@elprograms

Living in Dakar: A How To Guide

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

There’s a lot about living here that is very different and difficult for a foreigner and non-Francophile (my French is awful, but slowly improving). There are some expat groups on Facebook which can make things easier, but there was still a lot to learn and a very steep learning curve. I don’t often write instructive “how to” blogs because usually I find there’s already a bunch out there, but I didn’t find much for Senegal or Dakar, at least not in English, so  I’m writing what I have learned so far, and maybe someone else will have an easier time adjusting to living here.

The SIM Card

My phone data plan is a high priority when I arrive in a new country. I feel like I can’t do much else without it, and in Senegal you really need that local number to use ride shares, delivery, and digital wallets. There’s a reason it’s first on my list. Pre-departure research led me to believe that Orange would be my best bet, and the Embassy had scheduled a “get your sim card” event in the orientation, so I had not undertaken to get one on my own, but it’s not that hard, especially if you can speak a little French.

Finding the right store: Orange is both a phone/internet company and a money service. Not every Orange store does both, so it’s important to find the correct location. We went here: AGENCE ORANGE DES ALMADIES Of course, you need an unlocked phone, and you’ll need your passport to register your new phone number with the gov’t (I swear this is normal everywhere except America). The SIM card cost 500CFA (about 75cents US) and comes with a few days of data/minutes.

Finding your phone number is a little tricky because it doesn’t just show up in your “settings > about phone”. Instead, dial #237# and hit the call button, you’ll get a screen message showing your new Senegalese phone number. I took a screenshot of mine.

Setting your Orange Money PIN: When you get your SIM card, ask the clerk to help you set up your password (mot de passe). You can change or reset the 4 digit pin by dialing #144# then choosing option 7 (options) and then 3 to modify or 6 to reset. If you’re struggling with all the French, take a screenshot and port it into Google Translate (select the camera icon, then click on the image icon in at the bottom of the screen to access your screenshots).

Be sure you know your phone number and your secret PIN before you leave the store!

Topping up your phone plan: All phone plans in Senegal are prepaid. There are two apps you’ll want to use: Orange et Moi and Orange Money and they are only in French, sorry. Also, be sure you choose the Senegal versions since Orange is popular in a LOT of countries. Orange et Moi is the app for charging up your phone, but before you do that, you have to add money to your account.

Install Orange et Moi Senegal (careful you get the right country) and follow the steps to set up your account. You’ll need to enter your new Senegalese number and choose a password for the app.

Visit any Orange Money kiosk and deposit money into your account – cash only. I started out with just 10k (about 15$). You just say “dépôt orange” and give them the phone number. You should be able to see your new balance right away, but make sure it shows up before you leave the shop! (Image Credit: Minette Lontsie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

I had to put in 200k in order to get the new work laptop and it was nerve wracking walking into a tiny hole in the wall shop with that much cash. Some kiosks are just huts the size of an outhouse, but they are guarded since the worker inside has a lot of cash. Thankfully for my nerves, the guy in the little shop added money to my account before taking the cash which made me feel better. It’s SO different from everything I’m used to and I’m working on finding a way to transfer money into my Orange account digitally because cash makes me nervous. There seems to be a way to do it if you have an African bank account, but the “add money by credit card” function on the app may or may not be permanently unavailable.

Your Pre-Pay Plan Will Expire! It’s important to note that this isn’t the kind of prepay that hangs around until you use it. There are time limits. Some plans are good for a day, some for a week, and the longest for a month. So don’t put a bunch of money on there thinking you can just top up when you use it all. I personally futzed around with the settings until I found the least amount I could add to get the 30 days, figuring if I used it up, I could add more which would be better than overpaying and losing it. I did not use it all.

How to Top Up in the App: The plans change from month to month, so I can’t suggest the best one, but some steps should stay the same: Acheter = buy and will take you to the menu of plan options. Illimix or Illiflex are the best options that mix data and phone (flex lets you choose how much data v phone you get for your money). It will ask you “choix du beneficiare” and you can choose your own phone number or enter someone elses, which if you are travelling with friends/family might make the whole thing easier. Make sure you get something that will last … avoid “jour” (day) and choose “semaine” (week) or “mois” (month). After you buy, you can see your remaining data/sms/minutes in the app by choosing “Conso”.

Money, Money, Money

Cash & GAB:
Senegal is a cash based economy. Very few places take cards, especially foreign cards. When I got here, the only way for me to access my US money was to go to a local ATM (or GAB since ATM isn’t a word here). The Embassy also warned us against using any ATM on the street (while also somehow NOT telling us they were called GAB). If they had their way, I’d be schlepping over to the Embassy every time I wanted cash to use their ATM inside. Not a practical solution. I also mentioned in my previous post that not all banks have GAB and Google Maps definitely doesn’t have a complete or accurate list, so it’s a good idea to figure out where your closest safe indoor GAB is before you need the money.

