Days 1 – 3: Dakar, Senegal
My first moments in Africa began well.
At 12.30am on Monday (Tuesday?), after a journey that began more than 18 hours earlier, I descended the steps of Alitalia’s flight from Milan into the oppressive humidity of the Dakar night.
At the bottom of the aircraft steps a van was waiting to shuttle everyone to the terminal. Next to the van was a young man in a long white kaftan. He was holding a sign for “Mme. Reid”.
So as the masses had to cram into the van, I was ushered into a waiting car which escorted me to the “salle d’honneur” where I waited in an air-conditioned room while someone collected my backpack. This is the way to arrive in a new continent!
My new kaftan-wearing friend was Arona, a friend of Rob’s who I know from my days working at De La Rue in England (the best place to make connections for travel to more unusual destinations of the world). Arona and his wife, Mariama are hosting me in their central Dakar apartment while I explore the city. They have a 16-month-old son, Ousmane, who has been eyeing me suspiciously but who I am determined to win over by the end of my stay here.
When Arona drove me back to their apartment on Monday evening, we were presented with a delicious dinner feast which Mariama, who is half Moroccan, had prepared. Since it is the month of Ramadan, when devout Muslims are not allowed to eat, drink, or smoke during daylight hours, supper is held quite late at night (after an earlier smaller meal at 7pm when the sun first sets). Only at 4am, after a huge beef steak, tomato salad, baguette and numerous almond-filled Moroccan pastries, did I go to sleep in my blissfully air conditioned room.
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Yesterday morning presented the first challenge of my trip, and those who know me well will realize it was a big one: eggs. Two of them, perfectly fried, salted and peppered, sitting there glistening on my breakfast plate and specially prepared by Martine, the cook (yes, it really is the good life here!).
I may have tried fried crickets, horse sausage, and camel milk in the past, but eggs really are a huge challenge. I silently collected my courage: I am in Africa to have new experiences and this was the perfect moment to get over an illogical phobia I have always had. The others were fasting, so no one was watching how long I stared at the plate without touching it. Finally, I cut delicately into a small corner of the egg white and plunged it in my mouth….
I am sad to say I failed my first challenge.
The rubbery consistency and absolutely horrendous taste was too much for me and I had to wash it down with copious quantities of baguette and ditah juice (thick, green and delicious). I don’t know how all of you egg-eaters manage it.
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Yesterday’s sightseeing was a visit to the Marche Sandaga, accompanied by Mariama (of which I am quite pleased, not only because she is very pleasant company, but also because the buzzing central Dakar market would probably not have been the wisest place to me to choose as my first solo visit).
Sandaga was humid, cramped, sweaty, dirty, crowded, and colourful – just perfect really. People approach from all directions to sell everything from mobile phone cards to coat hangers to frying pans. Raw meat sits warming in the heat and a man cheerfully offered to kill any live chicken I wanted from several cages full of them. Women walk around in brightly patterned headscarves with babies strapped to their backs using artfully tied pieces of cloth.
Beyond the visual feast, was a feast (of sorts) for my nose: odourfully (?) speaking, the markets (especially the marche Tilene which I visited this morning with Arona’s aunt) are a pungent combination of raw meat, overly ripe fruits, piles of raw and smoked fish, exhaust fumes and the occasional snippets of sweat or flowery fragrances from the soap section. It was at times nauseating, at times pleasant, and always memorable.
This morning I also paid a visit to the Embassy of Mali, where I applied for my visa to the country (the current plan is to take the train to Bamako, the capital of Mali, next Wednesday – if it is running, which seems uncertain until just a few hours before departure). Filling in the French-only application reminded me that it would be very difficult to get by here without any ability in that language; very few people seem to speak English.
En route to the Embassy and back, I noticed that if there was anything I had forgotten to buy at the market, it could have been sold to me while I waited in the always heavy traffic, as salespeople ply the roads offering products you never knew you would need (my favourite was a man with a metre-long office-style fluorescent light bulb). There were also a lot of goats on the streets.
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I could go on and on, but I will rest now before this evening’s eating begins again (yesterday night there was a wonderful chicken tagine). Tomorrow I am going with Arona’s aunt to the Ile de Goree, just off the coast, which is a UNESCO listed heritage site, an old Portuguese trading base and later a point on the slave route.
If anyone has questions or wants more detail on anything, just drop me a comment to the blog. I am verbose enough as it is without encouragement, but at least I can try to make it relevant!
