Secret Spot

I finally made it to the Casino supermarket in Les Almadies and discovered that the one liter bottle of bleach that Ali the guide arranged for me for 3000 CFAs actually only cost 450 CFAs. It made me kind of bitter. Almost everyone i have talked to has only wanted to steal from me. Where to do I find the good locals? People i can trust?

I got a couple sacks of groceries for 5250 CFAs, including some fresh bread and pain du chocolate. I checked the tribal surf shop, but it was closed again- i have been there 3 times and it has never been open. I ended up at the "secret spot," one break north of the last place i surfed and it was full of kids as well, but more expats- probably because it was Saturday. Again the break was close to the shore, but i got a couple waist high waves. It was pretty chaotic, until one expat yelled at me for cutting in the lineup, when it had been a free-for-all all day long. People were paddling around and snaking each other, three or more going for the same wave. I followed his instructions and got the next wave, but it carried me into some shallows and i stepped on an urchin when i bailed- about 20 thick needles jammed straight into the bottom of my left foot, so my day was over. It was gonna be my last wave anyways but what a sour way to go.

As i cut into my foot with my swiss army knife while i sat on the tailgate of my landcruiser in the parking lot some little local kid wandered up. He grabbed the tweasers and tried to grab the needles as i pried them up with the knife blade, but we could hardly get anything below the surface out. Every now and then some other local would wander up and try to sell me something- one guy even had a box of little yellow birds, but after about 30 mins i gave up on my foot. I changed and tried to leave but all of a sudden my little friend wanted something- maybe payment for jamming the needles deeper in my foot as i sawed on it with a pocketknife. I dont really know because he used some words i didnt recognize, so i just left.

I looked up some treatment for the sea urchins, ended up pissing on my foot, then trying to cook it in hot water for an hour or so. I guess i'll just take it easy tomorrow and see the doc on monday unless it gets worse.

Day 4: Market and Surfing

Not every day goes as easy as one would like.  Today was a long day; i got up early to move into my new apartment- all my furniture was delivered before 9am and then the items i shipped airfreight arrived at 10am so i spent the morning unpacking and getting situated.

 View from my Apartment

Around lunch i started to get hungry so i decided to go to the local supermarket to buy some bleach, bread, and vegetables- but i couldn’t find the huge Casino supermarket downtown.  After walking for 30 mins and ignoring all the people who wanted me as their friend to buy something from them, a man named Ali asked if i was a guest at the hotel where he worked.  It was a different approach and i figured if he thought i was a guest at the hotel he wouldn’t try to take advantage of me.  He mentioned his African garb was required as a worker at the hotel and i complimented him on his appearance as it was nice and he offered to help me find the market. 

Instead of taking me to the Casino supermarket he took me to a huge outdoor market downtown.  Ali, my guide, said it was one of the largest ones around and was more than a square kilometer in size.  He asked what i wanted to buy and we set off in search of bleach.  After visiting 4 or 5 stalls on the main road, we headed of into the darker and narrower allies, until we were walking behind the stalls and buildings.  Even these little places didn’t have bleach.  I was getting worried as this was getting more precarious and Ali was talking mostly Wolof to the people in the shops so I couldn’t understand what was going on. 

Eventually Ali guided me back onto the main road of the market in front of a large textile factory, which according to Ali, belonged to his father.  Ali led me into the building and it was packed with people, fabric, and sewing machines.  On each floor of the five-floor building were rooms full of young men and their sewing machines.  They sewed all kinds of local clothing and more western attire as well.  They made bags, blankets, towels- everything you could think of.  I don’t think it was sweatshop, but in Africa it was hot and everyone was sweating (but keeping their work clean).  In the middle of the tour one of the shopkeepers from the open-air market showed up with a bottle of bleach and said it cost 4000 CFAs (about $8 for a 1 little bottle).  I countered by saying that i had seen it in the stores for 2000 CFAs, but Ali said he would settle it at 3000 CFAs- a compromise.  I went along with it as the guy had to run to the nearby Casino supermarket and track us down to get it to me (that must have been their conversation in Wolof, Ali would steer me away to his shop and his buddy would run to the store and they would meet up at the factory- I must have SUCKER written all over me).

