Dakar

On the second evening, after we couldn’t find couchsurfing, we decided not to sleep in the street again, but to stay in a hotel. After a long wait and changing 3 buses we couldn’t find the hotel we were looking for. We were just thinking to stay at the airport when we met Osman – a rastaman, who invited us to stay at his house for free. He took us to a root reggae concert and to a dance hall party on the next day. Everything was great, apart from the fact that all the time he was showing off how rich he is, how he lived in Belgium and how much money he spends, how his father was a big policeman and how important he is. His house was indeed very big and had a real shower, which for us looked like a luxury. We slept in our tent on the terrace in front of his room. He didn’t want to let us go and was making plans for he New Year’s Eve and for the future. He convinced us to leave our things at his place, because it was very safe for his father was an important policeman. We left our backpacks in his room for the night, while we were sleeping in the tent. In the morning, when we were going to go for visas to Burkina Faso we found out that all our money was missing. Osman denied everything and was swearing that he would try to help us, but he just drove us away from his house and left us without money and shelter. We found where to stay after we wrote a message for help in couchsurfing – an Indian man named Dev took us. After that we moved to other couchsurfers – Claude and Debora- Belgians- working in Dakar. Claude came with us to Osman’s house to translate for us. We spoke with the father for hours, we tried everything, but nothing helped. They didn’t want to give us our money back. Another Belgian from the couchsurfing – Johan contacted us, wanting to help. He had a shop in Dakar and experience with the police. We wrote a claim and we took it to the police department. There two policemen came with us to the house, but Osman was hiding and after some action and arguing with the father they couldn’t catch him. Two days later we went to the police to see what’s happening and to bring picture of Osman. The things were going nowhere. We lost time and money in meaningless arguing and at the end we decided to leave the big city. At least we learned a lesson and knew not to trust anybody. Especially rastamen had a bad reputation around here. Usually they are used to seducing girls, making them fall in love with them and then rob them, leaving them crying for two losses. It is so sad to think that someone is your friend and to be cheated like that. Just as we were getting ready to leave for Saloum river, we got a call from the police- Osman had shown up. We went to the police department again, without any hope. After long arguing and threats from our side that we will post this in the newspapers (we had really contacted a local newspaper), the father of Osman promised us to give the money back on 26.12.2010. We promised not to write to the newspaper and not to post pictures of Osman. It seems we will have to stay for Christmas in Dakar, but at least the waiting and all the fights were worth it. I hope the father to be a man of his word.

So we stayed for 15 days in Dakar. There isn’t much to see here - a big dirty city with lots of small beaches. Unfortunately the small, beautiful, white-sanded beaches were covered in garbage. Everybody was throwing their garbage literary everywhere and mostly in the ocean. After we had coffee with some Senegalese on the beach, they threw their plastic cups in the ocean. We couldn’t take it and asked them why they give all this plastic to the ocean. Couldn’t they see that it didn’t want it and was returning it back on the beach. They responded that the plastic was occidental - something that we brought from our civilization…

Dakar was a strange mix between Africa and Europe. It didn’t look like the normal African cities. The thing we loved in this city was the never-stopping African music and the numerous reggae concerts. We came right on time for the Third World Festival of Black Art, that was being held in Senegal this year. The opening was held on a big stadium and it was absolutely free. After some speeches of African presidents we had the pleasure to listen to music from different countries and at the end there were wonderful fireworks. The star of the evening was Youssou NDour but the biggest surprice was meeting a Bulgarian girl on the stadium. That was the first time we had the chance to talk Bulgarian with somebody.

on the market you can buy all kinds of animal parts- from horse hair to hedgehog skin

coconuts in Dakar

With our friend Claude and some other international couchsurfers we went to a concert of Wiclif Jean, that was also free. The concert was held in front of a statue of a man, woman and a child that was opened 8 months ago and was in a contrast with the surrounding. In front of the scene was a VIP area fenced by a wall, that was obstructing the view of the thousands of people. At the entrance of the VIP area the crowd was huge and they were letting in only those who the guards wanted. For our surprise we were VIP, because we were white and they pushed everybody aside to let us in. We felt terrible in this situation and Claude suggested that we leave the VIP as a sign of protest against this kind of racism. We went on a hill overlooking the scene, where we had a nice view without walls. Wiclif Jean was also resented and said that he will have another concert for the Senegal people. Unfortunatelly discrimination was everywhere - from our side, as well as from theirs. On the street we were called “toubab” (that’s how they call the whites here), in the shops we were asked to pay extra for everything and was very hard to find any real friends. We wanted to be brothers and to live together, but it seems that was impossible.

