12/30/04
THURSDAY
DECEMBER 30, 2004
For two years living in Africa today was the arrival day of my only visitor! He would leave Madrid at 5:55pm and arrive at Dakar at 9:35pm. I had a whole day of nothing to do but wait. Was there something to do? Not really. I could go to the Hostel again and hang out with the other volunteers for the day, but by living in The Gambia you’ve learned to be frugal a bit. The $4 it would cost to get there was a lot of dalasi, equivalent to a town trip from Banjul to my house in Kombo. I was still not in the mindset that I was on vacation. When Dave arrived then the mindset begun, but until then every dalasi counted.
It’s also kind of weird of how your interpretations of how much something is worth to you changes from which country you’re in. I understand there’s a price discrepancy between The Gambia and Senegal. Things are more expensive in Senegal, and I understand that. While in The Gambia I saved every dalasis, but while spending in Senegal it’s as if I’m throwing money around – what seems like it, if you convert it to Dalasis. A case in point: I don’t mind spending the usual price of $4 (~D120) for a taxi in Senegal, but I’ll refuse to pay an extra dalasis in The Gambia if they try and charge me more than the usual five, although I blown more than 20 times that amount for every taxi I took in Senegal.
The only thing I did that day was to go the local store and buy more soap to shower with. That, and a few Snicker candy bars, which I passed out to the guards and cleaners at Mary’s house to their sheer delight.
Around eight I left for the airport, a few hours before he was about to arrive. As I was about to leave I asked Mary.
“Mary, what’s the French word for ‘airport’?”
“aéroport”
“Oh, that makes it easy!”
When I reached the street and hailed a taxi he couldn’t understand what I was trying to say. I kept on repeating “aéroport” to no avail. The guard had to come forward and asked where I was going. I told him “airport” and he told the taxi driver “aéroport”, exactly what I had said! The driver now understood and the guard now acted as my translator / negotiator for prices. We arrived at the airport and he dropped me off. I was hoping there would be a waiting area; some place where you could casually sit, maybe read a little bit as I had brought my Lonely Planet Senegal / The Gambia guide book along just in case. There was no waiting terminal and people just crowded around the exit of the building. I was the only white person there! Dave shouldn’t have any trouble spotting me. One plane landed and people crowded up against the metal fence to get a look. When their person they were waiting for came, they moved out of the way, and I was able to move closer to the gate. By the time Dave actually arrived I was in the front row, looking through the gates like a prisoner.
About an hour or so later I saw a tall white guy in the distance. He must be Dave! The probability of having two tall white guys on this flight had to be low. I waved him to go outside where I would meet him. I thought he would walk the entire length of the gated trail to the taxis. He walked straight out and through the gate. I had to back track to get to him. He was carrying just two small bags. We shook hands as I proudly exclaimed to him: “Welcome to Africa!” It is not everyday you can say that sentence, and I meant every word of it.
The taxi ride was a thrill for him. He wasn’t use to African taxi drivers, especially ones in big cities. Anywhere in Africa, at least the places I’ve been, the drivers ignore every rule of civilized driving you can think of. What I got in trouble in doing in the US they do regularly here everyday, and even in front of the police! There is no such things as seat belts, everyone speeds, no one comes to a complete stop, yielding the right away means honking as your about to make your move, improper use of a lane as they use whichever lane is unoccupied, and failure to assure a clear distance ahead between them and the car ahead of them means the occasional fender bender might happen. All of these I have got caught for in the US at one time or another, and paid the consequences. For The Gambia, Senegal, and other West African countries there are no consequences. A police officer at police stops could hold out their hand in the command for them to stop; however, only those who have their proper papers stop. The rest simply speed on through.
I told the driver to go down near the cathedral that was on the other side of town. Technically I said “cathédrale”. We approached the Cathedral and the street Mary lived on, but her street was one-way and we couldn’t go down the two blocks we needed. In the middle of the night, at the border of the ‘red zone’ we got out and just walked those last two blocks.
Mary had already gone to bed and so he couldn’t meet her that night. I introduced him to guard so he would know to let him in and I showed him inside. His first reaction? “Mike, you said it was nice, but I didn’t expect this nice!”
We turned left and went upstairs to show him the guest bedroom where we would be staying the next couple of night. He started to unpack and out came my new shoes, extra money for us on the trip, and his water filter. It was the same water filter he had used in hiking, with iodine tablets and other tablets to get the iodine taste and color out. The new Chaco’s were better looking what I imagined, and it was only when I compared them to my old shoes were I able to truly compare how well used I had worn my old pair.
Mary encouraged us to finish all the ice cream that she had made for her Christmas party and they didn’t finish so I convinced Dave to come downstairs for a bowl-full. He might not have thought it anything special, but living in Africa and only getting ice cream maybe once every other month or so – or longer – it makes getting ice cream a real treat. I was going to take advantage of it! This also was different from his expectations. We had an air-conditioned room and were eating ice cream on his very first night in Africa. Compare this to my first night: The fan didn’t work, so no one could sleep well, the water was out so no one could take a shower, they gave us a bottle of water to last the night and food wasn’t going to be served until the next morning. He had a lot better than I did, but I knew the real truth of Africa would come in a few days and we’ll be in the same boat together. I was used to it, though.
He explained that when he was in NY at the Philharmonic he actually was sitting down at the concert hall. When he arrived in Madrid nothing was opened, even at eight or nine in the morning. He had to sit at a park bench for the first thing to open in order to eat something, at ten.
Within an hour of arriving at the house we went to bed.
