The romance of Senegal

3.21.09

As each day passes, I replay the events in my mind with every intention of placing them on paper. While those intentions are quite strong, they seem to give in to the power of distraction so quickly. Man, I really do have ADD…..oh look a bug!!

For the past week my room seems to have been converted into a youth hostel. Thanks to the really cool website www.couchsurfing.com, I have had a new friend, Sergio Alvarez from Venezuela, staying with me. “surfing my couch” if you will. On top of that, Alice and Ian (from England) returned from Mali and needed a place to stay as well. So, for the past two days there have been 4 of us staying in my small room. It’s been a lot of fun.

One of the nice things about having guests is that you get to experience Senegal through fresh eyes. What has become completely normal to me sparks excitement in the eyes of a traveler. Busy market streets packed with peddlers pushing brightly colored wares. Shoeless children chasing rolling tires, their laughter being carried away by the wind. Another passenger managing to squeeze into a bus that should have reached capacity 15 people ago. The clacking of horse drawn carts followed by impatient cab horns. And then I remember the romance of Senegal. I remember her beauty. I remember how she wooed me over one year ago.

One of the first days Sergio was here, we decided to go downtown and spend the day walking around. We took the bus, got out at Sandaga Market and immediately walked towards the Place d’Independence. I wanted to go check out my “secret cove” past the palace, which was one of the first places I discovered when I moved here. After passing the palace guards in their fluffy black hats, we turned and began walking down towards the ocean. We stopped to admire the mammoth Baobab tree in the middle of the road, upon which someone had painted “Africa Unite”. Then we made our way to the small fisherman’s cove. The place still feels like a secret to me. Something you hide from the world between the pages of an old book.

After watching some fisherman push their pirogue out to sea, we continued walking along the water then hiked up a small mountain where we were met with an incredible view of the whole city cradled by the sea. I kept wondering why I don’t explore my city more often. It’s beautiful.

From atop the mountain, we could see a stone pier that jetted out into the ocean towards Isle de Goree. We made our way down to discover what excitement the pier had to offer. When we finally found it, I was quite amazed to see how far it stretched out to sea. About halfway across the thing, we had to stop and climb around an old rusted cannon. I wondered if it had ever been fired or if it just stood watch like a gargoyle perched atop a cathedral. At the end of the pier sat several fisherman with hooked strings wrapped around their fingers. Very Huck Finn-ish. I sat next to one and watched as he tugged on his string rhythmically, causing the bait on the end to dance. Perhaps 20 minutes passed as I sat and watched little fish after little fish be pulled from their world. Finally a call of excitement from another fisherman pulled me from my thoughts. He had caught a BIG one. This caused everyone to come to his aid, offering little snippets of advice: let him get tired, just yank the line hard, don’t break the string. Maybe I had been lucky enough to experience the highest excitement of their day as the fisherman successfully pulled the large fish from the water and placed it in his bucket.

We walked back into the city as the sun set and concluded the day with friends and beer in honor of St. Patty’s day.

I feel so lucky to call Dakar my home. Its days like this, when I get to explore her many undiscovered secrets tucked away in small alleys or tiny coves, that I realize my good fortune. Dakar’s beauty is in its people. In its ceeb shacks. On its beaches. In its art. Sailing on its seas. In its markets. 

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures