Sunday, February 5 A day of rest

Today was a day of rest, as it should be. I went with David and Janet to church and did some preparation for our departure tomorrow.

Here’s a prayer request: David and Janet’s Mitsubishi Pajero broke down on the 10-hour trip home from the eastern part of the country last weekend. More specifically, one of the pipes in the engine-cooling system ruptured, causing the engine to overheat so quickly that no warning lights even came on before the pistons seized up. David got the vehicle towed back to their home here in Ziguinchor, where a mechanic has been working on it for the past five days or so. He took the whole engine apart, ordered new parts to replace those that were damaged, and is putting it all back together. As of this evening, it was still not working, however. So we are going to Plan B for traveling to the workshop location tomorrow, traveling by taxi instead of in David’s Pajero. Please pray that the mechanic is able to get the Pajero working soon.

Friday-Saturday, February 3-4 A ferryboat ride to Ziguinchor

There were three of us who traveled by taxi from the SIL Center to the port where we would board the ferry. We had quite a bit of luggage, since one would be staying in the Casamance for a month or two and was also taking some things for others. Getting three of us, plus all of our luggage into the four-passenger car that served as our taxi took some doing. One suitcase ended up by the door on the backseat, and each of us carried one of our smaller bags on our laps. Fortunately, the ride to the port was not overly long.

I had a suitcase that I wanted to check, plus a roller bag, a computer bag, and my pillow, all of which I intended to keep with me as hand luggage. First stop was the baggage check. That was pretty straightforward. My suitcase weighed in at 13kg, and that figure was scrawled on the back of my ticket. Next we went to billing, where a lady converted what was written on the back of our tickets into an amount that we had to pay. From there, we proceeded to the cashier, who collected $1.80/kg of checked luggage. I didn’t have exact change, nor did the cashier apparently, so I was instructed to come back a bit later to collect the 35 cents still owing to me. Instead, I proceeded to the next stop and just let him keep the change.

Next we showed our tickets to gain access to the room where we would wait to be allowed to board the ferry. But we had no more than sat down there than the doors opened and people began moving toward the boat, so we got up and took our belongings in the direction of the “on” ramp. Once inside, tickets were again checked, and the passengers moved through a door to the left to a set of stairs that led up into the interior of the ferry. I, however, got special treatment because I was carrying more than one bag. I was allowed to keep my computer bag, but I was required to part with my roller bag and pillow. I explained that I needed two pillows—which was why I had brought my own along—but I got no sympathy from the man who insisted that I could take only bag with me. Finally, I had to get what I needed out of the roller bag and cram it into my computer bag to keep with me. I didn’t even want to think about how dirty my pillow case would be when I retrieved it after it was put with the other baggage.

I had been booked into a “cabin of 8” for the trip; this cabin had eight narrow beds, one of which was mine for the night. Tim, my traveling companion who had flown down from England for this workshop, graciously gave me his pillow to supplement the one in my bed, thus allowing me to breathe adequately to sleep. Thus, I was able to get a good night of sleep.

After finding our bunks, Tim and I made our way onto the upper deck, where we sat watching the other port activity until it was time to begin our journey. It was 8:13 on my phone, only 13 minutes after the promised departure time, when the ferry began to move away from the dock and we were underway. By then it was dark and the breeze was cool enough to be uncomfortable, so I went down to my bed, read for a short while, and then lay down to sleep. I dozed a bit, but my body wasn’t really ready for sleep yet at 9:00—maybe I’m not quite adapted to the local time yet after all—so I turned my light on and read for 45 minutes or so before trying again. I got plenty of sleep that night because there was nothing else to do really.

I awoke before dawn and wandered up to the deck, but it was so dark that I could see nothing apart from the wake the ferry was creating, so I returned to my bunk and drifted in and out of sleep for another hour or two until some of the other occupants of our cabin began to wake up as well. Tim and I headed up to the back of the boat at 7:00 am, having been told that coffee and croissants would be available there at that time.

It was still mostly dark and pretty breezy, and I was glad I had my jacket. Slowly the darkness gave way to dawn as we turned to leave the ocean and enter the Casamance River. We had one stop before reaching our final destination: Carabane.