We managed to soak in the atmosphere of Dakar, we met with lots of foreigners living here and we even played an international Frisbee game. The time was flying in that crazy place. The transportation was slow, but fun. Lots of funky mini buses without windows and covered in drawings – mostly with writings or pictures of the spiritual leader Serigne Touba( or Ahmudo Bamba) were driving around the city. The tiny benches were always full, and if there were empty seats the bus was waiting in a spot till it gets full, sometimes for more than 10 minutes. They were stopping everywhere- you only had to knock on the tin. If the engine died the people had to push them. All the buses and the cars on the sandy streets looked as if they are going to fall apart every moment now. We couldn’t understand what force kept them moving… maybe it was Serigne Touba :) 

We managed to soak in the atmosphere of Dakar, we met with lots of foreigners living here and we even played an international Frisbee game. The time was flying in that crazy place. The transportation was slow, but fun. Lots of funky mini buses without windows and covered in drawings – mostly with writings or pictures of the spiritual leader Serigne Touba( or Ahmadou Bamba) were driving around the city. The tiny benches were always full, and if there were empty seats the bus was waiting in a spot till it gets full, sometimes for more than 10 minutes. They were stopping everywhere- you only had to knock on the tin. If the engine died the people had to push them. All the buses and the cars on the sandy streets looked as if they are going to fall apart every moment now. We couldn’t understand what force kept them moving… maybe it was Serigne Touba. 

Serigne Touba was a spiritual leader from the 19^th century and his talibe (student) Ibra Fall was the first bay-fall, who refused to fast on Ramadan, so that he has strength to work and serve his master (Marabou). After colonization, they refused to become Christians. He and his apprentice became popular in Senegal and the Frenchmen scared by his teaching, send him in exile in Gabon. The bayfall is a strange kind of people- they are not praying and they do not fast on Ramadan, but they have lots of followers. Most of them are rastamen and many of them are begging in the streets. The bayfalls sing every Saturday and Sunday night and the people sing with them. Everybody was calling us bayfall or yayfall (for a woman). Here the Islam is very different - there are many religious groups and leaders. If a leader decides he can block a street downtown with their tent to preach their followers. Everybody is following them without questioning. In Dakar we celebrated the muslim New Year, but we barely noticed that there is a celebration. There was nothing showing it- just the usual singing of bayfalls.

At the moment we are living in a suburb of Dakar with a Senegalese family- friends of Johan. Here the men can have up to 4 wives and lots of kids. 70 % of the population is younger than 14 years and lots of kids have to work. Almost every family has a maid that cooks, cleans, does the laundry and lives in the house, usually not being paid. Like some kind of slavery.
  

photo studio :)

alternative African art

the spiders here are giant

baobab

where are you, brothers

Now we are going on a trip around Senegal, so we can come back on Christmas and go to the Police again.

Senegal

In river Senegal

Unfortunately, the Italian camper could not enter Senegal. In Dakar the Italians were asked to pay 500 euros for the document and, eventually, they should have passed through certain posts to have the document stamped and pay more. In addition, they had to get new Mauritania visas from Dakar, where they spent 2 days in waiting and got charged 80 euros instead of the regular 34. We parted with Chiara and Simone with a bit of sorrow and many good memories, and continued towards Saint Louis where we had an arrangement with a couch-surfer. We had no troubles reaching Saint Louis and even we managed to do it only with two cars, the second of which was a 4x4, driving with more than 150 km/h on the narrow and riddled road. 