Why indoors? Apparently putting card skimmers on the machines is a thing here and the indoor ones all have security guards who keep more than one person per machine from going in at a time and CCTV (maybe?) to make sure no one does anything nefarious. It’s also easier to put your cash away inside than on the street. You don’t want to have a wad of cash in your wallet or bag. Only keep what you need in a day in reach. People don’t get mugged often here, and then mostly only at night alone, so it’s not a huge risk, but there’s no point in tempting fate.

However, cash is a pain, not only because it’s a germ vector and requires us to open our purse or wallet to get to, but local people ALL want you to have exact change, and no one wants to GIVE change. (to ask to have a bill broken ask: “as-tu de la monnaie”;  to ask if someone has change when you are buying something ask: “as-tu la monnaie”) Even at the grocery store where they have a full register of change they don’t want to part with it. I had to pop into a corner store to get a 1k bill broken into 2 500bills to pay my driver the other day. I have no idea how to keep myself topped up with enough change to satisfy drivers and street vendors. If I ever find out, I’ll update this post.

Digital Wallet:
In the mean time, I’m happy to report that Senegal is working on going cash free in a leap-frog way. (leapfrogging is when a culture skips a developmental step, in this case, going directly from cash to digital wallets without bank cards in between). Google Wallet and Venmo aren’t here in Senegal yet, but QR code based digital payment options Orange Money and Wave are. Orange Money comes built in with the phone package, and the only way to top up (without a local bank account) is to visit a kiosk and fork over the cash. It’s fairly easy to do and there are kiosks everywhere, but it doesn’t eliminate the need to go to the ATM all the time. Wave, however, has a partner app called SendWave that allows you to send money to a Wave user (including yourself) from a foreign bank account with no fees!

Getting SendWave:
Set up is a bit of an ordeal. You have to install the app, sign up, upload your passport photo and bank card then try (and fail) to send some money, and wait for someone to call you back. I hear your concerns and objections to uploading ID and bank card details, but it’s a reputable service. A big part of why it’s such a hassle to set up is that they have security measures in place to make sure no one is being scammed or stolen from. Trying to make your first payment starts the process. You can set up your wave account (separate app) and try and send it to yourself, or you can send it to a friend who already has their account set up. I’d start with just 1$, it’s going to get cancelled anyway.

When they call, they speak English quite well, which is nice. They verified me and checked to see that I really did know the person I was sending money to, then they asked me to submit a copy of my visa stamp to prove I was actually in Senegal since I’m sending money to myself here. I assume for people who are living outside the country sending money to family back home, it is different, but for us expats, they want proof we are really here. I uploaded a photo of my visa, and that turned out to not be sufficient. The entry stamp in my passport was so faded I had to run it through some strong filters to make it visible, but eventually I got a version they accepted. The whole process takes a few days, but once it is set up, the money transfers are instant. 

Pay with Wave:
Shops that accept Wave payment have the Wave Penguin with their QR code ID. You just scan the code, enter the amount you want to pay, and boom. Some retailers want to see your screen to verify, some get a message on their own phones right away. When paying at shops, there’s no fee to use Wave.

The Sendwave/Wave combo not only saves me from excessive GAB visits and foreign transaction charges, it also saves me from the problem of exact change. I ordered delivery the other day and the guy didn’t have change. It was 12 and I had a 10 and a 5, so I gave him the 10 and sent the other 2 by Wave. Same thing happened in a Heetch car when the driver couldn’t break my 5. I kept my cash and paid him the full amount by Wave. This is a little trickier, since the drivers and delivery folx are not “vendors” they’re just people. In that case you pay a 1% fee to transfer, so you have to take that into account when entering the amount to pay and check the amount they receive. At first I thought they should take the hit when they don’t carry change, but then I remembered my place of privilege and paid the pennies myself.

There’s a way to buy Orange phone plans with your Wave account, but it only applies to your phone/data plan and does NOT appear in your regular Orange Money account, so don’t send a bunch of money to your Orange account thinking you can spend it through Orange Money. In fact, don’t use these services for large amounts of money until you’ve tested them on small amounts and feel comfortable with them, because if you mess up and you don’t speak French, it’s going to be hard to get help resolving it.

UPDATE: I discovered this week that there’s a limit on both the amount you can have in your Wave wallet at a time AND the monthly amount you can receive. This almost turned into a fiasco because I am planning to pay my driver for the conference weekend using Wave and I spent 2 days trying to understand why my transfers weren’t going through while being told it was just a system error before I finally got someone to tell me the real problem. Thankfully, the fix is fairly easy, but it would have been devastating to find this out when I was trying to pay for something instead of just planning.

