2nd to 4th of January, 2018.
The thorn in my boots should have been a sign that my stay in Senegal would be complicated.
I am calmly walking on the road when I hear a loud sound. When I look it back, it is a wheel of a truck that had exploded and now the truck is coming in my direction, but still in the road, trying to not loose the control and fall down, and I do not know exactly what to do: Do I move or stay? The driver keep still and the truck finally stops a few metres further me. OK, maybe that should be the first sign because the thorn came later.
I decided to walk away from the truck, which now it is kind of blocking me. It is when I feel I step on something that hurt me. When I check my boots, there is this huge thorn stuck in the sole so I could not pull out or push in. I do then the only thing I could think about it: I take my card from Boots of my wallet and put in my boots to avoid keeping feeling the thorn.
A truck stops. There is already an old woman inside. I tell the driver I have no money and he still said to me to come in. He is a Moroccan guy who does not speak French or English or Spanish, just Arabic. A few quilometres later the old lady left.
I do not get why people who, knowing do not speak the same language as you, insist on trying to have a conversation. It is the base of the lack. I hate it! So this guy is trying to talk to me. He prepare me some coffee with milk (unfortunately it is a Touba coffee) with some bread. After that he gives me a yoghurt with small balls of wheat and corn. I loved but again, people in Western Africa, in general, never think you ate enough and they keep insisting for you to eat more.
After one stop to pee (just him because I would not leave the truck with him there with all my stuff) a not that much shock: He asks me to take a photo, then a photo with a kiss (on the cheek, of course, but still) and when I am going back to my sit, the piece of shit try to pass his hand on me! Disgusting! Again: what he think it would happen? What all the men think it will happen when they approach a woman? That is one of the proof that woman are smarter than men. I turn aside of the attack and now I regret for not had said anything. I really feel bad about it. I should yelled with him and get my stuff out of the truck. I was in the middle of nowhere but who cares? How can I keep speaking about women not keep quiet front an attack if when I suffer one I do the same? I know that the situation could become complicated. My security it was on the table because of the situation but still, I should have said something.
I called Elhadj, my next CS in Dakar, from his number but they could not understand each other. When we arrive at some point where he should leave me, he gave me two thousand Francs and did not accept a “no”as answer. So I took it.
I need hard to go to the bathroom but I decide to walk to a pharmacy and try to contact Elhadj again. It is when a long wait start. First, the two girls from the Pharmacy clearly do not like me. What is wrong with some women? Where are your sense of union? The owner is trying to find someone around who speak English. Middle time, the other attendant call a cousin who speak English and we talk. He ask me where my accent is from and when I answer Brazil he conclude that s funny a guy from U.S.A. trying to help a girl from Brazil in Senegal.
The conversations is long and I actually do not get why they make look so complicated. I know they were just trying to help. They even call Elhadj to get more information. The thing is: from where I am now I should take a different bus than the one Elhadj told me. That bus would lead me to some point where I should take another one directly to Lake Rose where Elhadj should be waiting for me. When we finally are leaving the pharmacy, (me and the attendant) I ask him where I could use a bathroom. He says: “In the pharmacy”. So we come back there again to I finally (after at least twenty minutes of hard waiting) pee.
The bus is already in there and the attendant write the information in a paper and give to the accountant of the bus. I say a quickly good bye and thank you when the bus is already leaving.
The transport in Senegal is something out of mind. There are the public buses (which I believe are running by the government) that you pay starting in one hundred Francs (what is really cheap) but the conditions are crazily bad. You have to get in and get out really quickly because the bus will not wait that long for you. It is really risky and the buses are always full. You can enter for each one of the two doors, front and back, and since there is no machine to control the entrances, there is also no way to pay to the accountant. So basically most of people just keep passing their coins through each other until get on the accountant and then they pass the ticket and maybe the change come back again. The other buses are the private ones: nothing more than vans with some seats with two guys (usually) out side of the back doors always calling by screams for more passengers (what is really annoying sometimes when you are walking on the streets and the guys stop in front of you and try to get you in). The price is the same but if you have to get in or out real quickly in the public buses, on those ones you better run, pal, otherwise you will ended with your face on the road. And do not even think about have your own space: in those buses every centimeter it coast money so be prepare to became, literally, very close of people beside you.
