It's 5:40 pm. The electricity is off in my hotel and I'm on battery power. So I better get crackin...
I woke up this morning after a less than refreshing sleep. I took a much needed shower and changed and headed out. My passport was at the front desk as promised and I retrieved it to my relief. I'm paranoid about my passport.
So it was time to tackle Dakar--or be tackled by Dakar. I asked the clerk how much a taxi into Dakar costs. She said about 2000 or 2500 CFA. Since I only had a 5000 CFA note and a 200 CFA coin, that was potentially almost half my CFAs on hand. So I studied the map and decided to try walking. I left about maybe 9:30 or so. We are right by a lighthouse in the Mamelles neighborhood. It's about 2 miles from the city center. So off I went. I went by the light house. There were a few people walking. There were tons of taxis. They beep at you to let you know they can take you. I got beeped at a lot. Taxi drivers with empty seats hate to see rich people walking, I'm sure. (Electricity is back-I guess it comes on around 6. They are running a generator from the sounds of things.) Anyway, there weren't many walkers, but a few so I didn't feel like I was doing something I shouldn't. I next passed some sort of military installation with men in towers watching the road perhaps and probably wondering what this white guy was doing walking along the road.
Then I sort of crested the hill and voila. A magnificent scene! A mosque at the bottom of the cliff. There were long deep staircases going down, a nice beach, a bunch of boats, and people. But the mosque is a fascinating architectural style. It looks brand new--all white with its two towers à la Notre Dame and an onion dome. (Generator is off again.)
So I went around that. After that, Dakar turned beautiful. So much nicer than even Rabat. The buildings were nice, the streets were clean, the infrastructure was constructed with quality. I had expected Senegal to be behind Morocco. Maybe it was racism on my part, or thinking that proximity to Europe would mean more European influence, or maybe it was the fact that the Arabs invented the zero. I don't know what it was, but I was pleasantly surprised. I started to think that Elena should have come with me. I went along in this happy state by the university, by a big blue gorgeous building that welcomes everyone to Dakar at the city limit.
Then I went by a small market that sells art--teak wood stuff, ebony, mahogany, etc. A guy called me in. OK, I can't buy anything so what's the harm in looking. After all, I dealt with the most persistent merchants that Morocco had to offer. And Moroccan merchants see Al Pacino's character in Glengarry Glen Ross as a lightweight. Well, these guys make the Moroccans look like amateurs. The only reason they let me go was that I had no money on me. Unlike the Moroccans whose approach is always rough, these guys are much smoother. They don't start out with that offputting "Français? Espagnol? Italiano? Anglais?" These guys have charisma that the merchants in Morocco just don't. I get away from Paco who wants to show me around Dakar. I tell him I want to go alone. By myself. Finally he leaves me be. But other guys suck me in. Finally, one guy--the guy, Alionwe Sow at booth 86 is trying to sell me carvings. Finally in order to escape, I have to promise to come back later. What time? It's like he wanted to make an appointment. I said maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. To seal that, he gave me a present--a sort of wooden mask sample that is unpolished. The idea being now that he's given me the mask, I have an obligation to come back.
So now, I'm on my way. I survived and kept walking. Then out of the blue--there's Paco. He just follows me. So we chat a bit. He leads me to the Place d'Independence where the bank machines are. I get 100,000 CFA out. I figure, Paco deserves a beer, so I invite him for a beer. He picks the place--l'Imperial.
On our way a guy attaches himself to me. He has in his hand 5 items. Fake (or stolen) RayBans, fake (or stolen) Montblanc pens, a fake (or stolen) Louis Vuitton wallet, and two other boxes whose contents I didn't see but are probably fragrances. He kept putting items in front of me and quoting prices. Like I can do CFAs yet. They're between a Japanese yen and a Korean won. Too small. Morocco was easy because I learned Moroccan pricing in Hong Kong. A dirham is like a Hong Kong dollar. Anyway, he kept putting this in front of me in various combinations and quoting prices. Like 5000 CFA for a fake pair of RayBans AND a set of fake Montblanc pens is something I can consider a good deal. I couldn't even think how much 5000 CFA was. I was tired and thirsty.
