I'm writing this in the darkness of my host family's living room where the power has been cut for at least the second time today. It's funny because I knew electricity often failed in Senegal, but mentally, I wrote it off as some quirk of a developing African country. However, as I sit in this room, surrounded by two computers, a flat screen TV, a DVD player, and stereo sound system, it seems utterly absurd. My family copes with it pretty well - we have a supply of precharged light bars ready to go when the lights go out, and people generally just go on with whatever they are doing in the darkness. I highly doubt that most Americans would be this tolerant. But I think that if anything was to cause this country to throw out their president, the power outages would be it. Dakar is filled with such activity and ingenuity; it's trying so hard to be a modern, prosperous city, but when people are literally left in the dark every day, it's hard to see that as a true possibility. In any case, it's just another occurrence of things happening half-way in Dakar. There are fountains without water, roads without pavement, and technology without power.
The other CIEE students and I ventured to the centre-ville this weekends with our cultural guides. It was an interesting, if exhausting, outing. We saw all the government buildings, which have been a bit more guarded after this summer's protests. Still, it's a huge contrast to D.C., where you know that hundreds of guards are ready at any moment. Here, the one guard you see isn't backed up by hidden support. We were amused at the fact that the government buildings look so...worn down. There are letters missing on the general assembly sign and overgrown grass near the ministry of the interior - if this happened in the U.S., Fox News would have a field day. It was so hot, so we stopped to sample some amazing, if a bit overpriced ice cream that clearly caters to toubabs. I have never seen so many flavors in my life, and it was air conditioned - pure luxury.
And the marchands...this was the craziest part of downtown Dakar. We were introduced to this experience gently, as we went downtown on Sunday, the calmest day of the week. However, if this was calm, I cannot imagine a weekday. When we paused for even a minute, we were surrounded by people attempting to sell us something - pens, cologne, soap, bags, whatever. I have never seen such persistence; it would be impressive if it wasn't so completely irritating. I was better than some of the others at fighting them off - I think I managed to look disinterested and firm at the same time. It's almost a beneficial experience; after the first few times warding them off, any discomfort at this experience just turns into annoyance and amusement. My favorite experience was at the bus stop, where we waited forever to take a bus home. This is a popular spot to sell things, and vendors roam on and off parked buses waiting to leave trying to sell their wares to the passengers packed inside. One such vendor, hearing us speaking English, came over to sell us some sort of pen, addressing us proudly as "nice ladies and playboys." Annoyed with our refusal, he told the guys in our group that they were NOT playboys. That's probably accurate.
Very funny!
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