Back in Dakar!!!

Back in Dakar!

Feels like I never left and yet…feels like everything is different. Funny how that happens!
I had a great month away spent with friends and family! Paris was wonderful and overwhelming as I was just getting over having left Dakar. But it being the romance capital I couldn’t spend too long being shocked and traumatized by western-ness all of a sudden! Getting to Denmark was equally great. It was so nice to see my parents again after so long away…and shortly after that seeing Torsten and Kelly too.

Pretty much the month in Denmark was spent eating waaay too much food and relaxing with family. Apparently I ate so much that the first comment all the Congolese boys (our friends that I stay with in Dakar) made was "wow, you have gained weight!" ARGH, I thought we had taught them that North American girls do not like hearing that!!!

People just have such an open honesty here. They don’t mean to make you feel bad when they call you big…they are just stating the obvious! No wonder people have culture shock when travelling between countries. That kind of outright bluntness would not fly back home!
The flight home was a little bit eventful. My bag was checked all the way through from Copenhagen to Dakar but I only had a boarding pass for the first flight…since in Barcelona I would be changing flight companies. That of course made me a little nervous but I figured, why not have faith in the airline companies to coordinate and get my bags the whole way! Once I landed in Barcelona I had a short lay-over which should have been fine but apparently I had to switch terminals which required leaving the airport, taking a bus that was determined to go slowly enough to make me miss my flight, push over people to get out of the bus quickly…run to the check-in counter and HOPE they hadn’t closed. Luckily, there was still a guy there and after checking me through he realized, oh yah…do you have anything proving you will only be in Senegal 3 months? What??? I have never needed that before! I had my return flight ticket that I could show him but that was over 3 months. My plan had been either to leave the country for a bit within 3 months or to have my ‘visa’ prolonged once here. Well, noo, he wasn’t sure that would work so he had to call the supervisor. All the while I am sweating from running and praying that he will hurry up so that I don’t miss the boarding call! Turns out he decided to just let me go anyway, no worries. I made it quickly through security…got to the gate and….boarding delayed 10 minutes! I have TONS of time…I love it when I stress for nothing!
The upside to all that stress and ‘what-if’ scenario-ing I was doing was that I had a great seat. The first row behind business class and a window seat with the seat between mine and the guy in the aisle being a very tiny-seat (child seat maybe) so no one came and sat there! I had the same seat from Lisbon to Dakar.

And I have to say, TAP Portugal knows how to feed its passengers. I know many of you out there HATE airplane food but I am not so picky. I wouldn’t choose to eat it everyday but I certainly don’t find it that horrendous. And TAP feeds well. Mmm mashed potatoes for dinner and chocolate mousse for dessert! How can you go wrong?? (I could never be a food critique…I just like everything)

So the faith I had in airline companies was shot to pieces when I arrived in Dakar and my bag didn’t show up. First the customs guy made me leave the airport to find the guy who was meeting me and get an address. You can’t get into the country without a very specific address! Once that was done I went over to the luggage belt and…oh, no bag! The guy unloading them shrugged his shoulders sadly and then asked me for my phone number – yup, I knew I was back in Senegal at that precise moment!

Luckily my bag wasn’t missing for that long. I arrived Monday night and the following night it arrived on a 2 am flight. I went to pick it up at the airport with no problems, oh except that the security guy also wanted my phone number…honestly?? Professionalism?? Or how about just look at our age differences??
Ah Senegal! How I missed you!

Now, the plan is to find a place to stay…start taking Wolof classes and figure how to get around in this city without having to fight with cab drivers on a regular basis. There is a fairly good bus system. I just need to find out how it works!