It's nice inside the Imperial. Air conditioned. Lot's of Europeans. Cute bartendresses. We got two Flag beers and they came with spicy olives. Yummy! I don't really like olives in the US, but I like the olives we get here in Africa. I guess we can't do olives--like they can't really do hamburgers. So we sat at Imperial enjoyed the AC and chatting about various things. Paco is a bit clingy but a nice enough guy. And the west Africans have that charm that the Moroccans just lack. The only Moroccan I met on the entire trip of 1 month who I would invite to a beer was our neighbors son, Tarik, in Marrakech. All the rest weren't really people I wanted to have a beer with. Of course Tarik comes from a strict Muslim family and doesn't drink beer. Oh well. Paco claims to speak 7 languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, Chinese (!?) and his local dialect. I doubt his Chinese is really good. Actually (soapbox moment) why do people claim to speak "Chinese"? To me, that usually means Mandarin. Though there are Mandarin, Cantonese, and then a whole pile of decreasingly used dialects. When I mean Mandarin, I like to say Mandarin. Another amazing fact about him, he claims his family has 20 boys and 10 girls! What? He has 30 siblings? According to the Lonely Planet polygamy is practiced in Senegal. So I guess his dad had the maximum number of wives allowed. (I'm sticking with the minimum, myself.) I'm personally not a big fan of multiple wives. I can't even find one woman who wants me when there are an equal number of single men and women. (Seattle actually has a huge number of extra single men, though. I'd have to go east--NY or Boston--for fishing in the barrel rather than being the fish.) He also said it had rained yesterday. It's very hot today--OK only 31°C, but hot to me.
So finally, I decided to leave. I show my journal which I had brought and told Paco that I wanted to find a place and write. We went outside. We obviously still wanted to follow me. Finally I said I had to do stuff that I need to do by myself. Then he tried to lay a guilt trip on me. He said that he came all this way and had no way of getting back. Gee, I bought the guy a nice beer in a nice place with lots of hot waitresses. What more could he want? He followed me--not just uninvited--but told that I wanted to explore Dakar alone. Is it my problem if he wandered to far from where he started as he followed me? No. But I said I could contribute to his cab fare. I had a 2000 CFA note as change from the beer (1200 CFA each plus a 500 CFA tip--think 500CFA is like a dollar so two US$2.40 beers and a buck tip which is half of what I pay in the US--a buck a drink). So I was willing to give him 2000 CFA but he made a suggestion first. Twenty. Twenty? What can you do with 20 CFA? It's like a penny. No 20,000 CFA. Whoa!!!! That's like US$40. For showing me the way to the ATM? After drinking a beer? What was he smoking? (Cigarettes actually--3 the whole time we were together.) He agreed to half. Agreed to half?! I never even agreed to 1 CFA! Let alone 20 bucks. He said he'd give me credit when I came to his store tomorrow. We "negotiated" some more. In the end, I gave him 2000 CFA--like US$4. More than he deserved, but he did answer a lot of questions while we had our beer. And he's a nice guy as well, so the time spent with him was exasperating but also interesting.