When I leave the first bus, this old lady heard what the accountant was saying for me and she tells me to follow her. She just speak French but she is very kind and we talk a little bit. I do not know how to write her name but it sounded like Abi. Going to Lake Rose she gives a bracelet, a very fancy one, that I will keep with me for as long as I can.
At Lake Rose, I am waiting for Elhadj when this guy approach and ask if I need help. I ask him to call Elhadj, who, of course, he knew and tell him I am waiting for him in there. The guy speaks a little of Portuguese, by the way.
The lady from a small shop made of wood invite me to wait under the celling with her and even gives me a cup of tea.
When Elhadj arrives I am surprise for how unsafely I feel in his presence. We start to walk.
The place is a camping, which belongs to Elhadj’s friend. There are four traditional Senegalese tents, made of thin trees that grows on the river. There is also a camping tent and a kind of Mauritania tent but smaller and not fancy inside. There is a small bar and a place with some tables. The garden is in the way which leads to the Lake. The view is amazing and the decoration really nice with a lot of hand made different types of art. There is no electricity and just bucket showers.
I am accepting the whole thing. For me it would be a kind of preparation to my future hand made house, without electricity and running water. I just do not get it when Elhadj say we supposed to share the camping tent which is in there. I tell him I have mine and I would sleep in mine, so when they leave to buy some food I start to make my camping and when they return, it is ready. I eat my sandwich and some fruits they bought. A third guy makes a fire camping and we stay around it for a few minutes. Then everybody goes to sleep.
Next day everything changes. Elhadj start to talk about how I should not stay just in one place but keep travelling around Senegal. I realize he does wont me stay with them for the whole time we agreed before (what I made very clear since the beginning of our CS messages and he kept saying that was no problem) so I say I would need connection and when I got it I would look for another CS to stay.
Their solution is going to Dakar that day, sleep in Elhadj parents house where I could have connection and come back in the other day. While talking about that, because of the coasts of the bus (almost one thousand Francs) I suggest to take all my stuff with me and not come back because it would be a waste of money and time just coming back for another two or three days. It is when Elhadj talk something about my tent and how I did not suppose to make it. Apparently, the whole camping (which is a big place) not suppose to have more camping tents. I definitely do not believe in that and for me it is just an excuse for him to make me share the same tent with him. When he realize I would not, he gets upset and is trying make me leave.
Preparing my stuff, I realize I lost a nail of my tent. Not me but the dogs who were running around the tent and messing everything. Against my will, we leave after six in the evening and would get in Dakar real late at night. I have a hell of a situation with Elhadj not given a shit about me or my backpack, which he treated like a plastic bag throwing on the bus without no care at all. When we leave the bus after over one hour, I take my bag by myself again.
At his house another surprise: his bedroom, which he share with his brother, it is completely apart of his house, he does not even introduce me to his family and I would have to share the bed with him. His brother would sleep on the floor, in another mattress, but when I suggest I sleep in there, he refuses.
After a not good night, I wake up early but have to wait until his brother wake up (after mid-day) because unluckily my connection it was not working. I start to look for a Backpackers to stay for the night, since nobody else had answer me from CS.
At the lunch time another surprise: I am eating with my left hand when he forbid me to do it. I should eat with my right hand. The explanations about how I could not because my whole life I used my left hand did not matter to him, so I also did not matter on dropping a lot of rice on the floor since I could not control my right hand properly.
Trying to explaining to him why I was leaving it is another nightmare. It is obviously for me now that he almost does not speak English. Just a few basic worlds. That is his first lie. If he had told me since the beginning that he was using the Google Translate for the CS messages, maybe I could think twice before going to stay with him. But since we could do not understand each other at all, it was impossible get in an agreement.
He does not understand why I am leaving and he also does not get why I do not want to share the bed with him. Hãm? Yeah. According to him, other women from CS had already did that (which I hardly believe) so it should not be a problem.
I am so relived that I am leaving. The hostel would coast me six thousand by night but rather sacrifice my money than my good will.
