A la prochaine
We faire another dusty walk around our little block, in search of the neighborhood baguette seller. On the first segment on the main road, each taxi beeps politely at us. At the corner, we chat it up with a woman standing in an indigo robe and turban selling sweet rolls. She proudly produces a phone. Indeed, it’s a phone, the kind your parents got in the 1980’s when they upgraded from a rotary phone to one with all those buttons. We examine it obediently. The coiled cord still attaches the part you talk into to the part with the buttons. Mais….it is lacking any cord that attaches the phone to a phone line or to anything else. She holds it aloft, insisting that we can call the United States with her phone. I squint at her, as if she’s just suggested that we call Santa at the North Pole.
C’est vrai?” we question.
C’est mobile”, the entrepreneur insists, beginning to press buttons.
“A la prochaine”, we blurt as we scuffle away before the call is placed. “Until next time”.

A cote de M. Djiboka
It takes all day just to explore our new house. The floor plan is unfamiliar, arranged in layers like a pastry. Every drawer and cabinet has a lock and key. Closed doors separate the kitchen from the bedrooms, the living room from the hall. We’re surrounded by a high walled and locked garden. Each salle de bain is large enough to include a love seat. Allison could easily learn to ride her bicycle without ever having to go outdoors.
Before we know the neighborhood, Astou calls to get directions here. Bronwyn asks a neighbor passing by who tells us to say we are “a cote de M. Djibo KA”. Apparently we are located next door to two Senegalese ministers of this and that, M. Dji being the Ministre de Maritime. Everyone knows the location of his home. We are to refer to his house the way we do to the Dehoux’s house on the corner at our Gwynn’s Island home.

C’est regle
“It’s fixed” I hear again and again in the cargo area of the Dakar Airport. Tucker waits and barks inside his kennel. He waits just beyond us behind a sliding metal wall of mesh. I shift around in the dirt. Two security guards languish behind the cardboard painted sign. Another trip inside the office. Something about having to pay someone something when he goes to get something. “Je ne comprends pas”, I respond to any mention of money. Something about having to send someone to the boss- boss to wake him up so he can stamp something. “C’est regle”. Someone limps off to get more papers to sign. A man in white silk robes floats through the dust. The van idles. Idle men drape over whatever box bag or cart will make them comfortable and cool. Someone returns with two fists full of papers. “C’est regle”. More cell phone calls and another someone takes the papers away again. Il fait chaud. It is nearing the middle of the day. There is no relief from the sun. Clearly the idea is to move as slowly and as infrequently as possible. A number of men emerge from behind a cardboard box that has been rolled end over end in the dust enough to make it more round than square. Whose precious cargo is this?
“C’est regle”. This time he means it. We are free to go- the whole family.

Hi, this is my blog. I'll start writing interesting things soon. We're leaving for Senegal next week or so.
Kat