 First ferry boat stop

As we continued on our way, I kept my eyes open for dolphins, having been told by everyone who heard that I was making this trip on the ferry that the highlight of the trip was watching the dolphins as they jumped out of the water. But alas, none were to be seen. I contented myself with photographing the gull-like birds that were fishing in the ferry’s wake. I took a number of still shots, then put my tablet—which doubles as my camera—away in my bag. Then all at once, a novel idea popped into my head: Why not shoot video of the birds? That would be a much better memory of them fishing than the still shots I had taken that, based on what I could see on my tablet’s screen, hadn’t turned out all that well. So I took my tablet back out of my bag and headed to the rear rail once more.

A few moments after I began videoing the birds, some dolphins appeared a bit to the side of the wake. So I adjusted where I was aiming my tablet and got some video of the dolphins in the same clip. I was glad to have seen them, as apparently they are not spotted on every trip. The video is too big to upload, onto the blogger, but I can send out via google Drive.

A dolphin in the waves

A few hours later, we arrived at the dock in Ziguinchor (or Zig for short). We had to wait for some time to disembark, as the vehicles that were on board were unloaded first. When we did get off, I went to pick up my roller bag and pillow, which had been “confiscated” as I embarked. The pillow was there, but the roller bag was not. After inquiring of one of the staff, I was told that it would be taken into the building later along with the other baggage, and that I could pick it up there.

So we made our way off of the ferry and into a very large room, where we awaited a “green light” to move next door to claim our bags. The baggage handlers had a lot of items to unload from the boat. We watched as cartloads of bags were wheeled into the part of the building next to the room where we were waiting. Finally, the door connecting the two rooms was opened, and we were allowed to search for our bags.

The waiting room next to the baggage claim

The bags had been spread out all over the room next door, and all of the passengers had to navigate over or around lots of other bags before finding their own. It took a short while to find our bags, but in the end, they were all there. We then had to take our bags out of the building and to the guard at the gate 50 yards away. There the name on each person’s ticket was compared to the names on the pieces of luggage they were trying to take out of the entrance/exit gate. After having verified that we were the correct owners of the luggage we had with us, we were allowed to exit to the street.

The port of Ziguinchor

David was there to meet us, and he got us into a taxi that would take us to the places where we would be staying—Tim at an apartment owned by a mission group and I at David & Janet’s house. Actually, we just dropped off Tim’s bags at the apartment where he’ll be staying, and he then came along to David & Janet’s, since they had prepared a meal for us. That meal was very welcome because I had not eaten or drunk anything for more than 18 hours by that point.

I am grateful for David & Janet’s hospitality, which I expect to enjoy for the next two days, as we plan to leave Zig (Ziguinchor) to travel to the workshop location on Monday morning. Unfortunately, I did not think about the fact that there would be consequences to having exposed my face to the sun all morning. It was chilly enough with the breeze that I had kept my jacket on the whole time, and I certainly hadn’t thought about sunburn. Now, however, I have a very red face, which may prove to be quite painful when I wake up in the morning.

Friday, February 3 A-sailing we will go!

My first goal for my stay here in Dakar seems to have been met: I am going to sleep and waking up at the right times for life in this time zone. Now it’s time to move on to my next destination

I had to repack the contents of my two suitcases into just one because when I return from the Casamance region where the workshop will take place, I will be flying and will be allowed to check only one bag. Neither of my bags was completely full, so with the aid of some compression I was able to get 80% of my belongings into one. The rest of my things are in the second suitcase in the care of friends here at the Center, to be retrieved when I get back in two weeks.

Now it’s time for us to take our luggage to the ferry and check in there. The boat is scheduled to leave at 8pm local time (3pm Eastern), and we will get to our destination of Ziguinchor approximately 15 hours later if all goes according to plan. I’ve been told to expect a wonderful experience, with one of the expected highlights being watching the dolphins as we transition from ocean to river just after dawn. Stay tuned for details of the trip in my next post.

