- The beach and the ocean: it is the first time I live so close to the water and you don’t need to a water sports fan or have health issues to appreciate the proximity with salted water and the opportunity to take advantage of it even for just fifteen minutes.
- It is a big city and there is something for everyone. The expat community is huge and diverse, not just the rich white type. At the guesthouse in two years we have had guests from Cameroon, South Africa, The U.S., Brazil, Ivory Coast, Europe, Korea and many others. The Lebanese community is sizable also, most of them are already second or third generation, Indians are on the rise too and I don’t even have to mention the Chinese community, do I?
- It is a big city with major commute issues, few communication routes and evil traffic jams, but every neighborhood has basic infrastructures. Most schools have their own transportation service (with varying and questionable safety standards), taxis are ubiquitous (kind of expensive and with the same safety standards issues as the school buses), public transports are there and pretty reliable but I am not a super fan (yes…blame the safety standards, again). I used to live in a working-class kind of neighborhood and, except for the ocean, I had anything I may need within a 400 mt radius and at night plenty of food stands would pop up on the streets. But acoustic pollution was excruciating. Now I live in a fancier neighborhood, night food vendors are less but acoustic and light pollution is not as invasive and the ocean is five minutes away. Bingo!
- Delivery: move over New York, in Dakar they deliver even condoms in less than twenty minutes (or so it says their ads!). Delivery under twenty minutes is an exception from a company that charges way too much, but if you are willing to accept a less performance-based delivery you can get anything at your door for a fairly reasonable price. Thanks to Covid that has popularized the concept and streamlined the process.
- You can call someone black or white without stirring so much as a thought. There is a wolof word (toubab) that means person with a white skin and is used for self-evident practical reasons of recognizing someone on a physical and cultural level. Tobab isn’t the white version of n*gro (there is no negative layer) neither it is the embarrassed black person we use in Italy. It is a matter of fact statement, nothing more and nothing less.
I love Dakar as much as I have loved and still love other cities, because I have called it home for a long time and still will for a while at least. Of course there are also quite a few things I don’t like (stay tuned for a post about those) but I try not to think about them.