Street Riots??

Those expecting me to describe the reality of living amongst riots, etc (if you've seen the BBC news website today) will be sadly disappointed.

We received an email this morning warning us not to go into town because of demonstrations turning violent. Then later the update said the demonstrators were rather nearer to us, and that we all had to go home for our own safety.

Well I had far too much work to do to be able to go home, and in any case from my third floor office window there was no evidence of riots - no columns of smoke rising from the city, no sounds of distant shouting. Dakar is far too peaceful for that sort of thing - everyone is far too busy here trying to make a living.

& I knew that if I was not in the office, I would have been far too tempted to go prowling the streets with my camera looking for riots...

So I stayed put, and at 20:00 have just finished my work for the day. & if I'm honest, I'm quite annoyed (having seen evidence on the BBC that there actually WERE riots) that I didn't go out hunting them with my camera. Sorry!

For those who are interested, it seems from talking to people here that it was not just the clearance of street vendors' stalls that provoked the trouble (as per the BBC), but general unrest about the high and rising cost of living. Bread went up by 17.5% this month, following on from rises in the price of electricity, rice and other staples. Life here is tough.