The First Six Hours

Yellow fever is endemic through tropical Sub Saharan countries from Senegal to Ethiopia.  You are required to show your WHO Yellow Immunization card confirming your vaccination if you visit any of these countries prior to departing for South Africa.  Robin, couldn’t take the vaccine so she departed NYC for Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna with her girlfriend Susan, while I went to Senegal.

After a seven hour flight, I arrived in Dakar in the early morning, a day before Thom and his wife.  We elected to stay in the Plateau district, which is the oldest section of the city.  The embassies and “financial” center of Dakar is in the newer section, Almadies north of Plateau, but we didn’t want to stay with the Europeans - we wanted Africa!

I was picked up by Hotel Fleur de Lys for the half hour drive into town, and checked in.  My first impression looking out the hotel window was of Amman Jordan.  Low rise dun colored buildings, cracked stucco flaking off the mud or concrete block walls, dusty unpaved streets, filthy windows, and in the distance the minarets and the soothing call to prayer of the muezzin echoing through the city. Ahh, love it.  

After a shower and a brief nap, I ventured into the labyrinthine.  The people are black, I don’t mean chocolate or dark brown, but almost a steel blue-black.  And they are a handsome people.  The men wear the tradition booboos, a long pull-over robe the length between their knees and their ankles, worn over billowy pants of the same colorful fabric.  On the street corner, a barber shaves their heads over which they wear the knitted Muslim cap.  The woman are colorfully dressed with a turban or just a pile of matching cloth on their head to block the sun. Frequently they are transporting a tray or basket of goods on top of that.

I venture through the streets toward a plaza.  There are no whites around.  I am often approached very friendly, sometimes hawking without pressure, sometimes just a greeting to an obvious foreigner.  In the plaza a tall, 6’4” middle aged man in a yellow pollen colored booboos strikes up a conversation.  His name is Baboo.  As we walk Baboo tells me his story - four wives, one is no good, works as a guide in a hotel, etc. Eventually, he wants me to see his “factory” where they make and sell african garments.  I know the routine.  He doesn’t own any factory, but gets a commission for brining someone. But I like him so I agree.  At the factory, a dark, low ceiling windowless warren of cloth and sewing machines, and stacks of beautiful colored african shirts, booboos, women’s outfits, etc..  The short, toothless hawker entreats me to buy something.  Like a middle eastern rug seller, he pulls out shirts, blouses, and bolts of fabric one after the other all “made by the boys, buy something to help the boys”.  But it’s the start of the trip and I’m not in the mood to buy, I just want to immerse myself.  I convince the hawker I’m not buying and we leave after painfully sad looks.  I tell Baboo, I just want to explore alone now, but he’s not done yet.  Failed at his commission, he now makes a personal plea.  He tell’s me he likes me etc and gives me a little African choker as a gift, “not for payment”.   Then he asks for some money to buy rice for his kids. I like him, and they are desperately poor here so I give him a 1000 CFA (about a dollar). And we part on acknowledging the goodness of each other.  We are now brothers.

I wander my way to the local market set up in a gravel lot.  Dozens of vans have transported people from far away villages to shop here. It’s fascinating, but slightly uncomfortable.  Hundreds of poor people barely getting by and going through their necessities, with a tall white guys wandering around them “for pleasure”.   There’s a section where vehicles are lined up for mechanics to repair, there’s the clothing section, household section, vegetable section, meat section, and even a “fast food” section, where women have set up make shift kitchens to cook rice and grille slices of freshly butcher meats, under a corrugated tin roof lit by candles.  It’s compelling visually, so I take my iPhone and photo the women behind the fires.  I forgot, Muslims don’t like their photos taken - images are idolatry - and I get yelled at.  I apologize and walk away, but as I do so I catch out of the corner of my eye a young teenager surreptitiously following me from a distance.  I stop, he stops.  I circle back, he circles back.  I wait at a cross walk, he waits. I glare at him, he looks the other way.  Hmm, I don’t think he’s up to any good.  He saw my iPhone, and they are pretty valuable here - several months wages even at a discounted price.  I walk to a main thoroughfare and hail a taxi for 1000 CFA and leave him behind.  

I get off some distance away and decide to walk toward a viewpoint.  I’m approached by a very engaging person, but there was something less genuine about his approach, and while friendly, I dismiss him.  But he keeps slightly ahead of me on my right, chatting, grinning, and complementing me on my pants.  Out of the corner of my eye I catch another person behind me on my left.  Suddenly, the man in front reaches down and tugs on the fabric of my left knee commenting how sturdy the fabric is, and I push him away.  He finally leaves.  When I reach the viewpoint I reach for my iPhone in my left pant pocket and it’s gone.  Instantly, I know what happened. Distracted by the tug on the pant by the guy in front, the guy behind, who I never really saw, slipped the phone out of my pocket.  Smooth as silk!  My first six hours in Senegal.  

Photos courtesy of Robin Johnson.  My photos were stolen.