Cosmopolitans We Are

Bonne Arrivee!

I arrived in Dakar, Senegal in the bon condition! Coming from Guinea, it was quite the transition-meeting the new staff, volunteers and just adapting to the ever cosmopolitan Dakar. It truly is the “Paris” of West Africa. Everywhere you turn there is a fellow expatriot. The place is swarmed with white people and the development that comes with them. Not like dirty ol’ Conakry to say the least. There is a grocery store/mini mall that accepts credit cards and I believe is nicer than any grocery store I’ve seen in the United States! This may be an exaggeration, but definetly kicks our petite “leb” stores butts in Guinea.

I discovered how difficult it is to make comparisons between here and Guinea. I feel as if I’ve traveled through time seeing how Dakar is more advanced than any city in Guinea. Us volunteers felt like movie stars when walking the streets of our native country because the occasional expat was so few and far between. Here, I don’t have the star quality. I found this truth at the grand market downtown a few days ago when bargaining with a vendor for linen fabric. Vendors are accustommed to people like myself paying the high price and don’t understand that I literally am a volunteer and have NO money. What I found to work was telling them that I was a refugee from Guinea and have no money. One vendor admitted that he has beaucoup of money thanks to these friendly espatriots and felt sorry for me because I came from such a poor country. Ian, a fellow volunteer from Guinea jokingly tried to hand the teller at the bank a Guinean franc and the man nearly jumped out of his seat. This goes to show how little the franc amounts to.

What Ian and I really miss is the comaraderie we shared with Guineans. We don’t get the same friendliness in Dakar that we did in Conakry. Maybe au village will be different.

Furthermore, we’ve spent most of our time wasting away on the beaches of Dakar, which are absolutely beautiful.

Tomorrow we head to our regional capital to begin our extensive training in Pulaar, which is the language of this southeastern side of Dakar. My village, I’ve been told has many Sussu, French and Pulaar speakers. If this proves to be true, I will be one content gal. The trek takes 18 hours in a speedy Peace Corps vehicle. We hear that the volunteers down there are a tribe of their own, which will be most exciting.

I’m tired of living in this grand city and am eager to get back to village life. Tonight, we are going to treat ourselves to Ethiopian cuisine downtown and bid a farewell (for now) to Dakar.

And the adventure continues.......

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