Relief

I lugged my laptop and had my backpack in the noon-time sun for what seemed an hour--though it was only about 40 minutes.  I at last made it to the Via Via with my stuff.  But my key was behind the desk and there was nobody at the desk.  So, since the Via Via is also a bar/cafe/restaurant, I decided to order a beer and a 1.5 liter of water--both 1000 CFA.  I took the edge of my thirst with the extremely refreshing beer!  Perhaps the best beer I ever had in my life. ;-)

The Via Via has a few tables--maybe 8.  There are oscillating fans on the ceiling.  One table had 4 white people speaking French, one table had a 55-ish European guy who was studying a book of columns of 5 letter words, and one table had various people coming and going--half black and half white.  I was trying to figure out what the guy was doing looking at columns of words on a sort of onion paper book.  Was it some bible code thing?  Aha!  When he got up to leave I first saw that he had a nametag thingy saying "PARTICIPANT" and then I saw he had a Scrabble book.  Dakar is hosting this year's Francophone Scrabble tournament this week.  He's a hardcore Scrabbler.

They have a fairly well stocked bookshelf filled with English, French, and German random books that I suspect were left here by tourists.  I picked up John Grisham's The Street Lawyer and started reading it.  The fan was blowing on me, every twinge of thirst is immediately satisfied with a swig from the 1.5 liter Kirène bottle, and I was reading English--Grisham, in fact--an author who never bores.

I tried to pay my tab and they explained how it works here: they have a piece of paper with "my name" obtained from the sign in sheet in which I put my full name.  So they chose my middle name Andrew.  Close enough.  And they have my room name--Thies.  The rooms here are all named after cities, I guess, in Senegal.  So that's nice--I have credit.  Actually I had credit at the Cap Ouest Hotel as well.  I guess it's one of those things they do to reduce the amount of need for all the small money.  It's difficult getting around without the little bills.  Very difficult.  Part of the reason I walked is that I'm afraid of the taxi driver not being able to make change and I have to way overpay.  So now I can relax with regard to money for a little while.

So far, I really like the Via Via.  My room has a fan, mosquito net, toilet, shower, a little chair that I'm afraid to sit in, and electricity.  ...Errr.... the electricity just went out as I wrote that...  like a little gnome saw what I wrote and wanted to give me a reality check.

Anyway, I would recommend it for a budget traveler.  I didn't have any food yet, but I will as it's on credit and what I saw with the other people was that it looked and smelled really good.  Oh, and the electricity was only out for 4 minutes.  Whew!  It's a good thing to have a laptop rather than a desktop in Africa.

Anyway, here I am in the village of Yoff--essentially a suburb of Dakar.  I'm as comfortable as I can be given the circumstances.  I have some time to figure out my next move without trying to spend all my arranging shelter.  I have a library at my disposal.  I have electricity if not WiFi and there's WiFi with beer 40 minute walk away.  Maybe even something closer.  I have a SocGen bank at the end of the street, but I haven't seen if it dispenses money to me yet.  So I am relieved.  My appetite is back.  I'm learning how to deal with the Senegalese hustlers.  I'm able to use enough French to get by.  I'm ready to make this the start of my travel through West Africa.

July 25, 2008 14:00 Senegal local time