Home Sweet Home

These are some of the sounds that routinely wake me up at night and in the wee hours of Saturday morning: cats in heat, babies crying, old men coughing up mucus, the 5 am call to prayer, metal banging on metal in the never-ending construction zone that is all of Dakar.

For those of you who were in the loop (i.e. my mother), my shower drain has now stopped spewing up sewage when I flush the toilet. However, my entire bathroom floor now floods when I take a shower.

Oh, and my internet is still barely functional.

You may be thinking, "Girl, you need to move!" If you were thinking that, you would be on to something. So what keeps me around? Location, location, location. Unlike 99.9% of the city, I live within the electricity grid of the presidential palace, so no power cuts! Thank you, national energy company, for being corrupt in a way that is beneficial to me.

Ten things that have happened to me

1. Today I discovered that the entire English language fiction section of the biggest bookstore in Dakar consists of Beckett's "Happy Days" and the second Lord of the Rings novel.

2. Several weeks ago I encountered the Senegalese version of Atlantic City, sort of. La Somone, a beach resort where chartered planes bring in tourists straight from France so that they can say they've been to the beaches of Africa. Meanwhile, they are directed like lemmings to daily activities by a loudspeaker and are fed at what is definitely the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat Atlantic City buffet.

3. Wyclef Jean in concert! 2.5 hours! In the VIP section that I was able to sneak into because I'm white!

4. Also saw Youssou N'dour in concert. He's super famous and has won a Grammy, but unfortunately he's not as well known as Akon, who is really only fake Senegalese.

5. Also saw Rihanna in concert, and it was the best day of my life. But then it turned out to be a dream.

6. My phone was run over by a taxi. Sorry, let's back up to the part where my phone and wallet were stolen at a concert in December. Then the part where I paid $25 for a knock-off Nokia that doesn't have T9 and doesn't record sent messages (but does have a flashlight!). Then the part where I paid $20 to get a five-year-old French phone to work. Now we're at the part where I dropped my phone, yelled "no no no no no!" and watched a taxi slow down and stop one inch after he had run it over. So now I'm back to having no T9 or sent messages.

7. I rode a camel in the desert. Not tons comfortable.

8. I saw the Senegalese national marching band at a Brazil v. Senegal under-20 soccer match. I really love marching bands. Soccer not as much.

9. A Lebanese man from my gym told me the following things: He hates Senegalese and Canadians. He thinks all Russians are Jews because that's what the movies told him. He's a terrorist and probably wouldn't be allowed in the US and am I afraid of him because he's Muslim? Just kidding! He was only trying to break the ice, but he hopes I'm not wearing a wire!

10. I'm going to Barcelona this weekend. Okay, that hasn't happened yet, but I needed ten things.