So exit Paco stage left. Whew! But enter RayBan/ Montblanc/ LouisVuitton guy stage right. I told him I'm not interested in as many combinations as he showed me of his goods. I walked away from whence I came but he followed. And followed. I told him I wasn't interested in his merchandise. But I didn't know what his sales pitch was. He didn't want me to buy one of his five fake (or stolen) items. He wanted me to buy him off. So he would leave me the hell alone. He obviously wasn't going to make a lot of money trying to sell one of those 5 items in the Place d'Independence. He didn't need to waste his time try to sell it. One of the people there (I;m not sure of their relationship--but they must be in league) gave me a "present" of a cowry necklace. (Cowries are little shells that are easy to punch and string together and became money in west Africa. Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade goes into a lot of detail about how cowries worked in the economies of the time. Sadly, the book is a tad tedious though not as much as Harold Innis's The Fur Trade in Canada which is basically detailed lists of prices and marchandise carried on trade missions--hey wait a minute....nevermind.) Anyway, he found a much more valuable commodity--freedom from his presence. How do you shake that? Irritation just makes the commodity more valuable. His pitch became that he wanted a Coca Cola and he's go away. How much is a Coca Cola? 2000 CFA he assured me. 2000? That's like ten dollars, I exclaimed. Actually, more like five. Finally we went into a store. I just wanted to get rid of the guy and the smallest bill I had was a 5000 CFA note. He told me to give it to him and he'd give me the change. I figured the odds of that were pretty slim, but I was tired. And sure enough, he didn't give me the change. Instead he invited me to his store. But it was the impetus I needed to get pissed off. I switched to French and said "Nous sommes fini!" swinging my arms like an umpire does "safe". He was happy, he got his 4000 CFA. He asked me if I was happy. "No!" He smiled. Was it because he was embarrassed or because he got 4000 CFA from an annoyed American? Either way, it's good riddance.
He got me angry enough that I was able to keep the rest of them at bay for the rest of the day. A guy told me to come to his store--just look. I said "The last person who told me that took my money! I'm done for the day!" He hung on a little longer but he soon knew I was in no mood for games and I wasn't going to play them. Same with another guy not far from Paco's store on the way back.
Anyway, after that, I decided to try to find the Continental Hotel to see if they have rooms. I found a street that seemed to go there--roughly. It was an interesting street. It is the street where they repair cars and more importantly, the buses. Part of it looked like a chop shop. In a way it was probably a legal chop shop--they dismantle cars and turn them into parts. It was a little scary. I was the only white guy. And this was not a fancy pants part of Dakar. Oil ran in the street. The people made money on the difference in price between a used car and its parts. I finally exited the street and turned left.
If you ever look at a large African city on google maps satellite view, they look very intimidating. They map is essentially made up of grey and brown pixels and nothing else. Everything is very close together. Here is the chop shop near the bus station:
I got lost in that. It's sort of surreal. I'm probably the only white guy to go there today. My presence was, I'm sure, noted, but they didn't bother me. They ignored me. Whew!!! I wandered around in that for a while. Then decided to give up on the hotel and just go home.
I found the light house of in the distance. And by distance, I mean distance. Actually, it's more of a 5 mile trek into town than a 2 mile trek. After about an hour of walking, the lighthouse was still far. There's a French pun in there for those in the know. An hour later, I made it about 1/3 closer. Near the cool mosque I bought the most delicious Orange Fanta I ever tasted in my life. They didn't have any cold bottled water though. That gave me the boost I needed to make it back--which I did by sheer force of will. My crotch skin was chaffed severely by my sweaty pants and I got a huge blister on my right heel.
I came into the hotel which was much further from the highway than I remembered. A disembodied voice said "Bonjour". I eventually found the cure clerk laying sort of under the stairs in a cushioned bench. We laughed. Then I went to my room to take a much needed shower. I was sunburned, sweaty, and in pain. I could barely walk. The water was hot. It started as fresh water from the shower head, but was salt water by the time it hit the floor. My crotch chaffing was stinging with all the salt water flowing down my body, but eventually, the salt was gone.
Then I went back to my room where I learned they don't have electricity during the day. Oh well. I got a couple of beers down in the hotel "lounge" and came up when the mosquitos came out. I need to minimize my exposure to those little guys.
So, at least I accomplished my mission critical task of withdrawing money from the ATM. But I didn't succeed in the less critical task of prearranging a place to stay tomorrow. I'll cab it everywhere tomorrow--it's in my health budget.
23/7/2008 21:34 Dakar local time
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