Braving the Car Rapide

I've been in Senegal almost three months now. Up until yesterday, I had not ridden in a car rapide. Car rapides are super colorful public transportation run by Muslim Brotherhoods. I believe I have described them before. They're like little busses, with writings and decorations all over them. They are typically packed full of people. There are hundreds, possibly over a thousand of them, in this country. They're everywhere. There's a driver, and the other worker hangs off the back of it. In order to get into one of these things, you have to climb in through a door on the back. The man who hangs off the back yells the destination of the car. So if you want to get on one of them, you stand on the side of the road where you know one with your destination drives down. If one passes, and the man is calling out the place you want to go, you get his attention. He then bangs on the back of the vehicle, and the vehicle slows down. Yep, that's right, it rarely stops, it just slows down. You then run after it and jump up into it. They're very cheap, and definitely not the safest form of transportation. You get packed into them with too many other people, particularly when it's rush hour there are multiple people hanging off the back of it. But they cost about $0.20 to take downtown. Outside of Dakar, they are incredibly dangerous to take from village to village, but in the city they're not too bad. Anyway, yesterday I rode in one. It was great. Packed with people, but not overpacked. We were squeezed in quite tight where we were sitting, but the vehicle wasn't also packed with too many people standing or hanging off the back of it. My friend Bethany and I got strange looks from the Senegalese in it, because it is rare that a tubab (white person) rides in a car rapide. The man in charge even tried over charging us for it, but we wouldn't let him. I'm definitely glad that I finally road one, but again I don't think this will become a habit. If they went down my street they probably would, but they don't, and I do value my safety.

Bethany and I took the car rapide to Marche Sandaga, the biggest market in Dakar and the one that was set on fire during the riots last month. We were on a mission to buy jeans. I ended up buying a great pair for $10. The place where we got it was a little shop on one of the main roads. And when I say shop, I'm not suggesting this structure was a building with a door. Think of a structure like a garage stall, but smaller, and with the garage door open... that was the shop. So basically a structure with three walls, where the fourth wall would've been (or the garage door would've been) was just open to the street. There were jeans hanging on every inch of wall space. I found one, but was concerned because there was obviously no dressing room... but I was wrong. The guy in charge pulled a sheet aside that was hanging like a mosquito netting from one of the back corners of the little shop (about 8 feet in from the opening to the street). I was quite a bit hesitant about his make-shift dressing room, but really wanted the jeans, so decided to give it a shot. There were 2 other men sitting in the little shop, plus the guy running the shop, plus my friend Bethany. When I got behind the sheet, I became quite concerned because I could easily see through it to the other people in the shop and the people walking by on the street. My friend laughed at me and thought I was crazy when I told her because she insisted that she could not see me. I had her stand behind the curtain for a second, and she realized how transparent it was from the inside, but when she was behind it I could not see her at all... which means neither could the other people in the shop or the people on the street. So I ended up trying on the jeans behind the curtain, while watching the people walk by on the street. It was the most bizarre thing ever. Not exactly a comfortable experience, because it was difficult to believe that I couldn't be seen even though I knew I couldn't. There's a public toilet in a sidewalk in Europe which is very much the same, it is built so you can see the people outside on the street walking by, but they can't see in, kinda like two way mirrors... and that's what it felt like. But it worked, and I bought the jeans, so all was good. However, it definitely was one of the strangest experiences I had in Dakar.