And so it continues...

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Thursday October 20, 2005

Well, since our last entry we’ve had our first major emergency...and it didn’t even involve any of us! After a relatively boring week of going to French classes and getting settled, we had a totally crazy afternoon. We were about to head out to downtown Dakar, and were just writing a note for Magueye, to let him know that we were going to be gone for dinner when Cheikh (the two year old) hit his head on the glass coffee table. We had been playing with him and tickling and stuff, and he was doing a little dance for us, when he reached down quickly to get something off the floor, and cracked his head off the side of the coffee table (NB this coffee table consists of a piece of glass that was freshly cut for our arrival, cause Cheikh just put a rock through the last one - it’s incredibly sharp and Alex and Mustafa have both cut themselves on it by just walking by). Anyway, he hit his head and his forehead absolutely split open. He was bleeding everywhere, absolutely pouring all over his face, and neither of his parents were anywhere to be found. Magueye had gone out and his wife hadn’t been here all day, but no one had asked us to watch him. The housekeeper (yes, that’s right, they have a housekeeper, whom I’m sure is paid either in pennies or in sexual favours) was here, and I’m not sure if she’s also supposed to cover as the babysitter or not, but she wasn’t really that helpful. John took his shirt off, and I held it on his head to stop the bleeding because we couldn’t find a clean rag in the house. Marian is really queasy about blood, and had to go put her head between her legs in her bedroom. The housekeeper, Absa, went and got this old woman, who only spoke Wolof, who told John to get some money, and me to bring Cheikh to the clinic. We went, and he got all stitched up. So…lesson learned: bad things DO happen when you don’t childproof your house.

Besides that, we’ve all had our turns at being sick now. I’ve thrown up a couple of times, Marian and Alex got really bad colds and John’s just finishing up a stint with the runs. Needless to say, the food here is bad enough when you’re feeling fine….it’s horrendous and a complete test of will power when you’re sick. The family is really nice and very hospitable, but they eat the same freaking thing everynight, and for us, every night is becomes a little harder to stomach. So, today we went downtown and looked at an apartment. It’s really cute and A LOT closer to downtown Dakar (right now we’re in the “suburbs” - a term I use loosely, as although in most places this would be as far as the suburbs, when traveling on sand roads that are often flooded, it takes as long to get to downtown as it takes to get to Toronto from Barrie). The apartment we looked at is fully furnished, and has a western style kitchen (and bathroom, which, we are all surprised to report, has not been missed as much as one would have thought…I guess we can adapt to different circumstances after all). We’re really looking forward to being able to make our own meals, especially since the (lack of) food is the reason we’ve been feeling kind of crappy lately.

We’re looking at places to volunteer that are closer to the apartment. It doesn’t make sense to move, then to commute back to the place we were originally going to volunteer. Plus, the micro- credit bank that we were going to be at isn’t really the greatest experience for Marian and I anyway. We may even consider continuing the French classes for awhile, so as to really improve our French. So, because of all the changes in living situation etc., I think we’ll be coming home before we thought! I don’t think we can afford to stay in Dakar for six months if we’re going to paying rent the whole time. Right now we’re playing with the idea of staying for three or four months, then either heading to Europe for a month before we go on our safari (maybe practicing our French in the south of France!?!), or just moving the tour from South Africa to Kenya up a couple of months. Either way, I think it will be good for us…we’re really realizing that we’ve been missing home, since we left for Africa so soon after getting home from London. We’re really enjoying our time in Dakar so far, but we’re trying to also be realistic about how much more we’ll get out of a couple of extra months when compared to the money that we’ll save. It’s really interesting, for a developing country, especially one that has all the characteristics of a developing country, that Dakar is so expensive. Alternatively, it’s also really good that we can get a lot of things here that you probably can’t get in a lot of other African cities. We’re really happy to have had a chance to have this opportunity, but are also constantly reminding ourselves that we’re really lucky to be able to leave after only a few months, while others are destined to live here for life. It will be really interesting to see what it is like here once Ramadan ends. It should make things a lot easier, especially since everything closes around 3:30pm right now, cause everyone is so tired from not eating or drinking while in the incredible heat (which all the Senegalese keep promising me is going to end at any moment). The power’s been on and off several times today, so I’m going to hop in the shower while I can still see all my little creepy crawly friends that are going to join me in there. Night!

October 22, 2005

Magueye and his family have been extremely hospitable for the last few days. We have all been sick, and they have made so many efforts to make us feel comfortable. Last night we even had a dinner that was supposed to resemble something we’d eat at home. It wasn’t quite there, but it did make all of us feel better! John and I have spent most of the day figuring out new travel plans. We’re definitely moving into that apartment as soon as it’s available, so now we’re just reworking our travel dates. From the looks of things now, we’ll be staying in Dakar for three months total, then heading to Europe to catch our flight to Cape Town. We plan on spending a couple of weeks in South Africa before starting the incredible safari tour. We should be home by mid-march now, and will maybe even have few pennies left in our pockets!

Our life in Dakar has been pretty quiet for the last few days. We seem to be living the life of the Senegalese…we go to our French classes in the morning and relax at the beach or visit with people at the house in the afternoon. Magueye’s house is in Camberene 2, which is quite a ways out of Dakar. It’s purely residential, with only a couple of corner-shop type stores around. There are, however, internet cafes everywhere you look, which is odd, but convenient. The roads are all sand, except the one paved main road, and you will see horse-drawn buggies almost as frequently as beat-up old cars on them. There are always children out playing in the streets, at all hours of the day. There is a soccer field (it’s not actually a field, but more of a sand pit that has goal posts at both ends) near us, and there are always loads of kids playing there. On the smaller side streets like ours, there are the younger kids out playing, throwing rocks and playing in the sand. They are thrilled if you throw them a ball to play with, and they will play for hours. There doesn’t seem to be much supervision of the children, there are usually very few adults around at all. The children stay out of trouble for the most part though, and rarely seem to be upset or hurt. The community feeling is intense, and many people often stop to welcome us. We even had two teenage guys stop their motorcycle the other day to ask us how long we would be staying and to say welcome to Senegal.

Our travel plans are starting to firm up, and after a long discussion with Marian and Alex, we’ve decided that we’re going to stay in Senegal for three months, then head to Europe for a month before heading down to South Africa for a couple of weeks before the tour starts. We’ve just narrowed our Europe trip to France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and Netherlands, but as usual, things may still change. Staying in Senegal for only three months will be good, I think. It would be different if we had really great jobs here, but to stay for half a year is a lot considering we will be not doing very much while we here. I think that leaving after three months will mean that we leave with a really great feeling about our time here, without ‘overstaying our welcome.’ This has been an amazing experience so far, and we’ve only been here for two weeks! It feels like a lot longer than that, and I can’t even begin to imagine what we will get out of the experience in three months. We’ve been talking a lot about how this will help us to appreciate so many things once we’re home, and we can only hope that we won’t soon forget this appreciation once settling into life in Canada again.

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Photos

Cheikh
After the accident

French Class
Gora's House, where we had our French classes on the roof

Comments

[mjlaidlaw]

seasons
Just try to remember every real Canadian is "THINGING SNOW" right now.