Ali then began his sales pitch to get me to buy several of his shirts at a great price he would negotiate for me.  He wouldn't tell me how much the shirts cost until i found one that i liked and then he stated they cost 15,000 CFAs ($30) each, and i should buy several.  We negotiated some and i stuck firm at 5000 CFAs, which he finally accepted.  He kept pressuring me to get more, but i reassured him that i would be back since he had showed me his great factory and i would be living here for a year.  He probably didnt believe i would be back because most of the people around here (i found out later in the day) get the same shirts for about 2000 CFAs.

Later that afternoon i fought my way through traffic to Les Almadies to go surfing for the first time in Africa.  I stopped at the first break that had people on it and struggled to catch some waves, but it was dominated by lightweight kids on bodyboards who managed to float above the coral to get on the wave.  Eventually i shifted over to a spot right in front of the bar on the beach to where a couple surfers were catching some overhead waves.  I quickly discovered that you had to take are hard right as soon as the wave broke because you were 50 feet from the rocks.  And that was just the visible danger- i caught one wave and bailed I thought a safe distance from the rocks but was pushed into some rocks just under the surface and found some sea urchins who embedded a couple quills in my hand. I still surfed until dark.

I hope i figure this place out soon.

Power Outage & shopping

Power is out, my first outage in Africa! Unfortunately the backup generator hasn't kicked in yet- must be broke or out of fuel. Neighbors were telling me to expect lots of power outages in the rainy season (July-Sept), but it really hasn't rained yet.

Today some friends took me around the city to show me the cheapest places to buy groceries and other items. We visited a hardware store, the royal market, a nice boucherie, and a fish store next door. The real surprise was walking into the air conditioned shopping center (Dakar center) which has coffee shops, a nice store to buy a suit, a sports store with everything Nike, and a European style supermarket where you can buy your Salmon and French cheeses as well as 32" flat screen tvs. Prices for the local items weren't that bad for local items. For example local yogurt cost about $0.50 each but the imported yogurt was $1.25 each. Not much different from grocery prices in Hawaii. The salmon for 172,500 CFAs was too much though, but they had it!


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Location:Les almadies

Street Scam

Day 2 in Senegal- Taken advantage of

This evening i decided to go for a walk down by the beach to see if i could find a good break for surfing and found a decent break about a 1/4 mile from my friends house.  The waves were about knee high and there was a bodyboarder and a kneeboarder taking turns.  The rides weren't that long but it was doable.  I talked to a guy that worked at a bar in front of the break and he said there was a swell coming in and the break worked best at high tide (around 10 am tomorrow). 

I walked down the beach another 1/4 mile and just over a small hill from the last break was a larger sandy beach with about waist high sets breaking about 50 meters from some rocks.  with a different tide and larger sets it could be a long, fast hollow wave.  Nobody was on it, so maybe there was some other hidden danger i couldn't see. 

As i approached the beach a guy was walking past me and stopped me by asking what i thought of the waves.  Since surfing is my favorite topic and it gave me a chance to practice my french i decided to see what he had to say.  He agreed with the previous prediction of a coming swell and said he could show me a better break up the road.  As we walked i asked him questions about surfing since he said he surfed too but he had no ideas about the famous breaks by Ngor.  Since his english was pretty good (he was correcting my french in english) i asked him what he did for a living.  When he responded that he was a tour guide i knew that he was going to try to scam me.  But i decided to play along just to see what it was like to be scammed and because i he was easy to talk to and i could practice my french.  Back in the states people were paying $80 an hour for a french tutor, so this would be a bargain!
We walked up the the next rise along the beach and even though it provided a better viewpoint of the coast, there werent any better waves.  After talking about the monument and the other cool things you could see from that point, about 30 minutes after i met the guy he pulls a necklace out of his pocket and tells me he wants to give me a present.  I should have walked away again, but i wanted to see how this would play out.

