Notice something unusual about this motorcycle? Well, it’s not so unusual in Dakar. I’ve seen a million taxis and motorcycles with manes tied to their bumpers. Superstition? A nod to tradition? Qui sait? Well, I’m sure Google does, but unfortunately I’ve earmarked what meager Internet time I have for more important tasks. Could someone else figure it out and get back to me? Thanks!
Every morning I pull the four corners of my mosquito net up over the four posts of my bed, so that during the day I don’t have to avoid a massive fenced-off area in the middle of my room. Every night I bring the mosquito net back down and tuck it in securely to the bedframe.
Last night I found myself in a bit of a pickle. There had been a mosquito floating around somewhere in the room – it had already bitten me twice – but it was nowhere to be seen at bedtime. What if it was hiding out somewhere on my bed, and when I put the net down I trapped it in with me? That would be a bit like those horror movies in which the killer calls the victim on the phone but it turns out the killer is actually in the house about to chop them to bits.
The funny thing about this situation is that I don’t even think malaria is a problem in Dakar. This whole net up, net down, net up, net down ritual is just practice for more rural areas. I think part of me enjoys feeling the thrill of danger when the back of my mind knows there is actually very little danger.
It’s not that my disdain for Nescafé comes from being a coffee snob. It’s more that it just doesn’t work. As I’ve noted before, I’m super sensitive to caffeine, but I can drink seven cups of Nescafé and still feel no more awake than the second after my alarm clock goes off.
But there are really no other coffee options here, apart from a drink called Café Touba, which is sold in mini plastic cups at all the road-side kiosks (like the ones in the photo above). The coffee is ground with peppery spices and mixed with lots of sugar. I tried it. It tasted okay – though it smelled uncomfortably like Robotussin – but it had absolutely no effect on my level of alertness.
On my first Saturday here, during my stroll along the Corniche, I stopped in at a fancy hotel to see if they might have honest-to-goodness coffee. My desperation for caffeine was such that I was overjoyed to find them serving Nespresso. It tasted frothy and delicious, and more importantly, I spent the rest of the day properly wired for the first time in a week.
Since then I’ve found a pan-African / Caribbean restaurant a couple blocks from my house that also serves Nespresso, and I’ve been going every day for my daily fix. I thought the problem was solved… Until I went to the restaurant this morning only to find it closed on Saturdays until later in the evening. I am literally beside myself in my longing for a Nespresso right now. I know this is utterly ridiculous in quite a number of ways. And yet the fact remains that I about to lose it.
Having studied my map diligently, I set out on foot at about 1pm in the direction of downtown. It was supposed to take about an hour and fifteen minutes. I saw a lot of familiar sights and a lot of new ones; it was a nice walk. After about an hour I decided to stop in at a supermarket for a drink and to check where I was. I had not busted out my map before then because being seen with one would make me susceptible to all sorts of propositioning I didn’t want. Continue reading
I feel like Annie. Every five seconds something prompts me to sing to myself, “I think I’m gonna like it here!” Continue reading
My new home, for awhile. 🙂
I’m hanging out in the Brussels airport waiting for my connection to Dakar. This is a trip 23 years in the making, and for a long time I wasn’t sure it would ever happen – I thought maybe I had let the dream die – so I’m a little amazed that I’m finally following through after so many false starts and delays.
My 13 year-old self would be so psyched for me, though she might also be like, “What took you so long?” It was in French class that year that I learned about francophone West Africa and seized upon Senegal as the most fantastic-looking place on earth. I thought about studying abroad there in college, I thought about going right after college, I thought about spending a few months there instead of going to grad school, I thought about spending a few months there after grad school, I thought about going there for vacation two years ago… I thought about it a lot over many years, but I always wimped out or felt like the timing or my financial situation wasn’t right.
And then two years ago after I returned from my vacation to Argentina, where I had gone with a decade’s worth of airline miles originally earmarked for Senegal, I decided that if I didn’t start making serious plans it would never happen – and I still really wanted it to happen. So I did start making plans, and now here I am with nothing standing between me and my long-held dream but a few hours in the airport and a six-hour flight. Not to get too epic about it – but it does feel epic in my own personal journey.
I hope I love Senegal as much as I’ve always believed I would, but even if I don’t, just stepping foot there is going to be surreal and awesome.
