a different lifestyle

So having lived alone for the last three years in a two-bedroom, two-balcony, duplex apartment with 24-hour guard service (all paid for by my employer), I have now, as an unemployed/retired person (a lady of leisure??), moved into a very small apartment with four other people.  I have my own bedroom and en-suite bathroom, but share a small entrance hall cum living room, a very small cockroach-infested kitchen, and a tiny balcony (aka the smoking space for the rest of my flatmates).  We do seem to have reliable electricity and internet, although sometimes there is no water.  Oh, and there is a cleaning lady who comes every day, but who only speaks Wolof.

My flatmates are from Senegal, France, Syria and Switzerland, and the French-Syrian couple have a kitten - thankfully I love cats.  Both the conversation and the food has been good (the Syrian is a keen cook and loves to cook for others).  However the Senegalese lady who sub-lets to the rest of us fell out with the Syrian guy last week, and after a dramatic day full of shouted accusations and insults, with both parties going to the police, the French-Syrian couple have to move out - which is a great shame.  We'll see whether the Spanish lady who will take over their room is such good company.

It's a very different way of life ... kind of like being in a student flatshare ... but so far I'm enjoying it.

I've had a fair bit of admin to do, dealing with my former employer (returning equipment, getting exit forms signed off, etc as well as a 'goodbye' lunch and presentation the day after my contract ended) and with the company who will ship the bulk of my possessions back to the UK, not to mention time spent setting up a local telephone account and mobile money account, and settling into my new accommodation.  I've been quite busy.

I've managed to fit in a little relaxation, including in a couple of different restaurants along this coastal part of Dakar, chatting with friends over a few glasses of wine, and saw a couple of live music performances before Ramadan started yesterday which puts an almost complete stop to live music for the month, sadly.

So will I get bored?  Well it's hard to tell as yet.  I have a To Do List, and have so far watched four episodes of Andrew Marr's "A History of Modern Britain", sewn up the hem on a pair of trousers, labelled and filed a part of my digital music collection, and worked my way through the first four chapters of a French text book (a little late in the day, I know, but I would like to improve my French and then dispose of the CDs and textbooks before I move on from here).  I've also picked up a couple of new Wolof phrases.  I think the To Do List will keep me busy for quite a few months, and by late summer I'm hoping that COVID travel restrictions around the world will be lessening, thus giving me the option to move on if I feel the need to by then.  I certainly don't envisage moving back to London within the next year, although it's really too early to know whether or not I will find myself wanting to get back into the world of work.

another form of uncertainty

I've been putting off writing this post for so long.

What I didn't say in my 'certainty returns' post last year was that I was told that my department still had no budget to fund my position, so even though I had been saved from redundancy at that time, there was no possibility of extending my contract beyond its 31 March official end date.  So by the time you read this, I will be unemployed / retired / on a break from work (I have no idea as yet which is the correct term).

Thankfully the amount of day-to-day work I had to do tailed off considerably over my last month in the job, an enormous relief as there was so much for me to think about and organise during that time.  My contract ending meant that I would have to give back/lose my apartment, my laptop, my phone and phone number, my email address, and my medical insurance.  Having quickly concluded that this is not the time to either return to the UK or to put on my rucksack and start exploring SE Asia, I decided to stay on in Senegal - and so needed, before 31 March, to replace all of the above, whilst at the same time organising handover of my work and removal of all of my possessions from the nice, comfortable apartment paid for by my employer.

Medical insurance was easy thanks to advice from other long-term travellers (although a $101 monthly expense that I didn't have previously), and a very good friend helped me acquire a laptop and phone (although I'm already regretting listening to the friend who advised me to switch to an iPhone, which seems vastly more complicated than any of the Samsung Galaxy phones I had through work).  

Other elements were not so easy.  I do now have a local SIM card, and it works - but I have no idea how quickly it is using up the credit I paid in when I set up the account, nor how I add more credit.  I also have a mobile money account - again, with credit in it - but as yet have no idea how to use it.

Organising my stuff was quite difficult and time-consuming.  I had several categories: ship back to London; keep with me in Senegal with a view to eventual travel further afield, therefore to fit into my rucksack (this later reluctantly expanded to rucksack plus suitcase); keep with me in Senegal to use (up) in my new home but not to take on with me afterwards; sell; give away; throw away.  Seeing the price of storage in London (depot space plus obligatory insurance) I was trying to be tough with myself as to what I REALLY wanted to ship home to keep for the long-term, and as the exercise progressed I kept moving things from this 'ship home' category into one of the disposal categories.   It was initially difficult to make the decision to dispose of things that do still have value ... but balancing the cost of storing things versus the cost of replacing them certainly reduced the sentimental aspect.  I also took a good look at those clothes in my wardrobe that haven't been worn for years, and eventually accepted that regardless of their initial cost, I am never again going to need such items as a charcoal grey (designer) city skirt suit, or even those very good quality double-cuff shirts.  In the end it was quite liberating to dispose of so much.

The guard at the entrance to my apartment block was very happy with the flow of gifts (baseball caps, women's clothes which he gave to his sister or kept for himself in the case of larger-sized Tshirts, bandages and other medications, some thirty-odd ballpoint pens I had somehow collected up over the years ... all sorts of stuff), and I was able to sell a few bits and pieces that I advertised online (swimming goggles, an old camera and binoculars, bags, a small number of CDs).  & my new flatmates are happy that I brought a few things with me for general household use (shoe rack, coffee machine, saucepan and frying pan, tea towels, etc) - I'm sure they'll also be happy when I eventually move on and they get my storage canisters, fruit bowl, mug, etc, which I am currently keeping for personal use!

The other big task was to find somewhere to live.  There are a few facebook groups that cover this area, but I had little-to-no free time and in the end viewed only two alternative places.  My choice was influenced in part by price, but more by the personality of the Senegalese lady running the apartment that I chose - a lively, friendly 28-year-old who not only does not want marriage or children (an exceedingly rare choice in this part of the world) but equally importantly who gave directions to the place by reference to the no. 61 bus stop ... the first Senegalese person I have met who can afford taxis but still chooses to use public transport ... my kinda gal!!

I will write more about the new place - and the 180° change in lifestyle from my old life alone in a two-bedroom, two-balcony fully furnished duplex apartment financed by my employer to my new life in what is effectively a student flatshare with four other people and a cat.

the Dakar visual art scene

With all this time stuck in Senegal, unable to travel to other countries, I decided to explore Dakar a little further - and was helped enormously by a city arts festival taking place in many different galleries around the city during December and early January.

The exhibits included both sculptures (like the cormorant above) and paintings, and kept me occupied and impressed for several weeks.  It also opened my eyes to some of the other artwork around the city - that freely available to all as it has been painted on the city's walls.

Such murals are everywhere, with some just pleasing on the eye, others quite clever (this macaw on the right is wearing prayer beads, and the woolly hat which is so common here on older men) - and of course some with political or social comment.

At the same time there was a series of posters appearing all over town, captioned "You are beautiful the way you are", each with a photograph of a person or group of people dressed in a way that doesn't fit the Western world stereotype of what is attractive - other than one on an underground platform labelled 'Europe', with a line-up of waiting commuters of different ethnicities.  Clearly an exhibition with a message.

Looking for further sources I even found a rather nice small stained glass window that seemed to be on the stairwell of a local hotel.

All of this showing how incredibly talented the Senegalese are.  The music from this country is rightly famous (even those not into West African music have mostly heard of Youssou N'dour and Baaba Maal) but the artistic talent really does extend to all the different forms of expression.