Am writing this from my slightly dreary room in the unusually named Hotel Palm Beach (neither palm trees or beaches feature in the dusty, landlocked Burkinabe landscape), while I wait to meet my friends Clemmy and Ed from London who are over here for FESPACO, Africa ’s largest film festival. So lovely to see friends from home and have news of snow and the credit crunch.
Seeing old friends has made me realise how totally useless I have been at sending any news since I left for Dakar in December, so I figured if I start keeping a blog, at least if you’re interested you can see what I’m doing! And it will be a good reminder to me of my time here as I have the memory of a goldfish.
So…after nearly 3 months, Senegal is starting to feel more like home. Spending the first 2 months stuck in a hotel room was pretty rubbish to be fair, but I did become best friends with the hotel guardians, who gave me my first lessons in Wolof (the dominant local language here) and introduced me to the sweet, frothy Senegalese tea that is a huge part of life here.
I have now moved into my own flat and I love it. It’s been a bit of a mission to get it sorted; it was an empty shell when I moved in but have slowly been trawling Dakar’s markets and carpentry workshops buying furniture, curtains, pots and pans etc etc. Am hoping my electricity account might finally be sorted when I get back from Ouaga too, which should put an end to the frequent power cuts. Fingers crossed!
Dakar is unbelievably expensive so instead of a dingy, overpriced flat in an expat area, I’ve opted for a bright and airy 2 bed flat in a busier part of town. ‘C’est calme?’ is all anyone asks me when I say I live in Liberté 4. I didn’t understand the obsession everyone had with wanting to live somewhere quiet until the day I moved in. There was a gazebo set up in the street outside my apartment block, with loud speakers strung up on the telephone poles and pictures of Maribouts (Senegalese Islamic leaders) stuck on the canvas walls. The gazebo was crammed with people chanting some kind of religious song through the battered loudspeakers ALL night. Fortunately, since then the singing hasn’t been directly outside my flat again, although most nights you can hear it coming from somewhere. Am hoping it’s like living next to a railway line and that after a while you don’t hear it anymore…
Senegal is actually much more Islamic than I imagined. There are mosques everywhere; all the colourful cars rapides and battered yellow taxis have ‘Alhamdulillah’ (thanks to God) plastered over them; no goodbye is complete without ‘Inch-Allah’ (God willing); most men wear beautiful, richly coloured boubous (matching trouser and long sleeved, calf-length dress that goes over the top); and every meeting we have at work starts and ends in prayer. People are very proud of how tolerant life is here though, and although Christians are very much in the minority, both Muslim and Christian festivals are celebrated here. Any excuse for a fete, as my friends here like to tell me.
Being in Ouaga this week, as interesting as it is to go somewhere new, has made me realise how jammy I have been to be based in Dakar . It is such a vibrant city and because as a peninsula it’s surrounded by ocean breezes, the temperature rarely gets above 25 degrees (in winter at least; apparently the heat is coming…). It’s not like other West African cities I’ve been to. Much less oppressive and there are so many foreigners here that I don’t feel like I stand out, which is nice. It’s so refreshing being by the sea too. There is a new road that winds all along the coast into town, so you have stunning views across the sea to various islands that scatter Dakar ’s coastline.
The beaches are also a complete hive of activity, with men doing strange fitness routines (crouching and walking backwards?) or Senegalese wrestling in the sand.
And people are so welcoming here. I know it’s a bit of a cliché saying how friendly everyone is when you travel somewhere, but I have genuinely been taken aback by how open and warm people have been towards me. There’s about 25 people in my office and it’s like one big family. We eat together every day out of one big circular dish in the middle of the table (rice, rice, and more rice) and when you greet people they spend the first 5 minutes asking how you are, how your family is, how your morning’s going, how your work is, if you slept well, and then telling you they have missed you. Brilliant. I am proud I can now do all these greetings in Wolof too. Shame I can’t continue the conversation much past that!
I don’t really have much of a routine yet, although my weeks do seem to end in Friday nights in Voyageurs, a slightly dodgy underground club, complete with UV lighting and mirrored walls. Music follows the same pattern every week: Coupé decallé from Cote d’Ivoire , followed by Senegalese Mbalax (which has some impossible dance), slow Zouk (when the dancefloor clears and a few couples are left glued together), and then European techno (!). I am useless dancing next to the way too glamorous Senegalese girls (thank God my sister brought me out some decent shoes and clothes – I looked such a muppet in my jeans and flip flops), but I love it! And have just about readjusted my body clock. No one gets to a club before 2am. (Made for a slightly tragic New Years Eve when at 1am I was still waiting to be picked up to go out. Ended up seeing the new year in on my hotel balcony listening to Big Ben chimes on BBC World Service and joining in Auld Lang Syne via my mobile to my sister’s party back home!)
Lots more to say, but will leave it at that for now I think. I have developed a tendency to rant when I speak to anyone from home (mixture of missing being with people who know me well and missing speaking English) and am wary of doing the same with this blog! Also ought to do a bit more work as tomorrow am travelling to rural areas for a few days to see water/sanitation projects. Will be fun to escape the city and see some of Plan’s work on the ground.
Big love to all xxx
