I arrived in Dakar after a day of transit from Paris which included flying out of Orly Airport in the middle of a thunderstorm. As we pulled away from the terminal, the captain announced that the entire air traffic control station was shutting down due to the storm (lashing rains and fierce lightning); then, merely 20 minutes later and with little explanation, the plane sidled over to the runway and proceeded to take off, bucking several times in heart-stopping descent before finally reaching cruising altitude above the clouds. This was Air Portugal, and for some reason the announcements ("we are entering some turbulence," repeatedly) were made only in Portuguese and English, much to the dismay of the French passengers, who were thoroughly confused by the time we touched down, two hours later, in Lisbon.
The flight to Dakar the same evening was much less eventful, though it too involved some miscommunication, as the driver had mistakenly assumed I was arriving the following night. At 2:30 in the morning, the Dakar airport is a noisy, bustling affair, since most flights from Europe and even elsewhere in Africa arrive and take off in the middle of the night. The arrivals hallway is gray and dingy, but it separates the arriving passengers, in their last peaceful moments of aloneness, from the dense, barely lit parking lot outside, which is filled with hawkers, taxi drivers, money changers, and other masses of milling people. A gendarme at the airport allowed me to use his cellphone in exchange for a 2-euro coin, and 30 minutes later I was greeted in a bear hug by Dieme, the driver, who had mercifully responded to his phone ringing at such an ungodly hour. Dieme deftly drove us through the breezy night in a very spiffy Toyota, his stereo blasting Youssou Ndour's radio frequency (RFM, which I have now settled on in the apartment - today we've had two hours of antique samba music, followed by French pop, followed by Arabic-language prayers, and now finally Youssou himself is gracing the airwaves), until we arrived in downtown, at the modernish 10-story apartment building where I am staying. My head hit the pillow at 4 am, just in time for the imam's first call to prayer at the gigantic '60s-era mosque next door.
I have the apartment to myself for the next few days. It's a nice place, with a little balcony (where I'm currently sitting, it's pretty great) as well as a good internet connection - what more can one ask for? It's located right in the congested Dakar downtown, blocks away from the sprawling outdoor Marché Sandaga, where one can buy everything from used car parts and cell-phones to clothing and Papa Wemba's latest hits on scratched-looking CDs. Most of the government buildings, banks, and travel agencies are also in this neighborhood, which is near where I stayed when I was here two years ago for the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day conference. (On the other hand, most expats and NGOs are based far to the north of downtown, in newly constructed, more spacious neighborhoods called Ngor, Mermoz, and Almadies.)
I received a fantastic walking tour around the neighborhood on Saturday, with my new boss pointing out a huge French-language bookstore, the main food market nearby, and the bus stop that will take me to work, as well as the best nearby CD stand. We stopped for fresh-squeezed juice at the French cultural institute, which is around the corner from the apartment and boasts a gorgeous outdoor restaurant as well as an open-air amphitheater with nightly performances of European and African musicians. I was also shown a huge, Lebanese-run supermarket near the once-majestic (now somewhat scuzzy) colonial-era Place de l'Independence that sells, along with all sorts of packaged products (I was ashamed at how happy I became at the prospect of Kelloggs cereal), ginger and bissap soda, a goat cheese made by a local monastery, and - love of my life - French yoghurt.
But air-conditioned supermarkets notwithstanding, most of the commerce in this neighborhood takes place on the street, where vendors wander around hawking mangos, melons, boxed juices, tetrapak milk, clothes hangers, wooden statues, ironing boards, and anything else you can think of. In addition there is a fruit-and-vegetable stand set up at every street corner. I plan on sampling every type of mango available.
