Senegal Sightings 13

Senegal Sightings 12 (Margreet’s Musings #2)

Safely back in Dakar

(Sunday, February 24, 2013  and Henk and Margreet want us to know they have completed the trip taken to Burkina Faso and will be updating here soon.  Ed.)

some musings...

While Henk is still in the shop finishing a project, I packed our back packs for a 4 day trip to Burkina Faso where we will spend time with my niece and her husband, Myriam and Stephane Gigandet, who work as missionaries for SIM (www.sim.ch) in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou. I know they are anxiously and excitedly awaiting our arrival tonight.

While in Ouagadougou we will also visit the Wycliffe/SIL center. Who knows where we might end up on a next trip??

Dakar was VERY cool this morning (21C). Getting ready to paint railings I had to go back to our apartment to get a sweater. Once the sun comes out, it is just fine. Ouagadougou's temperature looks a lot like the temperature we experienced last year in Chad around 35 C.

Since we will not have ready access to the internet, we will leave our lap top in Dakar and hope to send an update as soon as we return to Dakar Sunday night.

We trust that this trip will be an encouragement to Myriam and Stephane - and by extension to my sister :) - as their vision is to help girls who come off the streets by teaching them new skills that will help them in their future.

Senegal Sightings 11

SUNDAY: Sheila had the group vehicle signed out so we were able to hitch a ride to church. Strange to realize that is was our last church service in Senegal, we have really enjoyed meeting new people and will miss the pastor’s great, thought provoking messages from the book of Isaiah. (Everyone needs a Savior: ch. 53). We had to find our own way home, which we did like old pros. The taxi driver took us right through the busy side streets. Both sidewalks are taken over by stalls selling lots and lots of everything. It really is too bad that we can’t videotape it for you!

In the afternoon Sharon (the translation coordinator) asked us if we could help her getting her bed frame together. She is moving out to a rather nice (for Senegalese standards) third floor two bedroom apartment. It is only two km from the SIL center and has a view over the ocean. While there Henk also installed an extra door lock. Every time we are amazed at the reasonable rents here: Sharon will be paying $175 a month.

On Monday morning the time had arrived to partly disassemble the new kitchen to be able to get it upstairs and into the apartment. It took a bit of doing but it is in and re-assembled. Gaby and Henk have their work cut out tomorrow as the upper cabinets that should fit nicely into the corner aren’t quite doing that. The wall at that height is two inches out from square.

Inset shows Henk routing drawers.

Senegal Sightings 10

After another day of measuring, cutting, planing and other woodworking activities we walked with Ken Creech through our local shantytown across the railroad bridge and the pedestrian overpass over the six lane (!) highway to catch a taxi to have dinner at the Creech’s home.

We had a lovely meal with Ken, wife Cheryl and daughter Rachel. This family hails from the Kitchener/Waterloo area. Afterwards Ken went with us to hail a taxi and haggle about the price. We settled on 1700 ($3.50) and off we went. By now it was pretty well dark. Lots of people on the sidewalks and on the road. A lot of cyclists, motorbikes and cars without lights. Our vehicle had no seatbelts, no outside rear view mirrors, no springs and no third gear. It did have brakes and an enormous inside rear view mirror. Did I mention that the driver had little French and amazingly didn’t hit anyone or anything. We made it back to the center and gave the driver 2000 CFA (and keep the change, thank you).

Wednesday Margreet joined us to do more varnishing.

 Gaby installed the first drawers. Never realized how finicky a job it is to install the sliders properly. Sometime in the afternoon it finally dawned on Henk what Gaby had been saying about getting another sheet of plywood: he had used the piece for the countertop to make more shelves!

Margreet and Edith walked over to the next street to order take-out lunch. The Senegalese dish is called Chabi and had rice, hot peppers, cabbage, fish, manioc, grounded sweet nuts, carrots, tamarind, eggplant.

The whole dish (five servings) cost $6 and after the five of us had our fill half of it was left over. Sophie, the Senegalese center manager, was happy to take it home for her family. 

We had toast for supper after which Henk went back to do some more varnishing. 

Senegal Sightings 9

Friday: cleaning the water filter takes a bit of doing. A piece of Margreet’s banana bread is a welcome snack. (Ed: I don't see any of that banana bread so Henk must have devoured it!)

Saturday: Chris (a British literacy coordinator) invited us for some sightseeing. A taxi ride took us to the bottom of the hill where the lighthouse has been since 1864. It was a nice – not too steep- climb to the top and a great view over the airport and a part of Dakar. 

Chris suggested we walk to a little restaurant that he knew along the beach. We don’t think he realised the distance: we were okay for the five km hike as we were wearing our runners. Chris however had to put up with blisters forming what with wearing bare feet in sandals. It was a nice quiet spot with nice food and it was fun to watch the kids having fun in the tidal pool. (At the apartment the new lino was installed!)

Sunday: Sharon had again signed out the group vehicle so we made it again to the ICF church. Here we met Julie. Her parents worked with us in Cameroon and Julie would have been about nine at the time…and here she is working with CDC (Disease Control) with her husband and their 1-1/2 year old.

We went for quite a walk in the neighborhood that afternoon; we had hoped to get a bottle of coke at the nearest gas station, but that one was closed and (quite unintentionally) we took the long road back to the SIL center. Henk did some varnishing in the evening: everything takes four coats and it really takes a lot of time.