To increase the limit in your WAVE (not Sendwave) account, you have to upload a photo of your ID in the Wave App and visit a Wave agent in person (the app also has a list with Google Map links to the nearest agents). The ID was accepted very quickly, and I went to the corner agent this morning. Much like the Orange agents, it’s just booths in corner stores here, but he was able to log in and up my limit. If you want to use Wave for more than 200,000CFA in a 30 day period, you’ll need to do this too.

The Electricity

Woyofal is the electric company and there’s a link to them in both Orange Money and Wave apps. Like all things here, electricity is pre-paid. When your credit runs out, your power goes off. There’s a little meter that plugs into an outlet (which is really annoying since the outlets here already only have one plug instead of two) and you can see how many kwh you have left. The little light goes from green to red when you’re running low, and starts flashing just before you get cut off.

The tiny text at the top is all the codes you can enter to get various information. To top up your credit, you first need your unique account number, which you get by entering 804 + the blue button and waiting to see the number. It’s long and takes two screens, so be patient. I took photos of mine to keep it in an easy to find place. Once you have your number, you can go to your Wave or Orange Money app and follow the directions to pay bills, and open Woyofal. It should ask for the account number and the amount you want to add. When it goes through, you get a message with another really long string of numbers that is your confirmation code which you then go back to the little box plugged into your wall and painstakingly type in, followed by the blue button.

It sometimes takes a moment to catch up to itself. If the green light doesn’t come back, try typing 805+ the blue button to prompt it to display your remaining credit. It forces the machine to send and receive the signal. As far as I know, you can put as much as you want on there and unlike the phone minutes, it doesn’t expire. I have so far only put 10k on mine because I just got here and I wanted to test it out before doing a larger amount of money just in case I made a mistake in the process while learning. Again, with all these digital wallet things, do stuff in small amounts until you’re comfortable with it so you don’t lose much if something goes awry.

The process isn’t particularly difficult, but it is in no way intuitive to anyone coming from a country where utilities are post-paid and the bills are all online. Here is a more detailed blog about the Woyofal counter.

Shopping

This isn’t tourist shopping at the souk advice, it’s daily life stuff. There’s actually plenty of “how to shop at the market” advice out there (also I haven’t tried it yet), but not so much on “how to buy a new pillow and a coffee pot for your apartment”.

Food Delivery:

I’ve been using Dakar Food Delivery, but there’s also Bring Me and Yassir (I have not tried this last one yet). The hardest part of this is that apps are stuck in French (unlike websites which you can run through Google Chrome to auto translate) and that there are no addresses. Also the exact change thing. Some restaurants have online ordering through Google or their own website, so if the French is too much of an obstacle you can try that way, but you will still have to speak to the driver. Every driver is a new challenge. Somehow even though I live across the street from a pharmacy (which are excellent landmarks here because they all have unique names) my driver the other day ended up at the supermarket down the street, then said I didn’t speak French very well (which ok, yeah I don’t, but “pharmacie” and “supermarche” are not words I mix up).

Grocery Delivery:
You can get basic stuff at most corner stores, but sometimes you don’t want to cart heavy stuff home and sometimes you want stuff that’s not at the corner store. Bring Me has grocery delivery for the same day, but a fairly small selection. I am now using Club Tiossane which has to be scheduled for the next day (or more for some items) but is really easy to use and the delivery guy only had one question about my written directions, he wanted to know if I was to the left or right out of the elevator. They even called to follow up on my first order to make sure everything went well! I know Auchan also has a delivery option on their website, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Home Goods:
The larger grocery stores have some (as do the grocery delivery apps), but I had a bit of a search to figure out where to get new pillows since there’s no box stores here (Target, Wal-Mart, E-Mart, HomePlus, etc). Part of me is really happy there’s no Pottery Barn because I love small business, but it does make things harder. I ended up at a store called Orca which was definitely overpriced.

For anything you’re willing to get used, I’d say go back to the expat community. People are always going in and out so there’s plenty of stuff on offer. I was going to buy a used washing machine that way before my landlady decided she’d rather buy a new one herself. The Dakarium (ex Dakar Craigslist) group on Facebook seems to be the place for it. I just … don’t want used pillows, you know?

Finally, there’s Jumia, the “Amazon” of Africa (make sure you go to Jumia Senegal because the different countries have different Jumia sites). I suspect I could have ordered my pillows from there, but I wanted them that day (I was not sleeping well in the new bed on flat pillows). I have successfully used it to order some electronics for my office and more recently to order more henna and a coffee pot. Jumia is a bit complicated, like everything here. When you order, you can choose to have it delivered to your home or to a pick up point (so far, like Amazon, right?). Unless you have someone to receive the package when it arrives, home is not the best idea. My very first order, I chose the cash on delivery payment option and then realized that the delivery window was “sometime in the next 3 days”. Thankfully, it worked out, but I don’t want to do that again.