Thursday, February 2 In pursuit of old African banknotes

The rest of my day today was centered around the search for banknotes used from 1903 through 2003, notes that are no longer worth anything at the bank, but which I and my fellow African banknote collectors have an interest in. Specifically, I am in contact with several other individuals who have given me a list of specific varieties of these “retired” banknotes that they are lacking in their collections and who’ve asked me to look for them on their behalf.

So, after having dropped off my cloth at the tailor’s, we got in a taxi to go to a bank that would exchange the US dollars I brought with me into the local currency. (You may remember that I tried to do this yesterday, but the bank where I went told me I’d have to go to Independence Plaza to find a bank that exchanges dollars.) Exchanging my dollars for CFA turned out to be pretty straightforward. At that point I had the wherewithal to buy any “retired” banknotes that I might find. So we ventured into one of the local markets.

We did find some notes of interest, but the asking prices were much higher than I was accustomed to in other West African countries, so I didn’t buy much for a while. Eventually, however, I picked up one here, one there, until I had about four of them. Then we got to someone who had some better (more interesting, scarcer, higher value) banknotes, and I bought four from him. That seemed to uncork the bottle, as he then returned with a carpetbag full of banknotes. He claimed that there was 13,000,000cfa (about $25,000) in it, but it was all money that no longer had any value at the bank.

(There was a recall of all these old bills about 15 years ago, where people could take them to the bank and exchange them for the new currency being issued, but many West Africans have a pretty feeble level of trust for banks, so they held on to what they had. Now they’re stuck with envelopes and drawers and suitcases full of “worthless” money, and their only hope is to find a money collector like me who will pay them something for it.)

I spent the next three hours or so looking through hundreds and hundreds of old banknotes, most of which were very common varieties and not worth anything near their asking price, searching for the specific ones that my collector friends had asked me to find for them. Of course, I was also searching for ones that I didn’t already have myself, but that was a very short list, so I didn’t make much progress there.

In the end, I found three for one collector and six or seven for the other in addition to two for me that were improvements on what I had already. The highlight of the day, though, was a very ordinary-looking 1000 cfa note from 2003. I had no idea of its importance when I bought it, or I’d have paid what the seller was asking for it without haggling. But when I returned home and consulted my database, I discovered that it was an undocumented variety—one that no one in the Who’s Who of World Banknotes even knew existed. When I get it back to the US, my first responsibility on the numismatic front will be to scan it and send it to the publishers of the banknote catalogs so they can add it to their listings.

Tired and hungry after three hours of handling old money, I had Touré take us to a place where we could get something to eat. He took me to Planet Kebab, where I had pita bread wrap containing chicken and vegetables, with a side of French fries. I think it was good food, but I was hungry enough by then that it may have tasted better than it actually was. It satisfied my hunger in any case and tasted good as I ate it, so I was grateful for it.

We returned by taxi to the SIL Center, but finally got out and walked the last half-mile because that was faster than the taxi was able to go, given all of the rush-hour traffic. Once there, I gave Touré some candy I’d brought from the US to give to his children, paid him for his service as tour guide, interpreter, and protector, then bade him good night. It was beginning to get dark outside by that time. Then I sat at my computer and recorded the details of my expenses for the day.

And to end the day, I spent an hour and a half writing the two blog entries for the day. (And it took you how many minutes to read them?) Seems a bit like a cook who spends two hours preparing a meal, only to see it consumed in a fraction of that time. The nice thing about a blog, though, is that, no matter how many people “consume” it, it’s still all there for the next person. That’s a bit different than with a meal someone prepares.

Thursday, February 2 Delivered cloth to the tailor

I enjoyed a good night of sleep once again, getting a bit closer to my normal sleeping and waking times. I slept from 10:00 pm to nearly 6:00 am, which put me in good shape for the day’s activities. After eating breakfast, I was looking forward to a busy day in town. First up was the need to get the cloth that I bought yesterday to the tailor that SIL colleagues recommended, so that he can make it into shirts for me, a dress for Anita, and a shirt for a friend, as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog.

To get to the tailor’s shop—and for the rest of the activities I had planned for today—I arranged yesterday for a Senegalese man name Touré Seymi to accompany me. (That name is pronounced something like “Today Say Me”.)

