A Week In Dakar

I arrived in Dakar yesterday morning and am staying at my old apartment for the week. It felt strangely familiar, and entirely different from when I landed in Africa for the first time last September and hadn't a clue what to expect. This time, I anticipated the sticky humidity - already unbearable at 5:45 am - the minute I stepped off the plane, the circus at the airport where forming a line to pass through immigration is simply a mass of people pushing towards the counter, and where you're bombarded by random, persistent men wanting to help with your bags in exchange for a few coins. I was relieved to see the driver (my running buddy in Dakar) who met me at the airport and helped me with all of my luggage, including 2 bags of study supplies. Fortunately, the bags arrived intact and passed through customs with minimal curiosity on behalf of the inspecting officer. (He opened one bag, full of needles for collecting blood samples and Ziploc bags for storing the tubes, and seemed more perplexed by the Ziploc bags than the needles. That was an interesting round of charades with my rusty French.)

I slept all day yesterday and then went to dinner at a friend's house with a couple of other friends/coworkers. After walking over to her house, we jumped in the pool to cool off! She recently adopted a street puppy and was trying to convince me to take the remaining puppy to Burkina Faso. Somehow, I don't think there's any shortage of street dogs looking for a good home there, but the puppy is really cute...

I'm in Dakar until the 14th, when I'm scheduled to continue on to Bobo-Dioulasso. The capital city of Burkina, Ouagadougou, is flooded right now - more rain fell in a 12-hour period last week than any month this year - and thousands of people have been displaced from their homes, most have sought shelter in schools, mosques, churches, and government buildings. Apparently the team in Bobo is fine, but I fear the capital is not faring well.

I'm back at the office today, temporarily occupying someone else's desk, and have been welcomed warmly. My Senegalese coworkers ask about my visit home, my family, and my health. Then they ask all those questions again. And again. It's so classic, the rounds of salutations here. I tell them that it was wonderful to be home and that there's nothing nicer than returning home and finding that I feel like I've always been there.