DECEMBER 30, 2004
For two years living in Africa today was the arrival day of my only visitor! He would leave Madrid at 5:55pm and arrive at Dakar at 9:35pm. I had a whole day of nothing to do but wait. Was there something to do? Not really. I could go to the Hostel again and hang out with the other volunteers for the day, but by living in The Gambia you’ve learned to be frugal a bit. The $4 it would cost to get there was a lot of dalasi, equivalent to a town trip from Banjul to my house in Kombo. I was still not in the mindset that I was on vacation. When Dave arrived then the mindset begun, but until then every dalasi counted.
It’s also kind of weird of how your interpretations of how much something is worth to you changes from which country you’re in. I understand there’s a price discrepancy between The Gambia and Senegal. Things are more expensive in Senegal, and I understand that. While in The Gambia I saved every dalasis, but while spending in Senegal it’s as if I’m throwing money around – what seems like it, if you convert it to Dalasis. A case in point: I don’t mind spending the usual price of $4 (~D120) for a taxi in Senegal, but I’ll refuse to pay an extra dalasis in The Gambia if they try and charge me more than the usual five, although I blown more than 20 times that amount for every taxi I took in Senegal.
The only thing I did that day was to go the local store and buy more soap to shower with. That, and a few Snicker candy bars, which I passed out to the guards and cleaners at Mary’s house to their sheer delight.
Around eight I left for the airport, a few hours before he was about to arrive. As I was about to leave I asked Mary.
“Mary, what’s the French word for ‘airport’?”
“aéroport”
“Oh, that makes it easy!”
When I reached the street and hailed a taxi he couldn’t understand what I was trying to say. I kept on repeating “aéroport” to no avail. The guard had to come forward and asked where I was going. I told him “airport” and he told the taxi driver “aéroport”, exactly what I had said! The driver now understood and the guard now acted as my translator / negotiator for prices. We arrived at the airport and he dropped me off. I was hoping there would be a waiting area; some place where you could casually sit, maybe read a little bit as I had brought my Lonely Planet Senegal / The Gambia guide book along just in case. There was no waiting terminal and people just crowded around the exit of the building. I was the only white person there! Dave shouldn’t have any trouble spotting me. One plane landed and people crowded up against the metal fence to get a look. When their person they were waiting for came, they moved out of the way, and I was able to move closer to the gate. By the time Dave actually arrived I was in the front row, looking through the gates like a prisoner.
About an hour or so later I saw a tall white guy in the distance. He must be Dave! The probability of having two tall white guys on this flight had to be low. I waved him to go outside where I would meet him. I thought he would walk the entire length of the gated trail to the taxis. He walked straight out and through the gate. I had to back track to get to him. He was carrying just two small bags. We shook hands as I proudly exclaimed to him: “Welcome to Africa!” It is not everyday you can say that sentence, and I meant every word of it.
The taxi ride was a thrill for him. He wasn’t use to African taxi drivers, especially ones in big cities. Anywhere in Africa, at least the places I’ve been, the drivers ignore every rule of civilized driving you can think of. What I got in trouble in doing in the US they do regularly here everyday, and even in front of the police! There is no such things as seat belts, everyone speeds, no one comes to a complete stop, yielding the right away means honking as your about to make your move, improper use of a lane as they use whichever lane is unoccupied, and failure to assure a clear distance ahead between them and the car ahead of them means the occasional fender bender might happen. All of these I have got caught for in the US at one time or another, and paid the consequences. For The Gambia, Senegal, and other West African countries there are no consequences. A police officer at police stops could hold out their hand in the command for them to stop; however, only those who have their proper papers stop. The rest simply speed on through.
I told the driver to go down near the cathedral that was on the other side of town. Technically I said “cathédrale”. We approached the Cathedral and the street Mary lived on, but her street was one-way and we couldn’t go down the two blocks we needed. In the middle of the night, at the border of the ‘red zone’ we got out and just walked those last two blocks.
Mary had already gone to bed and so he couldn’t meet her that night. I introduced him to guard so he would know to let him in and I showed him inside. His first reaction? “Mike, you said it was nice, but I didn’t expect this nice!”
We turned left and went upstairs to show him the guest bedroom where we would be staying the next couple of night. He started to unpack and out came my new shoes, extra money for us on the trip, and his water filter. It was the same water filter he had used in hiking, with iodine tablets and other tablets to get the iodine taste and color out. The new Chaco’s were better looking what I imagined, and it was only when I compared them to my old shoes were I able to truly compare how well used I had worn my old pair.
Mary encouraged us to finish all the ice cream that she had made for her Christmas party and they didn’t finish so I convinced Dave to come downstairs for a bowl-full. He might not have thought it anything special, but living in Africa and only getting ice cream maybe once every other month or so – or longer – it makes getting ice cream a real treat. I was going to take advantage of it! This also was different from his expectations. We had an air-conditioned room and were eating ice cream on his very first night in Africa. Compare this to my first night: The fan didn’t work, so no one could sleep well, the water was out so no one could take a shower, they gave us a bottle of water to last the night and food wasn’t going to be served until the next morning. He had a lot better than I did, but I knew the real truth of Africa would come in a few days and we’ll be in the same boat together. I was used to it, though.
He explained that when he was in NY at the Philharmonic he actually was sitting down at the concert hall. When he arrived in Madrid nothing was opened, even at eight or nine in the morning. He had to sit at a park bench for the first thing to open in order to eat something, at ten.
Within an hour of arriving at the house we went to bed.
posted by Mike | 5:32 PM
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