"Two stories about Centre Ville" or "DAMN YOU TAXI MAN!"

If I ever wanna watch a movie outdoors under a giant tree full of bats and eagles, all I need to do is jump through the backdoor of rusty bucket of a bus and pay 75 CFA and BAM I'm in centreville, bustling streets with fabulous hidden surprises.

50% of the time though, we get mega scammed. Par exemple:

Cab ride costs 2000 francs CFA (Communauté française d'Afrique, 450 to every dollar, used throughout senegal, mali, niger, cote d'ivoire, togo and guinea-bissau).

Taxi man says, "Could blah blah blah bad french you give me blah blah blah bad french a 10,000? I have a whole lot blah blah blah bad french of change here."

"Huuuh? Oh, I think he wants us to use a bigger bill so he can give us change. Okay!"

Anna hands him the money.

"No no, I said 10,000. this is only 2,000."

"No! I just gave you 10,000!"

"Anna, don't be silly! look, he's clearly holding a 2000"

"Guys dont you remember I just showed you a 10,000 in the restaurant? He just did some weird slight of hand thing!"

"Huuuh? wuhhh OOOOOH! OH MY GOD! LFIU)Q#*(URQ*#OUR"

Then there was a lot of french cursing. But what are ya donna do. We got out of the cab and had a really bummed out walk home.

Malgre ca, there are some nice people out here. Finally, the story about ahmadou:

Sometimes when me and JG are walking around centre ville I'm the husband and he's the wife - I'm walking fast and I look behind me and he's perusing some D&G (the kind that are made in Japan) watches. I stand in the middle of traffic just so hordes of people don't descend on me to try and sell me things.

"JOSH LETS GO!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, my wife is hungry. Could you hold this watch for me 'til I get back? We're just having lunch over there."

I'm digging into some delicious spaghetti bolognese when a guy comes up to us and asks us how the food is.

"Oh its great! Thank you!"
"Oh good. Bon appetit! When you're all done I'll just be over there."

"Isn't that nice? The manager just asked us how we're doing."
"Janelle that's not the manager, THATS THE GUY TRYING TO SELL ME THE WATCH."

So we see that he's standing at the door of the restaurant just waiting for us and we start freaking out and looking for a backdoor

"DAMNIT JOSH WHY WHY WHY DID YOU SAY YOU WERE GONNA BUY THAT WATCH NOW YOU HAVE TO OR HES GOING TO FOLLOW US UNTIL YOU DO"

So JG gives me his ATM card and sends me out to fetch some money. When I come back the watch guy is sitting in my seat. He and JG are discussing the price of the authentic Japanese Dolce and Gabana watch.

Ten minutes later we find a happy price, we're buying him a drink and talking about life. His name's ahmadou and he wants to practice his english.

"Oh, you're THIRSTY."
"thusssty"
"THIIIIRRRRSSTTYYYY"
"Thuuuuuuusttyyyyy"
"Yeah! That's it! You speak English really well."

He says watch out for people who give you gifts because they're up to no good. I'm muslim and I'd never do that, but there are people here who don't believe. It's not safe to come down here by yourself, either. Take my number and you can call me anytime.

JG gives him his old watch, he treasures it and puts it on and says he won't sell it. Then he throws in a bracelet for me because he likes the watch so much.

Happy ending right? WELL Ahmadou called josh like 100 times that night and later he saw me downtown and asked why my husband hasn't been returning my calls. that's a whole other blog post about personal space and awkwardness and privacy and senegalese culture and barriers between making friends... im still waiting for facebook to load my damn pictures, even after having typed all this crap...

im getting away from the computer, probably to go to CENTREVILLE and get my eyebrows done and buy some more bracelets.. all classes cancelled today, professor in conference in ghana..