Dakar, Senegal, Africa was crazy, dirty and poor and although i was glad to experience it all I am even more happy to be here in sal again, where i can jump off the boat and swim and there isnt a layer of oil on the water or china guys squating for hours beside my boat watching me paint. I understand that they had been to sea for more then 6 monthes but when they start offering your captian 200 000 african francs (which is about 300 euros and 600 canadian) to "make love" to the blond one, it gets a bit much. The Muslim Africans were not much better, they can have 4 wives so an added white girl would be quite a status symbol and a bonus in muslim terms...i had about 100 marriage proposal..at least...all were serious, some were actually hot too if it werent for ....
In dakar the market or bazaar is the craziest place i have been on earth...more smells, cars, people, chickens and random sidewalk shops overlapping themselves in a collidiscope of crazieness that words can't ever explain. I almost got hit by a car because the streets share the shops, fruit venders, scooters, walkers, carts, salesmen, homeless and other random randomness with the cars and the cars want to move. and you can't. And so the story goes for blocks and blocks of weaving in and out of the randomness decribed.
and the poor.
I've never seen anything like it, i think it hit my cousin who is younger and going to school there harder then I, but it was hard not to shutter at the amount of homeless, dirty, childern and handicapped on the street, sleeping where they can, begging and chasing after you on the street...at one point we had a race of wheelchairs after us for blocks.
The pick pocketers are damn good at their profession. It didn't happen to me, but to our cook. Three of us where leaving the bar when a man came up to me to sell something, a child went up to emily and held her hand and the cook got his back pocket emptied...a small scuffle ensued and we returned to the boat. No one was hurt and that was the overall best scenerio. They only got about 10 euros but what an elaberate plan eh?
Being white eveyone thinks you have extra to give and all you can do is either have nothing or buy nothing, as soon as you do hoards of other people swarm you with necklaces, birds (to set free with a wish), paintings etc. Even when you are in an establishment the street salesmen will pace back and forth trying to get your attention with items that you would never be interested in unless you went out to buy something of the sort on purpose..."I'm sure that pair of sunglasses is nice and not a fake (even though i enjoyed pointing out that the ray bans said made in china) but as you see my friend...i already have a pair on my head"
Anyways, the beer was good and the music amazing and the experience willl stay with me forever...i survived, that's what i feel now. And i feel clean again...all that sand and dirt.
So we are back here for the month doing some tours of the south Capo Verde islands and that's cool because i haven't seen them yet, so i am excited. I get to scuba this week and I think my plan is to come back to canada in march or april but don't count on it!
I think the captain from the crossing is coming on this boat so i might want to stay longer...also it is going to be kinda weird soon because everyone but me is leaving in the next month and i will be the one on crew that knows the boat the most...! i dont know how that is going to feel.
so the 3 day crossing back to here was great... i love sailing for long voyages, doing watchs at night and eating and sleeping the ocean day after day...tis the life for me my friend.
i miss you all and hope to hear from you all soon.
{first published by Sea Siren Tales ~ The Drifting Chronicles on Monday, 13 April 2009 at 12:58 }
No comments:
Post a Comment