Jasmien Meets Senegal

Dear all,

 

Finally an update on my blog! Have been in Senegal for just about 6 days now, and have had little time to keep you guys updated. As soon as I arrived my new boss was waiting for me and from that moment on, right until now, he has done everything in his power to bring me up to speed on what it is that I am supposed to be doing this coming year. He is leaving for Mali tomorrow morning, so I will be left here on my own as the only REF-representative in Senegal. Cool? Yes! Scary? Even more so!

I wont bore you just yet with the details of what it is that I will have to do here. In truth, this is partly because there are so many other things to write, and partly because I have had such an overload on information these last couple of days, that I will need a couple of days myself to let everything sink in and realise what it is that I should do.

One thing I can say about life here in Dakar is that it is HOT! From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed (and at night as well) I sweat profusely. I hope this will get better over time, when I adjust to life here, as right now it is rather annoying. It is supposed to be the rainy season here at the moment, but today it is the first day I have actually felt some rain (it came down hard but lasted for about 5 min). I expect it will storm in a couple of hours as the clouds are getting thicker by the minute, and the atmosphere more threatening.

I am living in the Medina-quarter at the moment, about half an hour walk from the city centre. It is a really nice neighbourhood, very local (aka, few Toubabs = white people) and the people are very friendly here. Not sure I will stay here though, as I am thinking of getting a room with a family as that will make it a bit easier to integrate in the community and –who knows- even make some friends. I fear my time in Dakar can become a bit hard, as I don’t know anybody here, and I do not deal particularly well with loneliness. That is why I stalked some people on the internet, and that is how I met a Dutch girl who is currently living in Dakar (but leaving at the end of the month). I am meeting her tomorrow evening and I hope she can introduce me to a couple of other people, cause I am not sure how long I m going to want to live here all on my own… Haven’t spent that much time on my own in the city (as my boss has been here the whole time) but it doesn’t seem to be the easiest op places to get to know people and to make new friends. Maybe I am mistaken though… I really hope so. Will have to do some exploring soon! Really haven’t seen that much of Dakar yet.

The last weekend I spent in Koalack, the fourth biggest city in Senegal, about 200 km East of the capital. Was surprised to see how small and “rural” this city really was, even though it is rather big in Senegalese terms. But it was nice seeing a bit more of Senegal and good to experience the travelling, as I will be doing a lot of that in the next year! The idea is that I spend at least 10 working days each month out of the office (the office being “Dakar” as we don’t have an actual office yet). In August I will probably go to Thies, Dioubel and Koalack again, and who knows, maybe some other cities as well. By the end of the year I should have networked myself into most Senegalese cities, and have increased the usage of Solar energy in rural environments. At the moment I am still trying to figure out how I can best select the cities so that their –solar-lights can spell out “Jasmien” if you look at them at night from outer space. Will keep you updated on how that goes!

For now all that rests me is to leave you with some pictures of my room and the view from my room so you can all imagine you are here with me (cause I am imagining you all with me here as I miss you all terribly!)

 

Bisous,

 

Jasmien

 

FYI: my number: +221776069560

Call me, text me, stay in touch.

(Voor de Belgen: Om het met de legendarische woorden van Luc Steeno te zeggen: Bel me, schrijf me, laat me vlug iets weten!)