After he had put it around my neck after my mild protests, i started to thank him for his time and walk away but he stopped me.  He said he was giving me this present because his wife just gave birth to his first son, named Mustafa, and he was going to have a big party for all his relatives and he wanted me to give him a gift.  I decided to give him 1000 CFAs and when i pulled the note out of my pocket he saw i had another bill in my pocket too.  He took the 1000 CFA note and rubbed it on my forehead, then his own and declared it was a way to bless me or pray for me.  He insisted it was his culture to bring good luck or blessings to have rub money on my forehead and his.  He then asked to see the other note so he could pray for it too.  I told him no and walked away, but he ran right after me and became more and more insistant in his need to bless my money and that i was offending him and his culture by not letting him see my money.  After him following me and becoming more aggressive and as we were out of sight from the road and others i decided to give in and see if he would do what i thought he would.  I handed him the 2000 CFA note and he rubbed it on my forehead, then his own, then put it in his pocket.  Exactly what i thought he would do. 

I asked for my money back but he said he needed it to buy couscous for all his family coming to the party.  As it was getting dark i walked away quickly back to the road and he finally left me alone. 
I knew what was going to happen based on what others had told me, but i wanted to try it out for myself and experience it firsthand.  I figured i only had 3000 CFAs to risk and it was a good french lesson as well as street scams.  Besides this event, which i willingly walked into, Dakar has been a great place so far.  The people are friendly, the food is good, and it looks like good waves are on the way.

Driving in Dakar

Yesterday, 12 hours after i got off the plane from the states, I was driving through downtown Dakar during rush hour. Traffic was even heavier than usual due to a demonstration due to the killing of a fisherman by the coast guard for fishing in a forbidden area which blocked the cornice and forced all regular traffic into the narrow streets downtown and residential neighborhoods.

Driving a large Toyota LandCruiser amongst all the little cars and scooters was fun. It was almost like bumper cars but they had to respect and avoid the large metal brush guards and huge SUV. The taxis gave way to us most of the time and we were able to ford the flooded and cratered streets in the industrial zone. We never made it above 60 km/h, even on the autoroute, but made it to Les Almadies in about 45 mins. Near the airport i passed a herd of cattle walking down the road amongst the cars. The 40 or so horned cattle didnt mind our SUV or the rapidcars rushing by feet away from their sharp horns. I guess its part of their daily drive.

plane ride to Africa

It cost $200 to put my surfboards on a plane to Africa with South African Airways. United was ok, but SAA service is great.nice wider seats with blankets and pillows, decent dinner, free headsets and video monitors in each seat. Way nicer than my last trip to Hawaii or Germany. They even provided compression socks and a toothbrush!




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Location:Somewhere over the Atlantic

Book Review "Adventures in Africa" by Gianni Celati

Adventures in Africa by Gianni Celati is a quick read at 170 pages and written as journal entries from notebooks while visiting Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania in 1997. The author and his friend, Jean, come to Africa to try to arrange to film a documentary, but the story is more about their interactions with the locals as tourists or white foreigners. The duo ultimately fail in their attempts to set up the documentary and spend most of their time being mobbed by children and merchants hawking their goods and services.


I found the book interesting in the author's reflections on being a tourist and how the locals interact with him and other tourists. He makes fun of the tourists that dress in safari gear or shorts (only children wear shorts in the local culture) and contrasts them with the locals who wear torn tshirts and ragged pants. The author also frequently remarks that the white tourist with money is like a continuation of colonialism and the African and the tourist are never on equal terms. The book is never deep but helped me prepare myself mentally for my upcoming travels in Africa.