It was just a week, but it was nice on a number of levels. It’s been great to hav
e something to look forward to, it was great being able to fly out of Abidjan during day light so I could get a birds eye view (without the cloud cover, but thanks for trying Google Earth), it was great getting to talk with my neighbor on the flight (a past time of mine… a doctor who works with a regional German based equivalent to Doctors’ without Borders), it was great meeting some of my colleagues and having a chance to get a little more training now that I have a point of reference, it was great playing tourist in Dakar and having an opportunity to check out the other ‘Paris of Africa.’ I had a full week and the training was held at my beach side hotel, so the first night four o
f us climbed in a cab (poor cabs had to barter more than they were expecting with four white women approaching, my cohorts are from Mali, Sudan and South Africa…not newbies to the game of getting a reasonably priced cab). Senegal is a rather interesting place, though it was also a French colony French is still spoken by the educated but is starting to die off it seems, replaced by Wolof, the local language (just be careful – WOW! Means yes…). So we hoped in our cab, basically the size of a four door Datsun, I squish in the back with two others while Lisa takes the passenger seat, only to her surprise the windshield had been patched with something that seemed similar to calking, but hey it got us to Plateau where the marché. As soon as we step out of the cab we quickly gain a self assigned escort who directs traffic around us, ensures we hit the “good 
shops” – no, he’s not worried about getting a tip, I came to understand after the fact that he’ll return to each shop and pressure the shop keepers out of “his cut.”
Where Abidjan’s expat community was ruffled by the attacks in 2004 Dakar seems to having a diverse and thriving community of expats, this is duly noted because we had some good eats, not cheap, but worth it – ambiance, actual napkins, clean, ahhh.
Another night a few of us took a walk, about a quarter mile, that turned into a mile… to Cape Verde, the western most point of Africa. The next
afternoon a group of us caught the ferry to Goree Island which served as a central point of the slave trade. It has become a bit of an arts and crafts colony, because of the tourists it draws for its historical significance there’s some pretty good art and the historic buildings are painted/ maintained, which make for a very scenic experience. I must admit that most of the factoids our guide shared were lost through the heavy accent, but I got some fun pictures!
Saturday morning I just decided to enjoy having TV, so I flipped through varying versions of the news, mostly in Arabic and
French, but occasionally caught the BBC, from what I could understand no one had anything nice to say – most everything was about the financial crisis. I eventually caught part of some movie with Tim Allen and the Weight Watchers lady, where they were pretending to be Amish, but it was voiced over in French with Arabic subtitles, who knew the Tool Man was so international?
e something to look forward to, it was great being able to fly out of Abidjan during day light so I could get a birds eye view (without the cloud cover, but thanks for trying Google Earth), it was great getting to talk with my neighbor on the flight (a past time of mine… a doctor who works with a regional German based equivalent to Doctors’ without Borders), it was great meeting some of my colleagues and having a chance to get a little more training now that I have a point of reference, it was great playing tourist in Dakar and having an opportunity to check out the other ‘Paris of Africa.’ I had a full week and the training was held at my beach side hotel, so the first night four o
f us climbed in a cab (poor cabs had to barter more than they were expecting with four white women approaching, my cohorts are from Mali, Sudan and South Africa…not newbies to the game of getting a reasonably priced cab). Senegal is a rather interesting place, though it was also a French colony French is still spoken by the educated but is starting to die off it seems, replaced by Wolof, the local language (just be careful – WOW! Means yes…). So we hoped in our cab, basically the size of a four door Datsun, I squish in the back with two others while Lisa takes the passenger seat, only to her surprise the windshield had been patched with something that seemed similar to calking, but hey it got us to Plateau where the marché. As soon as we step out of the cab we quickly gain a self assigned escort who directs traffic around us, ensures we hit the “good 
shops” – no, he’s not worried about getting a tip, I came to understand after the fact that he’ll return to each shop and pressure the shop keepers out of “his cut.”Where Abidjan’s expat community was ruffled by the attacks in 2004 Dakar seems to having a diverse and thriving community of expats, this is duly noted because we had some good eats, not cheap, but worth it – ambiance, actual napkins, clean, ahhh.
Another night a few of us took a walk, about a quarter mile, that turned into a mile… to Cape Verde, the western most point of Africa. The next
afternoon a group of us caught the ferry to Goree Island which served as a central point of the slave trade. It has become a bit of an arts and crafts colony, because of the tourists it draws for its historical significance there’s some pretty good art and the historic buildings are painted/ maintained, which make for a very scenic experience. I must admit that most of the factoids our guide shared were lost through the heavy accent, but I got some fun pictures!Saturday morning I just decided to enjoy having TV, so I flipped through varying versions of the news, mostly in Arabic and
French, but occasionally caught the BBC, from what I could understand no one had anything nice to say – most everything was about the financial crisis. I eventually caught part of some movie with Tim Allen and the Weight Watchers lady, where they were pretending to be Amish, but it was voiced over in French with Arabic subtitles, who knew the Tool Man was so international?
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