Staying home these past few days, I’ve realized just how frequently the power goes out. It was off Tuesday starting at 4:00 pm and only came on Wednesday morning at 5:00 am. Then it went out again Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 pm and only came back on again at 10:00 pm. My host father says that poorer neighborhoods of Dakar have power more often than middle-class ones like Sacre-Coeur 3, where I live, as the government is more worried that their inhabitants will strike. But I’ve heard from other people that the better-off the neighborhood, the less the power goes off. Fann, the neighborhood where WARC is located, almost never has power outages because there are tons of embassies and residences of diplomats and university professors. Whereas I’ve hearing stories from friends living in areas that seem less well off about not having power for several days at a time. I wonder what actually determines where Senelec cuts electricity and when.
Found out parts of Senegal still practice FGM. It was technically declared illegal twelve years ago (yes, only twelve) but 20-30% of girls in the country still undergo it every year. Saying I’m appalled doesn’t even begin to express my disgust.
Themes in my recent dreams (number of dreams on the subject): rape (2), kidnapping (1), loss of body parts (1), loss of passport (1), submarine crash (1). I have also had three dreams about returning to campus and being happy and two about seeing family and being happy. The happy ones are actually some of the worst, because I think my subconscious is trying to tell me it wants to go home.
I had a dream that was partially in German last night. I was on a train doing a jigsaw puzzle and then this German guy passed by and we started chatting in German about my grandparents. Then we went to the front of the train, where my dad was sitting, and looked out the window at 1879 arch, which was now near a river. The train had stopped, so we were looking out the window and I was telling the German guy (in English, now) about how I liked to do my homework by the riverbank and he was telling me how he was an engineer and had built the stretch of train tracks between Princeton Junction and Hamilton. Then he and my dad left to go to a bar and I went back to doing my jigsaw puzzle. And that was the end. The question is why, if I’m living in a (at least nominally) francophone country, am I dreaming in German and not French?
I have a new roommate. She (or he) is brown and furry and has a long, bald tail and likes to scamper underneath my bed. I’ve named her Smiles, because the French word for mouse ‘une souris’ is remarkably similar to that for smile ‘un sourire.’
Got into my first Dakar traffic accident. A motorcyclist randomly hit my taxi. My taxi driver stopped, got out, made sure the taxi wasn’t too badly damaged, and drove away. A bystander had to help the motorcyclist up.
Awa, who works at WARC, got me a taxi from Sacre-Coeur 3 to Plateau (downtown) to visit a doctor for 2,000 CFA. I’ve gotten taxis from Sacre-Coeur 3 to WARC for 800 CFA and WARC to Plateau for 1,000 CFA. Adding my two trips together, I paid approximately 35 cents less than did a Senegalese woman for a ride of equal distance. I am disproportionately impressed with my bargaining skills.
There is a middle-aged man who spends almost literally every day sitting in a plastic chair outside the house two doors down. Today he brought the three-year-old in my house home from nursery school. He later brought over a newspaper. Who is he?
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