O Good Food

Our entire trip in Senegal has been cautiously led by the brilliant SIT members and our professors, today however, we were set free to roam the city of Dakar to our own devices. While the others decided to go further downtown before choosing a restaurant, Katie, Rachel, and I (Samantha) walked to the marvelous O’Good Food for a tasty lunch. Katie and Rachel ordered a pizza and I ordered a Panini because I was really in the mood for a a burger, but not quite a burger if that even makes any sense.

Nearing the end of our stay at O’Good Food, the waiter left us our check and we could not help but panic because none of the professors or SIT members had prepped us for this situation; I mean, do we tip or not?! How much is appropriate? Do we leave it on the table or take the entirety of our check to the cash register? We ended up leaving a good American tip right on the table and running out before anyone could judge us. The next part of the adventure was the scariest part, the Taxi.

We walked down the road maybe a block to find an appropriate place to call a taxi with out realizing that all places in Dakar were appropriate “taxi calling places” if you want them to be. We got a taxi to take us to the market very quickly, and for about four USD which was mind blowing. This taxi ride was actually very quick and very easy, we felt so proud of ourselves until we arrived at the market.

The market was hectic. As soon as we jumped out of the taxi we were being followed and escorted to random shops. We saw a couple of touristy shops where we could buy some souvenirs for family and friends but ended up trying so hard to dodge the aggressive entrepreneurs that we found ourselves lost in the hardware/home decor district of the market. No souvenirs were bought except for the tea pot Rachel bought for herself. We walked up and down the different districts only to be consistently chased until we finally gave up and called a taxi outside an outrageously expensive boutique.

This time, two men came up to us asking if we needed a taxi, I hesitated at first because two random men with out a taxi asked us if we needed a taxi. After noticing my hesitation they pointed to their buddy who was leaning on his taxi and asked where we were headed. We explicitly explained where we were going which was “police point E”, the message was conveyed and we were off. The taxi ride was fun, we chatted and the taxi man even helped us buy cashews from the side of the road vendors.

Things took a turn for the worse when we thought we recognized the environment we were in but could not figure out where we were at the same time. The taxi driver finally came to a stop and said “here you are”. I looked at him and wondered where he had taken us because it did not look like the SIT house. He explained to us that we asked to be taken to “Police école” which I, in a nervous voice, said that is not at all where I had asked him to take us. After arguing a little bit about what was said and what was not said, he finally drove us to our correct location and we joyfully skipped into the beautiful SIT house and Salaam Alaikum’d all our buddies at SIT.

-Samantha Gonzalez, and adventure Katie Tota and Rachel Lyons