rain rain rain

FINALLY! After some very very hot days where you could almost cut through the air, the rain came yesterday. Real tropic rain with drops the size of a tennisball. What a relief. I was on my way home from the office when it started. I thought Dakar was chaotic before, but yesterday I experienced real chaos (although the locals tell me that it can get much worse). The streets were like rivers and large pools formed rapidly where ever the water could pass. It was incredible to see. When I came home I celebrated by putting on a long-sleeved shirt for the first time since my arrival. Mmm, reminds me of the Danish Fall.

This is probably the last part of the rainy season, from now on it will get dry and cold (read: less hot!!). I say, I am really looking forward to that, cause with the humidity comes mosquitos. Oh, how they drive me insane these days. The first week I was here there were no problems. i could even sleep without a mosquito-net. But now, I sleep with the net every night, I put on repellent all the time, I cover my room and my things in mosquito-killer-spray OF DOOM, and still, the bastards manage to bite me. Even in my face! I don't know what I look like. My colleagues laugh at me everyday when I come to work with new swollen bites; "oooh la pauvre toubab". I just can't wait till they disappear....

Apart from the mosquitos everything is fine in Dakar. I have slowly started working at ENDA. I have become part of a team called LightingAfrica, which is a project developed in cooperation with the Senegalese government. The idea is to promote education on and access to lighting and electrification in the poor and rural areas of Senegal, and eventually the entire Africa. Solar energy is the source to this progress and microfinancing should provide the possibility for even the poorest to invest. In large areas of Senegal wood is the primary source to energy, which is detrimental to the environment as well as to the safety of the rural population. ENDA, as a neutral party with sufficient expertise, is then supposed to do monitoring and evaluation of this project proposal in order to gain funding from the World Bank to continue. My role has been to formulate the indicators of possible impact with their research as the backdrop. It is truly exciting to be part of a real project, and to contribute to the development in this area.

The weekend has been packed. Cécile has so many friends and family members who want to 'entertain' me. I went to the bar of Cécile's younger brother with a colleague Friday. Since I am doing an internship there, we were not in danger of thirsting. I tried all the different local beers, I need to know them all if I should become a good bartender I guess. Well, they were all very nice, as far as I remember. Saturday Cécile's cousin, Jacky, offered a guided tour around Dakar on his scooter. We saw the city centre, the coast line, the airport and finally we when to his cousin's house for a party. Or actually, i don't know if it was his cousin or his uncle or his brother or if they were even related. They are all somehow related here, and if they are not they probably grew up together. My boss is Cécile's uncle and Jacky's grandfather, and how that makes Jacky and Cécile cousins, I do not know... Anyway, the cousins took me out dancing the local 'mbalax' at a disco. Here it is not the girls dancing while the boys a drinking. Here the boys are going crazy on the dance floor, and they are not shy. The entire disco is bouncing in an inferno of arms and legs and big white smiles.

Waking up with hangovers Sunday, it was perfect that a friend of Cécile, Demba, invited me to the beach, I thought. Nice, calm and relaxing. But in Dakar, there is no such thing. Anders, you asked for pictures from the beach. I hope the following images can give you an impression beach life in central Dakar on a nice Sunday afternoon. It was fun to experience, but I hope my next beach adventure will take place a bit outside Dakar, where I have heard about the most amazing beaches. In the evening I went yet again to the beach, this time with Jacky and his friends where we enjoyed freshly grilled fish under the big African moon.