J'arrive, Paris!

Charles de Gaulle airport - long, shiny corridors, huge spaces, moving sidewalks, efficient passport control, plane to train and a quick trip to the Center of Paris.  My stop:  St. Michele-Notre Dame.  No internet and I have to find my hotel in a maze of "Place de...." and five intersecting streets.  Karen will laugh that I used my compass and took a photo of a street map at a corner kiosk.  I found it - a lovely studio apartment on a bustling pedestrian-friendly street.  This is Paris, a long way from Dakar, but containing a diversity of cultures.  There are many Africans here and I think I recognize the many  tall, slender men who may be Senegalese.

I'm pretty exhausted and don't venture out much, except to eat one cheese crepe at a local shop.  I'm missing my fish and rice.

Good-bye, Dakar. I will miss you.

Yesterday, I had time with Iba, Badou and Saliou for the last time for this trip.  Iba, as usual, was his usual taciturn self as we had our last fish and rice platter on the beach.

 I was very glad when he told me that his internship was turning into a paid job.  That will be so great for him and his family.  He's also very happy that fundraising for the school is almost complete. I owe great appreciation to Iba for finding Ameth, with whom I will continue a relationship.

Badou came by in the evening  and Saliou and he worked hard on Saliou's website.  They will forge a life-long friendship and partnership, starting with Badou's immediate assistance with the website.  It makes me very happy to see them working together. They are both very fine men.  Badou and I hugged repeatedly until he said he had to go before he started crying.  I think I heard him the stairs.

Saliou takes maximum credit for organizing my trip, including finding lodging for me and encouraging a trip to Casamance, and all his guidance during the trip.  We became close friends during our travels and shared experiences.

Pascal and his family,  the families of Iba, Ameth, Badou, all entered my heart.

Very early this morning, Saliou called a taxi for me and escorted me to the airport.  It was a quick trip with no traffic at 6 am, taking about 45 minutes, about the same as Boulder-DIA.

When I first arrived in Dakar, I was overwhelmed by the pollution, traffic, underdevelopment. In parting, I can say that Dakar did find a place in my heart, through my friendships, especially with Saliou and Badou.  Dakar is a crazy, dirty, overcrowded city, but somehow it is also vibrant and alive.  I'll miss the calls for prayer echoing through the air...they were very beautiful and my friends were appreciative of my acceptance of their prayer routines in my hotel room.  ;  )  It's actually a lovely practice.   My friends showed a kindness and generosity of heart which will never be forgotten.  The good news is that with WhatsApp, we can continue our friendships.  I also am eager to see the final results of the fundraising, a refurbished building for the children in St. Louis.

I found the tourists

They are not in Dakar.  They are at Ile de Ngor.  Lots of cute little hotels, surfing schools and a beautiful beach.  Badou and I took a pirogue across the water from the Dakar beach with about 30 other people and had lunch at a beachside cafe.  Badou purchased some new flip flops for himself after extensive negotiation.  He had been wearing his mothers old flip flops, so they were a good 2" too short.  I had to laugh - this big strapping young man wearing his mother's flip flops....

I finally got to watch some really hot surfers off the coast - all tourists.  The Senegalese do not surf.  They fish instead. 

Pascal and his family were to arrive around 8 p.m. to join us for dinner.  They showed up around 9 pm and then Saliou took off to a restaurant to get some food.  He came back with food and Iba.  I have to admit that their meat is kind of gross.  There are unknown pieces of brown tissue that range from gristly to grossly soft.  I guess it's an acquired taste.  I found out later that the restaurant was out of fish and chicken.  This is what was left....We started eating around 10 p.m. and I finally shoo'ed everyone out around 12:30 am.  My schedule of sleeping/eating is way off but somehow it's worked out ok.  I just pass out on a less regular schedule, but I do pass out when I need to.

Pascal and Daniel hung out together 15 years ago when Daniel was here.  Daniel was 18 at the time.  I took a picture of us and sent it to Daniel.  ; )

Back in Dakar: Visiting Badou's mother

Saliou reminded me again that it was not safe for me to go out on my own.   In fact, he went so far as to pull up videos of women being attacked on the streets of Dakar by groups of men.  Lovely.  So, anyway, I am officially banned from walking alone in Dakar as a single white woman.

I was restless the day we came back from Casamance.  Everyone was at work, and I was really hungry.  When a Senegalese person says "J'arrive", which we would translate as "I'm on my way, I'll be there soon", it only means "I will arrive ...eventually, maybe in an hour or two or three...". Thus was I stranded with no food for more hours than I wanted.  Saliou finally showed up around 3 p.m. and we went to the beach for some food.  While we were there, Saliou went on a rant about the "youth of today" and I had to laugh.  All over the world, the older people lament the lack of manners of the younger generation.

I had yet to meet Badou's mother.  It's very important here to meet the family, especially the mother.  We headed up to the "suburbs" (Guediawaye) of Dakar in heavy traffic.  Badou's mother owns her own house.  She is alone because Badou's father is living with his second wife in Casamance.  Men can have up to four wives here and it appears that money is no object.  This puts Badou into the situation of making the long (up to two hours each way) commute from her house to his work by the old airport because he is a good son (and only child) and feels responsible for her.  This, in the face of horrendous traffic, the necessity of taking three separate buses because a taxi is too expensive.

