Apocalypse

You know it's the rainy season when:

a) You wake up to a cool morning, so you suppose it must have rained the night before.

b) It begins to drizzle one night on the windshield of your taxi.

c) 15 seconds after leaving your apartment for work, it's suddenly 1992 and you're in the middle of Hurricane Andrew, and 15 seconds after that the entire street has turned into six inches of white water rapids, except the rapids are brown, so your feet are dirty for two days.

Hint: It's not called the "fresh as spring dew and buttercups season."

As a white person in Dakar, having a look of slight confusion sometimes leads to men in the marketplace accosting you, bringing you to their buddy's store which they swear has exactly what you want for a good price, leading you all over the market so that when you come back to the buddy's store three times you think it's different each time, and endowing you with a Senegalese name (Maty) that also belongs to some beloved female relative.

In the middle of a West African Rain, however, being white and slightly confused can also lead to much kindness and generosity. Thus, I took 30 minutes out of my 10 minute walk to work to sit on a bench offered to me by a security guard inside a doorway, where I chatted with the guard's friend about how the local name of the rainy season is simply "August, and sometimes September." Eventually I decided to brave the floods, with only a rain jacket and a tiny umbrella that seemed like a great idea when I was packing light. When I finally arrived to work, wringing out the bottom half of my dry clean-only dress, I endured smiles and knowing looks from those whose knowledge of Senegal and Rain exceeded what I had learned in the first ten pages of my guide book.

On the plus side, the guard and I now say hi every day. Best. Friends.