Touré and I at the center

Touré showed up at 8:30 am, as he had promised yesterday, so he got a brownie point right from the start for being on time. He took me to the best place to catch a taxi, then instructed the taxi driver where to take us. I paid the taxi fare. Touré had been given directions in my presence last evening for getting to the tailor’s shop, but I could tell that he wasn’t understanding them completely. Fortunately, the person who gave him the directions also gave him the tailor’s phone number, so as the taxi drove in the general direction of the shop, Touré used his cell phone to call the tailor and ask him for specifics. We made a couple of wrong turns and at one point had to make a u-turn in the middle of a busy street, but we eventually made it to our destination.

After introductions, I showed Yéro (“yay, dough”), the tailor, the shirt (mine) and outfit (Anita) I had brought along that he could use to get the measurements right as he made the new articles of clothing. I clarified for him just how many of which kind of clothing I wanted made from each type of cloth. Then I asked him how much all of this would cost me. His price is a bit more expensive than I’ve been in the habit of paying in Burkina Faso, but as I discovered today, prices in general here in Senegal seem to be higher than in Burkina. The cost of sewing each shirt will be about $9, and Anita’s outfit will cost us about $12.50. That’s in addition to the cost of the material itself. While his prices are a bit higher than I’ve paid before, I’ve been assured that his workmanship is of high quality, so I made a downpayment of a bit less than half of the total bill, and we left everything in his care, to be collected again when I come back to the capital city in about two weeks.

The cloth for Anita

Wednesday, February 1 The cloth market

At 4:30, Sue was able to leave her office and showed me how to get to the “biggest cloth market in Senegal” per her claim. Without a guide the first time, it would be easy to not arrive at the hoped-for destination. A walk along a couple of dirt roads, then up 30 steps or so and down again to cross the railroad tracks, then up another series of steps and back down again to cross a 4- or 6-lane road, then through sand on the edge of a paved road led us after 15 or 20 minutes to HLM Market, where there were aisles and aisles of people selling cloth of all sorts. I was looking for a specific type, but even so there were hundreds of colors and designs to choose from.

Sue had told me that the kind of cloth I wanted should cost about 5000cfa (approximately $18) for 6 yards (the minimum length most vendors normally sell since they get it in 12-yard lengths), but when I asked the price for what I was interested in, it was always higher than that. I offered 4000, with the idea that if they came down to 5000, I’d accept, but the first several vendors resisted my negotiations, clinging firmly to 6000, which they claimed was “bargain basement” so they could go no lower. Each time, I moved on, but I did begin to wonder if I’d ever be able to find anyone willing to sell for the price Sue had told me was right. On about the fifth try, however, I found a vendor who agreed to my offer of 5000—only after I had begun to walk away, mind you—and I bought two different patterns from him.

As I continued my search in other booths there in the market, I encountered many who admantly insisted that 6000cfa was the least they could accept for their cloth, but through persistence, I eventually bought four or six yards of five different patterns/colors at the price of 5000cfa. I received the compliment of the day from a woman who sold me four yards of my favorite design for 3500cfa. She wondered why a white person—someone who has so much money—would quibble over the paltry sum of 500cfa. I told her that the process of bargaining was all about social interaction, and I was trying to fit into the culture. That’s when she said that I was Senegalese the way I had bargained her selling price down. When Sue told her that I had worked elsewhere in Africa but was new to Senegal, the woman insisted that I was Senegalese nonetheless.

The material I bought will be used to make shirts for me, a dress for Anita, a shirt for a friend, and several 2-yard pieces of cloth for our friend who decorated our living room.

Wednesday, February 1 Getting my feet on the ground

When I went to bed last night, I thought it was 10:30, but I had the time difference wrong, so it was actually 11:30. I woke up at what I thought was 6:20, but it was actually 7:20. OK, so this time zone thing apparently has me a little confused, but I think I’ve got it sorted it out now.

