Beefburgers and fries à Dakar!!

So last week I was staying with this Senegalese lady called Sineta who runs a bed&breakfast ici. From the website it looked pretty authenitic senegalese, with lovely african room decorations and drumming lessons available etc. Dinner was included in the very reasonable price so I thought, "that'll suit me just fine- easy".

It turns out Sineta is originally Senegalese but has lived in Louisiana, US for most of life. So instead of eating the local food and learning traditional drumming rhythms, I've been eating Beefburgers, lasagne, noodles; and greasy french toast for breakfast and listening to her son's rap music! ahhhh! As many of you know I was vegetarian for the last year and half, or so, all this meat has been quite a shock to the system!

There's more... she's quite a character. Although Sineta has lived in Senegal for the last 12 years, she cannot speak either French or Wolof (the local language). She refuses to learn, complaining that everyone knows how to speak English, they are just to lazy too to try. ummm... slightly hypercritical? Instead, the other day... I was on the back of her scooter wearing un casket but she wasn't. As we came up to this big roundabout a gendarmarie walked out and held his hand to stop us. He tried to fine Sineta 3000CFA ($6) for driving a scooter without a helmet. She started shouting and swearing back at him, in english! So he just walked over and took her key right out of the ignition! it was classic. Amazingly, and I still don't know how she managed to do it (and I haven't heard the end of it since) she managed to sweet-talk her way out of paying the fine.

I have dozen more stories like this to describes this lady's attitude. Suffice to say, it was pretty tiring. Yesterday evening, however I moved to a new appartement. Anna, a US/English journalist who works for IRIN, is going on holiday for nearly 3 weeks so I am looking after her cats while she is away. It couldn't be more convenient for the hospital, being just around the corner and Anna is really friendly. So things are looking up for the next few weeks...