walked with the camera at my waist..so sorry for the bumpy ride. If you listen closely you can hear vendors calling us to buy things and asking us annoying questions (ie: "What is your name"). This is common, in both Senegal and The Gambia.