Day one

Our plane landed at about six in the morning. The early hour and the fact that most of the people on our flight were not "disembarking" but rather continuing on to Johannesburg contributed to the relative emptiness of the airport. We breezed through passport control because passport control had no line and we sailed through customs because customs was a guy sitting on a stool by the door. I wonder how long he pretends to read our declaration cards before he throws them away.

Although it was just after six in the morning and only about 20 people disembarked from the plane, there were approximately 40 taxis waiting to whisk us away. This lead to a traditional supply and demand scenario. For those who have forgotten your African economics, this simply means there was a way too big supply of taxis and each driver demanded that his taxi was the right choice for us. I chose the guy whose taxi was first in line because he seemed to know where our hotel was.

To get to our hotel, which is downtown, our taxi had to take a highway. The highway, like a Western highway, has lanes and a speed limit. On its face, it appears normal. However, lanes and a speed limit are merely for a driver's consideration only; helpful but non-binding suggestions. Our driver had no interest in either.

I was interested in the buses we were passing. One of my favorite African sights to behold is the guys hanging off the backs of buses. This is a standard Third World Solution.

Problem: I want to ride the bus but there is no room on the bus.

First World Solution: Wait for the next bus.

Third World Solution: Find something on the back of the bus to hang on to, stand on the bumper, hope for the best.

This is on the highway, mind you. I will get a picture, don't worry.

We drifted back and forth among lanes of traffic until we got to the hotel.

We had previously agreed upon a price of 7,000 CFA. Mom had a bunch of CFA from when we left Cote D'Ivoire so many years ago. (NB: Most of the time I am not going to make the effort to seek out the correct accents, so excuse my Franglais.) She pulled out some bills and handed them to the driver.

"Oh," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Ca ne marche pas." ("This isn't going to cut it, lady.")

"Non?" Mom asked. "On a dit sept mille, oui?" ("What? We said seven thousand, right?")

"Oui, madame. Mais votre argent, c'est ancien. Il a changé. Avez-vous Euros?" ("Yes but your money is old. It has changed. Perhaps you have some Euros?")

Mom looked at me. I didn't have any Euros. Resisting the urge to make a joke about the current state of the global economy, I asked the guy if he would take dollars, half expecting him to laugh at me.

"Oui, bien sur. Comme...vingt." ("I'll take a twenty, sucker.")

This was 50% over the fare we had agreed on but no matter, we were at the hotel. (His "your money is old" story turned out to be accurate. Apparently the currency changed around 1994 and you can no longer get new bills for your old bills.) Since it was before 7am our room was not quite ready so we dumped our stuff at the desk, grabbed some breakfast, and went walking.

Like any good French town, nothing was yet open. The exceptions were little red stands from which young men sell Nescafé. It seemed there was one on every corner. Each one has a huge tub of water (collected from who knows where) and a huge tub of powder (presumably Nescafé). Quite the booming business. Sort of like a lemonade stand for adults.

We saw so much that is so familiar even though I haven't seen it in years and years.

(Some of you will know that a couple years ago I came back to Africa on a trip to Morocco. I did indeed come across many things there that made me remark "Hey! Africa!" but somehow this is different. I don't know if it's West Africa or just Senegal or maybe Morocco is just an outlier itself. For whatever reason, I'm getting a different degree of familiarity here, for random things.)

For instance, the ground. Never level and certainly never clean (though being forever swept by shopkeepers and vendors), there are holes in the pavement everywhere (everywhere there is pavement, anyway). There is trash. There are puddles and piles of undetermined origin and substance. There are cars parked on the sidewalk.

When the cars aren't parked on the sidewalk they are busy trying to run me over. Or at least it seems that way. One is forced to walk in the street because of the sidewalk cars so there is constant danger of becoming roadkill. You have no choice but to get over that real quickly because there's nowhere else to go. Also, you realize (or trick yourself into thinking) that the drivers know what they're doing and that you haven't actually seen anyone get hit, despite the apparent odds. 

The approach to traffic intersections is similar. That approach is: whatever. There are no stop signs and certainly no lights. Cars and pedestrians all converging into an intersection at once from all different directions with no one having a right of way over anyone else...and it works. I can't help but think of the bedlam that would result if this took place in DC or any other American city. Lawsuits galore.

It's been a while since I've been a celebrity. When I was a kid it was impossible to walk around without being approached for a handout ("Cadeau! Cadeau!") or being offered a product for sale (a phone card, a magazine, toilet paper). At the very least I could get one or two good stares per block.

Because this phenomenon also happened in India and to some extent in Morocco, I was fully expecting it to happen again here in Dakar. I've gotten some attention but largely have been ignored. It's great. I'm not sure why the change, though. There aren't many white people around, at least not that we've seen, but maybe there are enough to have rendered them (us) uninteresting.

But I think there's more to it than that. I get this sense of defiance from some of the Senegalese who walk by us, like they're making a point of being uninterested. It's not malicious or offensive in any way, understand. It's just striking to me because it's so utterly different to what it was like when I was younger. Maybe as a kid I only noticed the people who noticed me because kids are self-centered that way. Maybe more of the Senegalese really are just more used to having white people around. Who knows. It has been almost 20 years, after all. Maybe more will come to light the more we walk around.

After coming back from walking and finally moving into our hotel room, Mom and I went to lunch at Le Point d'Interrogation ("The Question Mark") (pictures on the Twitter), a hole in the wall right next to our hotel and coincidentally an old favorite of certain Americans who used to live here many years ago. Poulet yassa and lotte brochettes -- hit the spot.

We wasted time walking around some more and having a couple drinks until dinner, which was at another old favorite, Chez Loutcha. Enormous menu and enormous portions, all very good. Fish on attieke, mutton in peanut sauce, and calamari in some sauce I had never had before. Lots of rice. Big Flag beer. Fat and happy.

This morning the call to prayer woke me up right around way-too-early o'clock. I had forgotten about that. I also forgot to brush my teeth last night with bottled water (sorry, intestines). We're heading to lunch soon and then the marché. I'll have to ready my bargaining chops and break out the Franglais in all its bastardized, Frankenstein glory. We'll see which lasts longer, my French or my digestive system.