Back again

It felt totally normal coming back to Dakar after my UK trip, which is a good thing. Everything here just feels like normal life. Arriving at my flat there was no electricity which was a slight pain, but what's more annoying is that when the power goes off it somehow makes the water stop working too. Have been caught out enough times though so am now prepared with candles and bottles of water (and bleach as every few days this weird smell like something has died in the drains, emanates from every plug hole. It's quite grim).

This week has been good though. On Thursday my friend took me to a tailor. One of my colleagues bought me a lovely pagne (the colourful, patterned material) and I still hadn't got round to having anything made. Knowing how much my colleagues love it when I wear anything in African material, thought I would get a whole outfit made. There is some gorgeous material so have decided I need to get some more stuff made, especially as none of my trousers seem to fit me any more (i blame the rice). It was fun, although less fun when the tailor made some comedy remarks about the size of my hips, then my friend tried to make me feel better by telling me I was the shape of a Coca Cola bottle...

I spent Friday night with my neighbours across the street who I have got to know quite well. It's a big family: 2 sons and 7 daughters and 6 of them still live there. 2 of the daughters have young sons and Coumba, the girl I'm most friendly with got married last year. Her husband lives between Coumba's family's house and his family's house which is round the corner. That is something I notice so much here. There really doesn't seem to be the concept of immediate family privacy. You get married and move in with your in-laws and all live together until someday when you can afford to build a house. Even then though, your privacy is not guaranteed. Family members, distant cousins etc can come and stay for unspecified lengths of time and you always need to be prepared for unexpected visitors. Maybe it's different outside of Dakar, but given that it's so expensive to build a house or rent somewhere, here people have little choice but to stay with their parents.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time at their house, drinking Senegalese tea and trying various new foods. My latest favourite discovery is Thiakry - small grains of millet mixed with a kind of yoghurt and lots of sugar. Delicious. Then our usual routine is to go for a walk around midnight to get some air. It is stifling here at the moment, especially when it hasn't rained for a few days. So, there is a public open area in between two lanes of road near my house, with lots of benches. We tend to go and sit there and watch the world go by. There are always so many people out and about late at night - of all ages. I'm continually amazed by how safe Dakar feels. I would never sit on a park bench at 2am in London. There is such a sense of community though as most people who live in the quartier have grown up there so know pretty much everyone. I'm sure there is a link with the sense of safety and the lack of alcohol too. I never have that threatening feeling when you see a group of really pissed people leaving pubs at night and getting into fights. It just doesn't seem to happen here or at least not where I live. Speaking of safety though, there was an armed robbery last week in a pharmacy and someone was killed. This is obviously horrendous, but people were so outraged that the following today every pharmacy in Dakar closed for the day as a mark of respect and solidarity. Every pharmacy in the country's capital city. That only emphasised to me how rare that type of violent crime is here.

On a different note, you get the real sense too that children are brought up by the extended family rather than just their parents. If I think of my neighbours for example, the 2 boys aged 7 and 4 are around the whole family all the time and everyone cares for them and disciplines them. It's very common for children to live with other relatives, normally where they can get a better education. Last month I was doing an evaluation with some primary school children in the project. One of the girls, Yassine, was explaining to me that she lives with her grandma in the village while her parents live in Dakar, 4 hours away. She said the schools are terrible in the area she lives in so she spends the terms at her grandma's house so she can do better at school.
I asked another little boy to draw a picture while we were waiting for others to join the group. He drew a picture of a car and a house. When I asked him what about it, he explained the house was where his mum lived and the car was what he wished for so he could drive to see his mum, who again lived several hours away.

And at one of my friend's houses, her niece lives with them. Her dad is in the army in the US and her mum lives in another part of Dakar, not far away. When I asked why she didn't live with her mum, the matter of fact answer was that there is a busy road by her mum's house and the children play in the street and it's not safe. So the little girl lives with her aunt. So commonplace, yet so different from what I'm used to.