Right now, I am sitting underneath a wonderful gazebo-like structure at our beautiful ecolodge in the Saloum delta. The rain has been coming down in sheets non-stop since about 2am, there are probably over 100 different shades of green and it seems like the monkeys in the neighboring forest are taking a nap.
On Wednesday we met at the center in Dakar at 6:45am. Marianne (my neighbor) and I decided to pop for the cab ride in exchange for 20min of extra sleep. I stretched that to an extra hour of sleep by chucking my phone across the room when the alarm went off. Finally up at 6:07am, I rushed to the bathroom for the shower (always cold, although it feels nice in the heat and humidity of Dakar), took my malaria pill (always important!) with my breakfast (only a glass of water, because too much in a rush to get a piece of bread with butter) and woke Maman up to say goodbye. I left for Marianne's house at 6:25am- only 5min late, not bad.
From Marianne's house, we went to flag down a cab. Who knew that at 6:30am, not that many cabs are running? I took the executive decision to walk the 5min or so to the larger street near by, which conveniently would bring us by a patisserie for breakfast (the most delicious chocolate croissant ever! all the better because it was early enough that it had just come out of the oven).
We found a cab after walking along the main stretch for a few minutes. Considering the hour and how tired we were and did not want to walk, we were happy with paying 1000 F CFA for the cab.
Cab prices here are a blessing and a curse, as everywhere it seems. They are incredibly cheap (paid $3 for a 45min cab ride once).
Thank goodness they don't charge by running a meter, otherwise it would be way too easy for them to take the long way home and get an extra 10 000 F CFA out of me. However this means that you have to bargain for the price of the ride. For the first few weeks here I have been paying about 1000 F CFA to get home from school (about $2.25). My host sisters exploaded with disgust when they heard how much and how often I was being ripped off - apparently I shouldn't be paying more than 800 F CFA to get home, max 1000 F CFA if it is raining. I figure though 800 F CFA is the base price plus 200 F CFA because I am obviously not a local and then plus 200-300 F CFA if it raining.
To be honest, an extra $0.50 isn't going to break the bank- but it's the principle of the thing!
Once we met up with everyone at school (abbreviated WARC- West African Research Center), we loaded up the buses for the long haul southward.
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