Monday: Gaby and Henk are back at it: Gaby started on the drawers while Henk did a bit more varnishing, cut a few more shelves and started on the doorframes. It all is rather labour intensive.

Senegal Sightings 8

Love to hear from YOU - please email us at:
henkden@shaw.ca

Senegal Sightings 7a ~ Margreet's Musings

Between the work bench and the kitchen sink……

Seems to be the “working title” as far as my (Margreet’s) contribution goes towards our blog.

Though I never do any handy man work at home, it is kind of fun to be involved in it in the places we work in. Except when I accidentally touched my hair against the door I had just painted….! The annoyance had more to do with my hair than the door!

A few days ago I was reminded again that

“Africa is not a country, it is a continent.”

Senegal where we are is so different from any of the other African countries we have worked in. Upon arrival I discovered that dress code for women is just like in N America. Since my African wardrobe doesn’t include long pants, I almost stand out as a white person wearing long skirts. But that is just fine. 

As far as food goes, most of it gets imported from other countries – the main importing country being South Africa. Eating South African bananas and oranges seems very strange but they are nice and juicy. Dakar is a big city to supply and I can only assume that other areas in Senegal can be self-sufficient due to agriculture.

Shopping is always a new challenge. After all, we have to feed ourselves and try to stay healthy. Just GETTING to a grocery store requires public transportation in the form of a yellow taxi. Negotiating the rate that is to be charged and get in. 

Because of our location I have not ventured into the big central open market of Dakar. If there is no need for that, I am happy to pass. The grocery store has quite a variety and outside the store are several fruit/vegetable stands. Every week day at 10 a.m. a guy comes to our compound with bananas and oranges for sale which is helpful.

In our apartment we have a stove so banana bread has been a great snack for coffee break. I have not been able to find a cookie sheet yet but would love to make some simple snicker doodles to share at coffee break. (Have to find the French word first for “cookie sheet”.)

The common route of processing our fruits and vegetables is: letting everything (except bananas, potatoes, onions) soak in a bleach/water solution for about 20 minutes, followed by rinsing everything with filtered water. Actually our dishes are to be done with hot soapy water, and then rinsed off with (cold) filtered water. 

The city water is very dirty which shows when we take our filter apart and clean it. Henk cleaned it once but before taking it apart had to turn of the main somewhere on the roof…

During the day the center is quite busy because all the offices are here. At night, there are just the guest house people around who come and go. All other personnel live off center somewhere in the surrounding area or closer to the Dakar Academy - a missionary school for kids very much like the one our boys attended in Nairobi, Kenya called Rosslyn Academy.

This means, too, that during the day we can visit with people, but at night we are a lot by ourselves unless we get invited but that has its own challenges since most people here don’t have a vehicle and only use public transportation.

One thing that is still missing is a tea kettle to put on the gas stove: we make do but it is an extra hassle.

Senegal Sightings 6

We have had regular power cuts these past three days. It is great to have a generator to fall back on, although it doesn’t get turned on during the night. Marv Friesen – director of support services - had been worried a little about the diesel in the barrels gumming up, because there had been no need to use any.

One of our colleagues had given Margreet some other type of anti-histamines and, after taking half a tablet, she slept great!

After coffee, Marv and the two of us took a taxi ride to the Burkina Faso embassy to obtain a visa for our short visit there. It was the most laid back affair we ever encountered and we hope to pick up our passports in two days. Most stores close between 12 and 2 and because of traffic we didn’t get to the hardware store in time to buy the needed hardware to finish the cabinets, we’ll try again when we go back for the passports.

We are pretty well done with the painting, a few touch-ups and painting over Gaby’s hard work will do it. There is another apartment we may start on and Henk would like to clean out/organize the tool room a bit more before we actually get to install the cabinets sometime next week.

After Margreet did the first coat of white paint for the doors and the door frames, she went home to bake bread. It looks great but we will have to wait for it to cool off to get a taste of it…

Senegal Sightings 5

Last Friday was a day filled with painting: Henk started on the second coat and finished the living room, while Margreet started on the door frames giving them a nice fresh look (white).

On Saturday we walked to a nearby beach. We did it in half an hour and we shared the whole beach with twenty others! The water is clear but quite cool (12C?). The beach belongs to hotel Voile d’Or and for $2 one can use their facilities. Another $2 gives you a lounge chair with mattress and a parasol. We might splurge next time!!

Margreet took some pictures, but they don’t show well as the Harmattan winds are quite strong reducing visibility drastically. We lazied away the afternoon, reading and playing games.

Our neighbour Sharon (from Minnesota) invited us to come with her to church, we enjoyed being with the same ICF group.

Afterwards we had lunch in the food court of a new, upscale, shopping mall Sea Plaza, obviously geared towards the foreigners living on this side of town and worlds apart from the open air markets we passed on the way home.

Margreet has been using Otrivin to keep her nose passages open, but finds it hard to sleep; it never really gets quiet at night, certainly missing that from home. She took it easy on Monday. While Henk finished painting, Gaby was smoothing out the bottom five inches of the rooms with cement. The new vinyl borders that come with the lino are an inch shorter than the original ones. He is doing a great job, but it will take a good day and a half. The plumber showed up and installed the toilet. Haven’t dared to flush it to see if it doesn’t leak…