Arrival!

Due to my fatigue, busyness, and perhaps also procrastination, I have gone over a week in Senegal with posting to this blog.  As a result, I'm just going to type up a few things from my journal in about 4 different posts and pretend like I did them on-time.  So here goes...

We arrived in the Dakar airport at 6 am.  Not only was that equivalent to 1 am American time, I have slept no more than 45 minutes altogether on the plane.  At the airport, Megan and I took our bags off the carousel.  Out of nowhere, two men picked them up and put them on a cart, and considering we had no money, we were pretty sure this wasn't going somewhere good.  Best confront them, we supposed.  Except when I tried to tell them we had no money and did not even need help, the French sorta came out as "I do not need money."  He says "ecoutez" and starts saying how his friend will take care of everything.  They waved their "official badges" like they actually worked there.  After finally getting my words straight, they realized we had NO money and backed off.

Outside the airport, we were hounded.  It was impossible to tell who worked for our program and who wanted to get some extra money at that point.  On my way out, I saw an older white woman being completely surrounded by some Senegalese men.  Yes, I felt really bad.  No, I couldn't do anything.