Water has been a recurring theme of our stay here. This is interesting considering our previous year in the Arizona desert. As Dakar is shaped like an upside down triangle (hmmm) and almost completely surrounded by water (it’s connected to the rest of the country by an isthmus on the northeast side of the city), I guess this was inevitable. What’s striking is that the coastlines are all very different from each other: The west faces the Atlantic and is rocky with cliffs and a few small beaches — it reminds me of northern California. The north has crashing waves and a wide swath of beach that sweeps without interruption all the way up to Mauritania. Finally, the east side of the city has a calm shoreline that is protected by the peninsula. That’s where the port and some modest beaches are located.

The coastline is one of the things that strikes me most about Dakar. Within just a few minutes of home, we can be on any kind of shoreline — even an island. It’s a great way to end a workday.

The above picture, obviously, is not on any of the coastlines, although it is close to the eastern shore. That part of the city is low with a few marshes, and often floods during the rainy season (which just ended). Water there can stand for days. Streets in other parts of the city also frequently flood, and a sudden thunderstorm means you need to add another half-hour to your journey into town. The smaller buses above are the cheapest form of transportation — a flat fee of 150 CFA’s (about 25 cents) will take you anywhere. But they can become very, very crowded.

These two pictures were taken from our balcony one weekend when much of the city went without running water (this occurred, ironically, because of work being done to repair damage caused by heavy rains). Our entire neighborhood went two days without water. My building, however, is part of a group of buildings that has its own spare water reservoir. So people from other parts of the neighborhood lined up to fill their buckets with water from our supply. All weekend long, people walked up and down the streets balancing buckets of water on their heads. I felt really bad when one boy dropped his.

We took these pictures one cloudy day when we decided to visit the eastern side of town. We discovered a fishing community with a vibrant fish market. It was interesting to just watch the boats come in, and to see some of the fish people were selling — there were several really big fish. On the down side, the beach was filthy and not a place you would want to swim — for some people it was a public toilet. And as we attempted to walk north along the coast, we cut our trip short because it was apparent that we were coming upon a level of poverty that would be too difficult to witness.

We then turned the other direction, south, and eventually arrived at the edge of a community of tropical bungalows owned by French expats. We could see the trim houses of the French military base just beyond. Sailboats and pleasure craft were anchored just off the shore. We both remarked that this did not seem like Senegal anymore. Had we discovered a portal to Florida?

The west side is a complete contrast to the east side. It has a few small beaches, like the one above, but most of it is rocky. It’s a great place to watch the sun set, as we did at the lighthouse in my previous post.

Later this week I will make a posting about our outing yesterday to the northern shore.