It’s another Friday in Dakar, and today was one of the first days of the year where you start to notice that your skin is broiling as soon as you venture outdoors for any extended period of time. At least that’s what I was noticing today. You’d think I would have made this observation a few days prior while sitting on the beach sans sunscreen, but I’m not always the most self-aware person…
February may be a cruel month of deep freezes for my family of hardened New Englanders, but I still think I’d that opt for gray dreariness over the impending doom that is brought in on the Harmattan winds. As the sun is starting to rise earlier, I know that soon I’ll be forced to roll out of bed earlier in order to escape the hot atmosphere.
The Senegalese on the other hand, they are still in full winter mode. To them it’s cold outside- and they are donning articles of clothing that even I don’t own when I go home for Cape Cod for Christmas. This morning I was stuck in taxi cab traffic Hell, ingesting a perplexing amount of exhaust in the back seat of my cab when I spied the dude hanging off the back of a Ndiaga Ndiaye bus wearing a full length puffer coat.
I must say, the man has style- but what I don’t think he realizes is that he is likely wearing a coat that was donated by woman back in Westerlandia. It’s kinda like the Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer socks I spied on my classmate one day. Or yesterday, I saw a disco version (in bright green and silver) of a POW-MIA t-shirt
. What can I say? It’s a veritable cornucopia of What Not To Wear tourism here in West Africa.
But I’m hoping that after a year of wussifying my own blood levels, the heat won’t be so bad this year. Indeed, I have long since grown accustomed to the complete stop of traffic that accompanies Friday afternoon prayers, so I am hoping that becoming acclimatized is just another perk of navigating 12 months in Senegal without getting run down by an oblivious taxi.
Some toubabs like this heat- I have no doubt that this man isn’t American. He might like this weather, but I sure didn’t like this view.
Not all the views are horrific though. The sunsets come this time of year do provide a silver lining to the rising temperatures. You just need to crop out the speedos.
