Day 1.5 In the spotlight

I took a nap, got dressed and headed out again. Well, more than once. The sun is very intense and 20 minutes into my trek, I had to make beeline back to the hotel for sunscreen as I was feeling my skin start to burn. But the air temperature is very comfortable. There is a constant breeze off the water which makes it quite pleasant.

Saint-Louis is the old French capital of West Africa. According to Wikipedia the city was established in the 1600's and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As such, you'd expect a lot of tourists. You would expect wrong. In my first day in Saint Louis, I encountered a whole 20 white people, all of whom are probably French. Other than the guy at the airport, I haven't found another North American.

The long and the short of this is that you stick out like a sore thumb. Now I have traveled to similar places in the past - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Cook Islands - where you stick out. But here it seems to be different. Here, people stare at you. REALLY stare at you. To the point where I started wearing sunglasses to avoid eye contact with them. Now I have never felt threatened. I have never felt hated. But the staring is unnerving too. And about the only time someone speaks to you ("Bonjour. Ça va bien?") their interest seem to be separating you from your money.

I allowed this to happen once - I forked over more than I should have to buy 3 ebony masks from street vendors. My souvenir budget has been used up. But this didn't stop one street vendor from walking 1 whole kilometre with me almost back to my hotel trying to convince me to spend another 30 euro on more of the same shit. AND, get this, when I got back to my hotel the other street vendor I actually bought the masks from was there with his stuff out. I was supposed to ask other guests to come out an talk to him. Uh huh. Sure buddy. I have no idea how long he waited.

Now I probably carry around more white guilt than most. My people stole their people and used them to make us rich. So rich that I can spend one month of their salary on a dinner that I will probably have already forgotten about by the next evening. In fact, am spending more than a year's per capita earnings for the average Senegalese on just spending money for this trip.

This is the centre of the slave trade and whether your country was directly involved or not, we all benefited. I get it. Honest. That is one reason I am here. And I am willing to put up with some payback by spending a bit more than the best price so that they get a little back. But it would be nice to be able to have ONE conversation with ONE local without it turning into a manipulative business proposition.

Did I say that I am amazed at how many people speak English? This is supposed to be the most French of French African colonies but shopkeepers and street traders almost without exception seem able to speak conversational English.

At the end of today I realized I have two issues - access to food and drinking water. These aren't quite as easy to find as I thought. I suppose Senegalese don't eat out much so restaurants aren't plentiful and there is nothing resembling a supermarket here. Bottled water is harder to find than I thought too, but I have a few bottles I brought from New York City. I am going to ration them for brushing teeth and drink Diet Coke (which is EVERYWHERE) instead. My hotel has a restaurant open for dinner but I am on my own the rest of the day. I had a delicious meal - a tasty marinated shish kabab like meal and a couple glasses of wine, all while listening to chanting from several mosques in the distance. For a 96% Muslim country where they take religion very seriously, they are very relaxed about alcohol. Tomorrow I need to ask Marcel what to do about finding food and drinking water. I don't think I am going to gain weight on this trip.