A Camel Named Franklin

Another action packed weekend, come and gone!

Unfortunately I left my camera locked away at the WARC so I don't have any pictures of my own from this weekend, but I will certainly steal some from my buddies and post them ASAP.

Before I get into tales of wonder and enchantment, I'll share some not so fun news- last week I did some sleuthing, and am now 96% sure that my host sister Raissa stole some money from me. Last Wednesday after I visited my favorite sweat shop I stopped by the ATM and took out some money. I went straight home and didn't do much the rest of the day, and the next morning I found my backpack unzipped and 10,000 CFA (around $25) missing from my wallet. Not a huge blow in the grand scheme of things, but that amount of money has a lot of buying power here- I could pay for lunch at the WARC for two weeks with 10,000 CFA, or two half-hour long camel rides. (More on that later.) Anyhow, the only two people who had been in the bedroom Raissa and I share since the previous night were Raissa and Binta, the maid. Given Raissa's history of mooching, I had a hunch that she dunnit. I hid the rest of my money in a secret place and went to school pretty irked. When I got home that night, I left my backpack on my bed and made sure to zip the front pocket where I keep my wallet closed. At one point Papa Anicet and Maman Binta left to do errands, and Raissa told me to stay in the salon "just in case someone knocks on the door." A little suspicious, considering our house only has 3 rooms and you can hear someone banging on the metal door even if you're taking a shower in the back yard. I got more suspicious still when she then went into our bedroom and shut the door behind her. I followed her in a few minutes later, and found her on her hands and knees by my bed. She claimed to be looking for something, but I noticed that my backpack was open again. Caught! She stood up hurriedly and said she had to "go buy something at the boutique." She snatched 11,000 CFA off the bedside table (she NEVER has money,) and left the house.

The first day of our program, the MSID directors told us that money issues are particularly sensitive topics here in Senegal. To accuse someone, particularly a member of your host family, of stealing money is a very serious thing- if you're right about it, the entire family is shamed. If you're wrong, you create tension and distrust within the household that probably won't go away in the short time you stay with them. I love 3/4 of my host family and I'm not ready to make a fuss over $25, so I took the time that Raissa was gone to hide the rest of money and plant a little surprise in my wallet- a note that says "Raissa, il faut me demander," as well as the receipt from my ATM withdrawl with the amount I withdrew circled in red. I'm really not angry at her, I just hope she sees the note and understands that I'm not as dumb as she might think. And I certainly won't let this happen again!

At any rate, that's the bad news. On the sunny side of the porch, I had an amazing weekend! Friday afternoon I skipped Wolof and went to Dakar's Olympic sized pool with Rachel, Rebecca, Elke, Jon, and Sean. It's a beautiful pool, and wonderful to swim in the hot afternoon. The best part was the 20 minutes that they opened the diving pool to the public- at least 50 boys and a couple girls rushed up the stairs to two diving boards and four concrete platforms of various heights, the tallest standing at ten meters. No one really took turns or waited for people to swim out of the way before hurling themselves off the platforms, so the air and the water were full of bodies. It was pretty nervewracking to watch, but I definitely want to go back with my camera. Jon even jumped off the 10 meter platform!

Saturday I had a relaxing morning at the house, and in the afternoon I took the bus downtown with Pascal and Raissa and treated them to N'ice Cream. They both started school today, Monday, so it was kind of a last summer hurrah. Sean and Jon met us at N'ice Cream and we all walked around the marché Sandaga for a bit. I bought a dress I had been eyeing the last few times I'd been downtown, and then we all took a cab back to the basketball court near my house to play a little. Jasper came with his older brother Moustafa and we played against some of the neighborhood kids. Though it was hot, it was wonderful to get some exercise and really fun to play. We let Pascal play on our team and a group of his younger friends gathered to watch the game, cheering for him every time he touched the ball. Fun stuff!

Saturday night Moustafa and a couple of his friends took us out to a club called Nbalam, where his friend used to DJ. The place was pretty much empty the whole night, but we had a great time nonetheless. The walls of the club were nearly entirely covered in mirrors, and what wasn't was pasted with sheets of blue glittery confetti strips. There were about 36 disco balls and music playing the whole night. Our band of toubabs took over the dance floor for a couple hours, and then around 3 AM started to head home. Other club highlights included a woman who was clearly a prostitute who walked in completely covered in glitter to match the gaudy walls, and the creepy guy sitting in the bathroom who's only job was to hand out toilet paper.