Transportation is relatively expensive here, and thus, lucrative for the drivers - even though the cost seems small to us.  To take a taxi to downtown (20-45 mins), that will cost 2000 cfa, or about $3.50.  You can buy a very good dinner in a small local restaurant for 600 - 1000 cfa, or about $1.25.

Badou's mom's house (I don't know her name, I just called everyone Maman) is the nicest I have seen.  The floors are tiled, she has furniture, a small patio, and two bedrooms.  The toilet is outside.  I gave her one of the three watches which I don't really use from the U.S.  She was very happy.  Gifts are a big deal here.  The meal was excellent, fish and rice!  We all ate from a single platter as is the custom but we did eat at a table!

Returning to Dakar, Saliou and I sat in horrendous traffic, literally gridlocked, for an hour, finally seeing the problem.  A truck had broken down in a narrow passageway blocking traffic for miles.  

Kayaking!

Saliou had never been kayaking, and was perhaps a bit suspicious of the whole thing but I promised that it would be fun.  The guide asked who was stronger;  since Saliou clearly is much bigger than me,  we put him in the back.  Bad move since he had no idea how to steer.  In a shallow section, I suggested that I go to the back so we had at least a chance of getting further than 5' down the stream.  We were in the thick of mangroves, their roots extending out from their trunks.  I had kayaked about 10 times before but never from the back;  Stephen always did that.  Even though I'm not particularly skilled, we at least headed in the right direction, mostly.  Navigating very narrow channels was super hard, though, and when I thought we must be almost done with our tour, the guide told us that we were half way there.  No.......  I completely collapsed after that.

Getting to the locale in the first place took four vehicles.  First from Kabrousse to Cap Skirring by taxi, then a sept-place (no breakdowns!!) to Ousmaye, then a taxi to Casamance VTT, then a company vehicle to close to the mangroves.  Then, a 15 min walk through rice fields (currently dry).  It's quite an excursion just to get there.

Lunch?  Fish and rice, of course.  600 cfa, about $1.00.  Prices can vary quite a bit depending on where you are eating.  This was a hole in the wall place.  A kitten mewed at me, huge eyes, while I ate.

As if it weren't obvious, Senegal is really different in all ways from the U.S.  One topic, the relative roles of women and men, was an interesting example of that.  I'd say that Senegal's culture with regard to women's place in life is about where we were in the 1950's, where women were relegated to household tasks, and Dad was boss.  Glad those days are over (mostly).

On a more tragic note, Saliou shared with me the hardship of being black in this world.
  That made me sad, this reality.

Across the water in a pirogue to swim in the bolongs

I wanted to take full advantage of what this beautiful region has to offer.  A big advantage of having Saliou along with me is that he talks to everyone and gets the inside info on who is available to help us do something.  After a couple phone calls, we were picked up by a (really nice) car to take us to the river to go out on the boat.  Just us, reasonable price.  The boatman spoke French quite well, but conversation quickly dissolved into Wolof, and much shared laughter on their part.  It's nice to see that.

The river is quite large with dense mangrove on all sides.   We stopped at a small sandy pullout where another pirogue was docked.  The narrow sandy path opened onto a clearing of three houses.  Two women (out in the middle of nowhere...) were beautifully dressed in the traditional clothing.  They were hacking at a large tree branch.  Whereas we Americans would use a saw, they use a long machete-like tool to chop at the tree.  Our boatman helped out.  The three buildings were well built (had roofs, for example).  One family, three generations, lived there.  There was a family cemetery there. Various sized raised mounds show whether the person was an adult or child.

  To us, it is so foreign, that you would live on your own like that.  There is no cash exchange here, only barter by boat.  All the females are traditionally dressed. The Senegalese women spend in inordinate amount of time washing clothing.  They are always well dressed.  You'll often see men in what appears to be American T-shirts.  Children can look pretty unkempt, but that's to be expected.  In villages, you see pig, chickens, goats all over the place.  Right now there seems to be an abundance of baby animals.  And of course, children roam all over the place.  No helicopter parents here.

Along the shore are many vacation homes of Europeans.  We pulled up at a small resort to swim and I chatted with a young man on a surfboard (paddling, as it was calm).  I had been admiring his swimming way out in the river, very smooth swimmer.  He spoke very good French and it was super fun to talk to him  When I can upload pictures, I'll put his picture here.

Guess what I had for lunch?  Yes!  Fish and rice!

Tonight is packing night for an early departure tomorrow morning on the ferry.  I hope very much that we don't end up in a Sept-Place that breaks down....we will leave with plenty of time in case that happens.

I have to say that I would never come here alone.  It would be enormously hard to get around as all negotiations are in Wolof .  I'm also not really sure where the idea came that people are super friendly and warm.  I can see that if you are in an organized tour, that would be the case since that's where the money is to be made.  When I was alone in Dakar,  people mostly wanted to sell me things.  My friends here are extremely protective of me, and are immediately worried if I say I am going to wander off by myself.  They also guard their belongings very carefully.  Just now, the waitress here asked Saliou in Wolof if we could give her some money.  No one has any around here.  Saliou will go to the ATM to get 500 cfa (about 80 cents).

Spending time with Badou, Iba and Saliou has been wonderful, and would have been, in any country!