The bridge in Saint Louise

Lamp- our host

on the streets of Saint Louise

in the public transport

Lamp- the Rastaman who hosted us lives with his family around 2 hugebaobabs. There were many small sheds surrounding a sandy yard where women cook and do the washing and several sheep sit tied like dogs. We listened to reggae night and day, Lamp finished Gena’s rasta with a special substance from resin and wax (bur da karite), we drank tea and ate typical Senegal foods- fish and rice (yassa) and lach (couscous with powdered milk and sugar). Lamp makes djembes, but unfortunately he did not speak any English, so we just used signs and used the language of music and smiles. 

Captured pelican

fish

The second bridge in Saint Luise is out of order

Dauda and his acossiation have 5 schools with talibe (children who study Koran and beg in the streets)

We stayed there for 5 days, walking aroundSaint Louis, and taking a boat peninsula(Lamp lives on the island). Saint Louis is a nice small town with many artists, music iseverywhere any time! This is the old sea capital of Western Africa that used to be used for trading slaves and goods. We went to the beach south of the town, on the way to the beach there were many houses built straight on the sand, and kids were using the ocean as a toilet without any embarrassment. Lamp gave us each some amulet called gri-gri which was made by his father and was to protect us. In return, he wanted 25 kg of rice! He also wanted almost all of our clothes. We exchanged a Jamaican T- shirt, a woolen scarf and a hat and a mountain pants for a reggae pajama set and a hat for the dreads. In Senegal everything seemed to be relatively expensive and we had to buy too many things for Lamp and his friends, our pockets started getting empty and we decided to move somewhere without an ATM- machine and stores. In general, when people here see you are white they automatically think you are very rich and you came here to give them all your money. In most of the stores we ended up getting twice as high prices as the real ones which did not look good at all minding the lack of any choice. We ate mostly bread and every now and then we would go to some of the local restaurants here which resemble wooden benches with a simple small table with eggs and potatoes and would have an omelet with potatoes for about 1 euro. Otherwise, in the houses everyone eats from one bowl and drink from the same glass. 

the tea is served after loooong pouring into the cup and back

Lach - looks like wet sand, but we ate it with pleasure

After buying 5 breads and some local chocolate for spreading (quite awful, but you get used to it) we started for Lang du Barberri – a place where river Senegal goes into the ocean after going for kilometers along the beach. We went there by one truck and one pick up truck. We pitched our tent in a wooded area just outside the National Park. We didn’t have money to enter the park, but we were able to walk around and we saw some very beautiful birds and millions of crabs. The landscape is very wild, there are couple of villages nearby, lakes, a river big enough to need a boat to cross it so you can reach the ocean.

the strange crabs with only one big white pinch were everywhere

Baobab

We camped there for 2 days in total relaxing. After that we started again for Dakar, hoping to be able to take a shower somewhere. A police pick up took us from the entrance of the National Park up to the crossing for Dakar. The guy wanted money at first, but after explaining that we are hitchhikers he loaded us in the back. After that two smiling Senegalese took us to the next town, and at the end a Frenchman of Moroccan origin, who was working in Dakar. His English was very good. He told us, that he is a writer and is travelling a lot. We stopped to see the baobab forest on the way to Dakar. We were thinking of Exupery who was repairing his airplane in the deserts of Mauritania and stayed often in Saint Louise, we thought of the Little Prince and the baobab, that was going to take over his planet. If you go only straight you will not to go very far. So we made Sofia-Dakar- entirely by hitchhiking. 

We stayed in a village - suburb of Dakar on couchsurfing at Dali and his family with lots of sisters and kids. Dali was sick of malaria for the second time. We bathed at last with a bucket of water. We haven’t seen a shower in Senegal so far. The water is very expensive and it stops often. Electricity also stops very often. We’ve been drinking only tap water, sometimes we filter it, but most of the time not, but we haven’t had any problems so far.  

In the morning we hitchhiked a car, that left us in front of Mali embassy in Dakar. There we had to take the next visa. In the evening after misunderstanding with 2 coachsurfers we had to stay on the street with no place to sleep. Going back to the suburbs was hard and expensive, and the hotels in the city were too expensive for us. We stayed in a place close to some security guys and police, waiting for the dawn. At some point the policemen told us to go and sleep on the sidewalk next to a grocery market. There were lots of mosquitoes, cockroaches and even rats, so we decided to pitch the tent. This is how wecamped in the centre of Dakar, guarded by the Police.