Unfortunately I didn't get much rest Saturday night- Sunday morning I woke up around 9AM to head to Lac Rose, a lake outside of Dakar. Lac Rose is 10x saltier than the ocean, and some sort of visual effect of bright Senegalese sunlight on the salty water makes the lake look pink! Sometimes, anyway. Unfortunately we picked one of the non-pink days- apparently during the rainy season the large amounts of fresh water that fall into Lac Rose repress its pinkclinations and keep it blue. It was still a beautiful sight though, and we had plenty to do there! Our group of 16 hired cabs to drive us the two hours there, wait around for a few hours, then drive us back, all for an obscenely low price. The drive itself was really interesting- we drove past some of the shanty towns that have cropped up haphazardly just outside of Dakar's limits, and got a look at how the poorest of the city's inhabitants live.

Once we arrived at Lac Rose, we took a short walk around one side of the lake to see some of the salt mounds on the shore. We didn't spend the money to hire a guide so I'm not sure exactly how the salt is harvested, but we did see a few men hard at work, neck deep in the lake with shovels. We strolled back toward the stand of shops and hotels and relaxed under a cabana to have a drink, and then a few of us headed toward the edge of town, and CAMELS!

In true Senegalese spirit we tried to bargain for the price of the camel ride until Le Chef des Chamaux, as I called him, laughed at us and told us that the price was fixed. That was a first! The price was $12 for a 20 minute camel ride across the sand dunes to the ocean and back- well worth it! Getting onto the camel was a bit intimidating, as they were all drooling and making the most terrible gargling scream noises I have ever heard, but once I was shoved into my saddle by Le Chef it was alright. We had two guides leading our caravan of 5 girls: myself, Rachel, Rebecca, Britta, and Claire. We set off galloping across the dunes, all tethered together in a line- a scene straight out of Arabian Nights or something! Unbelievable. We all named our camels- mine was Franklin, the biggest and baddest of the lot. Rachel's was Babacar, Claire's was Lawrence (of Arabia,) Britta's was Shaharazad (sp.?), and Rebecca's was Aissatou, which is also (coincidentally, I'm sure) the name of our Wolof teacher. Aissatou was kind of gross- she seemed to have asthma and kept slobbering all over Rachel's leg. We made it to the ocean and rode in the waves for a few minutes, then headed back toward town. The beach we rode along is also the ending point of the famous Paris-Dakar rally, an annual off road vehicle race. Sweet. 20 minutes ended up being the perfect amount of time for the ride. Anyone who's ever ridden a camel before can tell you that while the experience gives you a lot of street cred, it's not very comfortable. At all. They're not very graceful creatures, and after bouncing up and down for the whole ride, I stumbled out of the saddle bruised and sore. I was glad to have met Franklin, though, and I wouldn't trade my ride for anything!

After waddling away from the camels, I took a short dip in Lac Rose. The water was strangely warm, and the lake floor hot. It was really easy to float because of all the salt in the water. The best part of going for a swim, though, was the rinse off afterwards. After clambering out of the lake, a small herd of hotel staff rushed over and escorted us over to "Le Source Frais," a small pool of clean cool water and a bucket where we could rinse ourselves off. I stepped forward to grab the bucket, but a short old man rushed over, snatched it out of my hands and told us that he would splash us down, for a small fee. We asked if we could rinse ourselves off for free, but he shook his head and just stood there, refusing to hand over the bucket. So I found myself standing in my bikini in Le Source Frais, surrounded by a crowd of toubabs and Senegalese hotel employees, being splashed with freezing cold water in the face by a strange old man with a bucket. He would motion when he wanted me to turn so he could hit me from all angles, and gave me one last abrupt little splash on the bum to send me scurrying out of the pool. Best 20 cents I've ever spent.

After drying off we went off to find our taxi drivers and made the trek back to Dakar. I made it home in time to take in my favorite Indian soap opera here in Senegal- VAIDEHI. It was an action packed episode, chock full of betrayal, jungle pursuits, and daring escapes. I also managed to smash Papa Anicet's top score in Tetris, which my family has on the TV. Pascal yelled from the living room to tell him in Wolof that "the toubab was beating his score," and Maman Binta just about died laughing when I said in response, "My name is Marianne, not toubab!" Now whenever anyone calls me toubab she makes sure to correct them.

And that was my weekend! I've been having a pretty good week thus far as well, but need to head home at this point. Here are a couple pictures from facebook-

This one's from Toubacouta- me just after I won my lutte against Britta! She's pounding her fists on the ground in shame.

Me, (in the blue) Rachel, and Rebecca behind our guide riding Franklin, Babacar, and Aissatou!

Lots of love to you all!