Mike's Site

The Beat of Dakar

My trip of 28 days to West Africa ends today. But, before I catch a ride at 5 PM for the airport I decide to go to the Museum of Black Civilizations and the Artisan Market. 

I’m staying on tiny Ngor Island just off the north coast of the peninsula occupied by sprawling Dakar in Senegal. The peninsula is the westernmost point of mainland Africa. 

My travel buddy, Lee has already left and is back home tired but safe. I’ll try to make the most of this last day.

I find a taxi driver, no problem.  In fact, two drivers start a hotter-than-The-Gambia argument over who will take me. I settle the argument by selecting the guy who asked me first. For now the fight is over.

The driver, whose name is Fatou, and I hop in his beat up yellow and black taxi. It has no AC. The museum is twelve  miles south down the peninsula in Dakar’s center, where the Presidential Palace and other government buildings are. 

Right away I know the drive won’t be quick. Traffic is bad. I think I could walk faster than this. It’s just the way it is here.

Motorbikes zip between cars using the dashed lane line as their unclogged freeway. Our car gets tapped on the side by a motorbiker when it’s too close to the dashed line and blocking the motorbike. 

Fatou has a few words with the tapper. 

Fatou takes out a purple razor and shaves while we progress slowly through stop and go traffic. Vendors sit or stand along the road selling drinks, windshield cleaning brushes, soap, cashews and dates.

Stick your hand out the window and the vendor will run to the car. Fatou buys a package of eight dates and pops them in his mouth one by one.

Sometimes this driving becomes a contact sport and it shows. All of the yellow and black taxis are beat up, dented, scraped, with broken mirrors and bashed bumpers.

Fatou sticks the taxis too far into a lane and a motorbike clips us but stays upright.  Words are harshly exchanged after we both stop but nothing more than words are thrown and the motorbike and us continue with the added scrapes.

My taxi has 236,685 km showing on the odometer though I wonder if the odometer works because the speedometer, RPM gauge and temperature gauge don’t work. 

I see the gas gauge works. We have a quarter of a tank only because we just stopped for gas.

During this drive Fatou keeps insisting that I should use him to make the full loop instead of just going to the museum. He doesn’t want to go back to Ngor without a paying passenger.  

So, with my pitiful French and his pathetic English we hammer out a deal without denting the car.

Finally, after an hour, we reach the Museum of Black Civilizations. I go in while Fatou waits.

The museum covers the history of black peoples and Africans in general.  Africa is the cradle of mankind and excellent displays explain man’s evolution and migrations. But, the signs are mostly in French since this is French speaking Africa. I understand about 80% of the material. 

After reaching information overload I exit the museum, find the taxi and we drive to the Artisan Market past concrete walls with graffiti and murals. There’s no shortage of art in Africa. Coca-Cola billboards fill in gaps in the walls sometimes. 

I’m at the market for one purpose, to find a djembe drum to take home. Djembe drums are SO West African and I love the sound and want to learn to play one.

I find a nice sounding drum about two feet tall and I bargain the price from $240 US to $140, including a colorful cloth case.

To make the purchase I need to find an ATM so Fatou, the drum seller and I get in the taxi after making a small bus blocking our parking space move. We drive down several blocks lined with rumble. A small dust devil swirls litter into the hot air.

The seller knows where the bank is and we find it, I get cash then exchange the Central Africa Francs for drum and cover and depart. 

So, now I have a drum I don’t know how to play and don’t know if it will make it home as my only checked item on a flight in ten years.

We make it back to the taxi stand in Ngor where Fatou takes my payment, shakes my hand then resumes the heated argument with the other driver from this morning. I am told later they’re brothers. 

I make it back to my Airbnb by 3 PM. And, with my two packs and the drum, re-cross from Ngor Island to the mainland to catch another taxi for the airport.  The traffic is still bad, always bad. It takes an hour and a half for the drive in a more dilapidated, slower taxi than the previous one.

I checkin with Air France for my flights to Paris, Atlanta and, finally, Huntsville. I watch my new drum take a ride on the baggage conveyor belt. I hope to see it again in one piece.

Thanks for reading. 

Cheers

PS. My drum didn’t make it. I’m bummed.

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