Senegal Sightings #1

Senegal Sightings #1
The last two days have been quite busy and a bit of a blur, so I’ll try to be somewhat coherent and chronological.
Tuesday: having gone to bed at 2.45 we didn’t get up till 11.30 (we may have been more tired than we thought). Several people had left prepared meals in the fridge so we had a nice lunch of potato and egg salad. In the afternoon we unpacked the last things and Henk took all the tools that we brought to the workshop for an early (or late) Christmas present. We figured that what we brought would have cost here at least $1200 – if at all available- while our cost had been $450.
Some first impressions:
- It is windy and quite cool (23C).  The SIL office/guesthouse is located in the industrial area and that makes for quiet evenings and nights.
- There are a lot of expats in Dakar so we are no curiosities.
- We are farther North than we normally are when in Africa and that makes for longer days and not the usual 6 to 6 sun up/down cycle.
-  We have hot running water!
- We’ll be using taxis quite a bit as our normal mode of transportation. Cost is $3 per trip whether one person or four.
We went to bed at 9.30 and were supposed to be woken by the alarm clock, but apparently that only works if one turns it on. Instead we rolled out of bed five minutes before our scheduled meeting of 8.30
Wednesday: we had a tour of the offices, being introduced to our new ‘colleagues’ and Henk was shown his field of operation: a two bedroom apartment that needs a complete overhaul.  It will be a combination of HGTV’s ‘Income property’ and ‘Canadian Handyman’…thankfully without the pressure and strict timeline.
Henk will be working together with our local center handyman Gaby (Gabriel). While Gaby was finishing the floor in the bathroom that had to be broken up to fix a leak, Henk started on taking down the kitchen cabinets.
Margreet in the meantime was folding 1500 tracts that are needed for an outreach this weekend. At 3.30 Marv and Edith took us shopping and we had supper at their house. In the meantime someone from the office was able to purchase a double mosquito net and that is a vast improvement over two single ones!
A regular teakettle that can be put on a gas stove burner is nowhere to be found. We use a cooking pot to boil and then carefully pour it in the coffee filter.
We now have a cell phone, which is recommended here for contacting each other. Our internet access seems to be very good as is the electricity and water supply.
Thursday: It is an official holiday and with two others we took the 20 minute ferry ride to Goree (the infamous slave island). It would have been more enjoyable if there hadn’t been so many hawkers but we saw quite a bit none the less and had a great lunch. Margreet and I didn’t venture into the ‘slave house’. Having seen a documentary on it not too long ago was enough for us.
(Ed:  this site provides information on Goree Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C3%A9e and a search will find many others.)

 

(Note about the previous post, I had thought Margreet was enjoying the fare from a Dakar eatery but that McDonald's is in the Lisbon Airport.)