Kitchen and dining room of the apartment where I am staying on the SIL center

After shaving and showering with hot water—still appreciating that blessing!—I began planning my day. I needed to get some local currency because I was lined up for a visit to the cloth market at the end of the working day (more about that a bit further along), so I knew I needed to make a trip to a bank. But first, I had to find out where the nearest bank was located. My debit cards are MasterCard-branded and there was some uncertainty about whether I’d be able to use anything other than a Visa card in the local ATMs, so I also brought US dollars in cash with me to exchange in the event my card wouldn’t work.

As I emerged from my apartment at what I thought was 8:45 or so, I was met by Sophie, the guesthouse manager. After introducing herself and inquiring about my health, my trip, and so on, she pointed to a nearby door and told me that people would soon be congregating there for coffee break. When I asked what time coffee break happened and was told “10 o’clock”, I received my first clue that my calculation of the local time was an hour off. I hadn’t yet figured out or been shown where the offices were located on the Center, so I decided that coffee break was as good a place as any to begin meeting those who serve with SIL here.

The first two people I met, however, were visitors just like me. They had come for the dedication of a New Testament for a people group in the extreme eastern part of the country, where longtime friends of theirs had labored for close to 20 years to translate God’s Message into that community’s heart language. They were leaving to return to the US this evening. As I was talking with them, another man came and sat down next to me. I didn’t recognize him until he introduced himself—one of the local IT guys whom I had gotten to know when I served as a Language Technology Consultant in Burkina Faso almost 10 years ago now. It was good to see Mark again, and after coffee break was over, he took me to the office building and gave me a brief tour, along with the passcode to get in. He also gave me what I needed to prepare a meal for myself whenever I wanted it: couscous and a beef curry sauce, along with a small container of yogurt.

I found out from Mark that there is a bank a few blocks from the SIL Center, so after my tour at the office, I decided to walk there and exchange the dollars I had brought. (I thought I had a better chance of coming back with local currency that way than by attempting to use the ATM. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to take my debit cards with me.) As I’ve come to expect in Africa, there was an armed guard at the door of the bank. He asked to see inside the bag I was carrying, and when he was satisfied that I had nothing threatening in it, he allowed me to enter. There was a woman at a desk just inside the door, so I approached her to ask about exchanging dollars. Her response took me by surprise: “We don’t exchange dollars here, only euros.” It was so unexpected that my brain couldn’t process what she had said; I had to ask her to repeat it. It took me a few moments to recover from this unexpected piece of news, but I eventually learned that there was a bank in town where I could exchange dollars. I made a mental note of that for tomorrow.

Then I inquired about the ATM that I thought I had seen in a separate little building just beside the bank. I asked if I could use a MasterCard card in it and was told that I could use any card at all. So I decided to return to my room, get my debit cards and come back to try my luck with the ATM. 10-15 minutes later I was back at the bank, and to my great surprise—I’m easily amazed, it seems—the transaction went perfectly. I came out of that little building with a wad of bills in the local currency. Technology really is amazing sometimes! Imagine making a withdrawal from my bank thousands of miles away and getting the cash in a currency that most employees at that bank wouldn’t even recognize if they saw it!

After stashing my newly gained tangible wealth in my room, I went to the SIL office to see who I might see there. I met Mark’s wife, Audrey, who had some banknotes from Guinea-Bissau for me that I had requested to satisfy the appetites of some of my numismatic buddies. (If you don’t already know it, I help paper-money collectors get items for their collections from various countries in West Africa, and Guinea-Bissau seems to be one of the most challenging places to get money from.)

While in Audrey’s office, I met quite a few other people who serve with SIL in Senegal: Colin, a friend from some time back because he used to work in Burkina Faso; Sue, who showed me how to get to the cloth market; Andrew and Kathy, husband and wife who share offices with Mark and Audrey, respectively; Rebecca, who will be helping at the upcoming Rapid Word Collection workshop; and probably some others whose names and faces I’ve forgotten because I met them so briefly and my brain was jetlagged.

Mark loaned me an adapter so I could transfer the pictures from my tablet to my computer, where I could resize them for my blog and email them to Anita to post. He also tested my phone charger and confirmed that it is not working. So tomorrow I’ll have to shop for a replacement charger. That shouldn’t be a difficult thing to find here, but that’s tomorrow’s story.