And with that, I’m going to go find my gate.
[The picture above was drawn by my lovely friends, who have a whimsical view of both life and my baggage situation.]
Update on this situation: After speaking with a bunch of people in the know, I concluded that I most likely wouldn’t have any problem getting into Senegal with a one-way ticket. But I also concluded that in the very unlikely scenario that I did have a problem, there was a distinct possibility I could be barred from my flight and lose the 40,000 frequent flier miles I spent on the ticket.
Rather than taking that risk, it seemed like a better deal to get an onward ticket for a random destination and arbitrary date, and to write off the change fee that I’ll eventually pay – when I figure out where and when I’m actually going next – as the cost of entering Senegal.
United’s rules for mileage tickets are pretty straightforward, and pretty reasonable. It costs between $75 and $200 to change the ticket or refund the miles into your account. So I booked a one-way ticket out of Dakar on May 12, the last day I can stay in Senegal without a visa (which BTW you can only apply for once in-country).
The destination? Casablanca by way of Lisbon, because the first twelve cities I chose didn’t work out for various reasons related to my inability to make anything easy for myself. At first plugging in Dakar – Nairobi, Dakar – Kigali, Dakar – Accra, Dakar – Cape Town felt really worldly and exciting, but as one destination after another proved logistically impossible I became increasingly frustrated and worried. I know this is just a placeholder ticket but booking it has shown me that traveling around Africa on airline miles is not going to be easy, and traveling around Africa with paid tickets is not going to be as cheap as one (who is naive) might have thought.
Well, I’ll figure it out eventually. There’s a lot of time between now and May 12.
[Photo: Aquila]
This morning at the subway turnstile I realized that my Metrocard had expired, and since I have so little time left in New York I renewed it with a weekly unlimited pass instead of my usual monthly one. It was kind of bittersweet, kind of shocking, and kind of awesome.
After my downtown meeting directly across the street from the Woolworth Building, I took a moment to walk casually past the “no tourists beyond this point” sign and gawk at the spectacular lobby. (Had anyone stopped me I would have said, “Humph, I’m no tourist!”) Even though it’s one of the world’s first skyscrapers, the Woolworth Building had never been on my NYC bucket list, but after seeing it in person I now know it should have been.
My next order of business was in Midtown and a huge pain, but when I was finally done and waiting for the subway at Grand Central, the finale of a pretty delightful song by the speakeasy-style band on the platform harmonized perfectly with the sound of the train pulling into the station.
I thought, you will get none of this in Senegal.
And yet.
Today I received information about the family I will be staying with in Dakar for about two months. The homestay was arranged by the language-learning center where I’ll be doing 40 hours of one-on-one lessons over two weeks. I had found and loved the sound of this particular program two years ago when I first started looking into immersion possibilities in Senegal, and very (very, very) coincidentally, my newish-at-the-time friend found and chose the same program when she decided to do her own French immersion last summer. She loved it and especially loved her host family so I requested them as well, and today I found out that they are free, and that’s where I’ll be staying.
Yes, I’ll be giving up skyscrapers and subway symphonies for awhile. But soon I’ll be feasting my eyes and ears on all new sights and sounds, and I am so excited about that.
People. I just booked my ticket to Dakar. I wanted to lock it in before the dust settled on my Elsewhere trip and the paralysis and despair of unemployment (which started this evening) wrapped me in its death-grip. I also thought, wouldn’t it be nice to go into the new year with something to definitively, concretely look forward to and plan for? And why wait? The longer I put it off, the more opportunity I had to start squirming.
So I’m flying to Dakar on Valentine’s Day, which seems appropriate given how I’ve loved Senegal from afar since the age of 14. The amazing thing about this trip is that while I panicked two years ago when I purchased a solo ticket to Argentina (13 days long) and became mildly anxious when I booked a 1-person trip to Mexico City and Elsewhere (11 days long), I barely batted an eyelash of anxiety when I confirmed this ticket (one-way, i.e. unlimited-days long). Practice makes perfect, I guess.
Now I am heading downtown to raise a glass and toast not only the new year but also the next adventure, 22 years in the making.
Happy new year! Or, rather, bonne année et bonne santé, from someone who will be speaking nothing but French in a matter of weeks…
talk foreign to me 