Our days in Dakar begin and end at our home away from home, our apartment in the Sacre Coeur 1 neighborhood. It’s the biggest place I’ve ever lived apart from my parents’ houses, with three bedrooms, dining room, living room and a big terrace. It’s high up on the fourth and top floor of an eight unit building, and gets breezes all day long. The Atlantic Ocean is visible less than two miles to the west. It’s very comfortable, and is a refuge when coming in from the noise of the city.

We’ve already seen many things both in and away from Dakar, and I’ll be telling you about some of those places in future postings. We see a lot, however, from the apartment itself.

First, on the inside, our solid, wood dining table serves as our office. We spend a good part of our week here working on Abraham’s research project on small and medium enterprise development in Senegal. He’s doing this as part of his MBA program at Thunderbird Business School in Arizona, and it’s the reason we’re in Senegal. We have a good setup, with high-speed internet for research, and a fan to keep us cool. Notice the map of Senegal, one of my favorite household items. 

I spend a lot of my time at home out on the terrace. This is our view. Abraham and I spend breakfast watching the kids run laps around the school field across the street, commenting on the different runners, which ones are fast, which are slow, which ones are giving it their all. I never remember having to run so much when I was in school. You see very few fat Senegalese. Most people seem to take care of themselves physically as best they can. Fortunately for us, the discotheque at the bottom of the page is out of business, so it’s quiet at night.

Someone’s usually using the school’s field in the afternoon, often for a game of football (soccer). The tower behind the field belongs to a church.

Most of Senegal, including Dakar, is Muslim. Our side window looks over a mosque in the foreground, and downtown Dakar in the background. Several times a day we hear someone calling out Muslim calls to prayer from that mosque.

It’s Ramadan now in Senegal and the rest of the Muslim world. This annual, month-long observance means that most Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours. As Abraham and I are not Muslim, we can eat as we normally do, although it’s respectful to do so out of sight of others. This also means that most people that we deal with are getting tired and hungry by the afternoon. Some offices close early, others stay open but everyone is just a little bit slower. Our watchman, Ibu, is lying down on his mat having an afternoon chat with some neighbors. At 7:10pm, as he will do at 7:10pm every day during Ramadan, he will break his fast in his own particular way. It starts with a cup of coffee (others have coffee and bread). Then he smokes a cigarette, which is followed by some Bisap juice and then a glass of water. Ibu then waits 30 minutes before he finally has his evening meal.

Every now and then someone decides to trim some weeds or cut down some branches. The way to dispose of them is simply to burn them, meaning that once or twice a week our apartment becomes filled with smoke. One morning I smelled smoke, looked out the back window, and saw the man in the picture lighting this fire. I closed all the windows, but smoke gets in through the slats anyway. I guess it’s just part of life in Dakar.

You never know who will stop by for a visit.

When it’s time to leave, it starts with hailing a taxi. It’s never hard to find a taxi. Dakar has a surplus of them, and each one will honk at you as you walk down the street, hoping for a fare. Being a white person and thus more likely to be tricked into paying a higher fare, I get honked at a lot. Drivers will actually slow down to almost a complete stop and lean out the window to see if I need a ride (I guess it’s nice to feel wanted). I’ve been here long enough to know the going rates, however, and have become adept at negotiating a good rate. Some drivers will just drive away, but I know I’ve won when he finally waves his hand in frustration to the back seat, signaling that he accepts my offer. Once I’m in the taxi, the atmosphere changes, as we greet each other in Wolof and I practice the few Wolof words I know, usually to the amusement of the driver.