Thursday, October 14, 2011 Dakar

Dakar by day was 100x nicer than Dakar by night, thanks to the simple fact that the latter is lit up.  Dakar by night is fucking scary because it's pitch black out there and people are sleeping all over the streets (many of which are not really sleping; rather just sitting arund looking at the odd lost foreigner).  I took a walk downtown, which had some 5-story buildings, lots of homeles people, and even more street salespeople.  Lonely Planet said the bus to Bamako in Mali is an experience; too bad that when I arrived at the train station, the tracks were covered in overgrown vines lined with shanties, and all that was in the station terminal was a clothesline with some laundry.  I had some tea with this group of boys who were listening to R Kelly and Akon (he's from Senegal).  Everyone was looking at me, yelling 'toubab', which is what Kunta Kinte used to describe white people in Roots (he is from Senegal). Besides me, the other toubabs were a ton of Lebanese people for some reason.  I had lunch at this really good Senegalese place and randomly started talking to this really rich accountant from Dakar, which was pretty interesting.  I took a peruse through the Grand Marche, since I love markets.  It was huge; stalls were everywhere, sellig everything from DVDs to shoes to goat meat to yams.  In true African fashion, it was loud, hectic, and dirty.  Definitely some sweatshops and child labor happening.  It was cool to see whole cars covered in sheets and merchandise.  A bunch of English speaking hawkers kept coming up to me trying to be my guide or to give them money, including these rasta-looking characters.  Tyler 1, scammers 2.  I took a look at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean, which was pretty and filled with guys playing soccer.  Everyone here loves soccer.  At night, this guy came up to me and recognized me from 2008 from my trip to Ethiopia where he was my guide, so of course I was surprised.  He was here for his mom's surgery.  Then as I was about to go to my hotel, he asked for money so he could make it back to Ethiopia.  Okay, RED LIGHT.  He totally had me going that I had met him in Ethiopia.  The fact that he didn't know anyone by name until I mentioned them, the fact he spoke French, and the fact that we are 5,000 miles away from Ethiopia and my fifty dollar donation was enough to send his dying mother home overland, makes me say SCAM.  I asked why he couldn't name anyone and azsked to see his dying mother.  When he refused, I told him to get the eff out.  Tyler 2, scammers 2.