My second I chose the nearest pick up point, which is about 1km from me at the post office. There was no cash at pick up payment option so I had to schlep over to an Orange Money Kiosk to deposit the cash there in order to pay for the order on the website…I feel like Jumia would be perfect if it partnered with Wave instead of or in addition to Orange since you can digitally top up a Wave account, but you can only refill Orange Money by physically taking cash to the kiosk. However, the delivery worked just fine. They sent a text when it was ready to pick up and I walked on over, showed the text message as proof of purchase and got my new laptop.

My third order was almost bad, but ends up being a reassuring story. I found a coffee maker for much cheaper than the ones at Orca, ordered it to the pick up point, submitted my Orange payment, and then something went awry. The money left my Orange account and I got a payment confirmation text from Orange, but Jumia denied receiving it! I tried to call the help line, but either the connection was bad or they just couldn’t deal with the language barrier because they hung up. I sent a message through the online help instead and waited. They called back again the next day, but by the time I found the TV remote to mute my show so I could hear them, they had hung up again. All this was over the weekend, and I was planning to get a friend who speaks better French to help me on Monday, but before I could, I got a message saying my items had shipped. When I logged back into the website, I saw that the items were still in my cart but also that duplicate items were listed as in process. I’m not sure if the website sorted itself out, or if someone read my message and fixed it manually on their end, but it got fixed, which is the important thing.

Getting Around

Taxis are everywhere, but they are not metered in Dakar. I heard this isn’t a problem in other parts of Senegal, but I don’t have this luxury. So, you flag down a taxi and DO NOT GET IN. Instead, standing a bit back from the window for safety, you tell them where you want to go and ask how much and then haggle because they are trying to overcharge you. To make this more fun, there are no addresses, so you have to tell taxis where to go by landmark and be prepared to tell them more details when you get closer. Oh, and they don’t speak English. In fact, many of them don’t even speak French well. They are often poor and undereducated coming in from the countryside to work… or coming from other countries, because it’s a desirable place to live in Africa, and like any large city, there’s a big migrant and immigrant population. 
(Image Credit: Boydiop2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The buses are wild. As in untamed. There are buses, I’ve seen them. They are stuffed to the brim. I’ve taken uncomfortable and crowded public transit before, but I think I’m going to follow the Embassy advice and not do it here. Not only are they very uncomfortable, but you have to have exact change, and know where you want to get off because there’s no marked stops. Even if you speak French or Wolof well enough to ask the driver about the route, you are not likely to be able to get to him for the crowd. Plus, with so many people packed in, it’s a prime place for pickpocketing. I might try the bus one day, when I can leave everything valuable at home or tuck it into my traveler’s belt under my shirt, just so I can see what it’s like first hand, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to rely on to get a place.
(Image Credit: Dr. Alexey Yakovlev, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Ride share services have recently launched here! The only two services in Senegal are Russian owned Yango, and French owned Heetch. There’s no Uber or Lyft, I’m afraid. Yango launched in December 2021 and Heetch launched in January of 2022, so this is really new. You will need to register with a phone number, and as yet there’s no way to add a digital payment option inside the app (although if you don’t have right cash, you can probably use Wave with the driver). It took me several tries to get Yango to work, so if that happens, just uninstall and reinstall the apps and try again. Stuff doesn’t always work here. Yango and Heetch cars are significantly nicer than the taxis. The drivers are less likely to be harrassy, more likely to speak French or even some English, and more likely (but not guaranteed) to have change than taxi drivers. There’s also a way to complain to the company if there’s a problem.

The ride share apps allow you to enter your location by searching for a business name or selecting a location on the map. This is really great since there are no addresses, but it’s not something most drivers are used to yet. No matter what you put in, they still call and ask where you are and where you’re going after they accept your ride request. I actually turned on the “don’t call me unless its an emergency” option in Yango and it made zero difference. I’m hoping this will improve over time, but honestly, I had taxis in Korea who couldn’t use GPS either, so …. Anyway, be prepared to explain it in French to a very impatient driver. I find I often can’t understand them on the phone either because of background noise or bad connection or just because they are talking too fast or with slang. In that case you can send a text message, a WhatsApp message or message through the app itself, allowing you to use the translating app of your choice. Most of the app drivers have a minimum level of tech ability and literacy that allows them to deal with the text messages. (side note, people actually prefer calling to texting here, and even in the text based app WhatsApp they will record and send voice messages rather than type. I love talking on the phone to my friends, but it’s a solid nightmare to try and do it in another language)

Always Ask

Things here are changing rapidly. I learned all this by asking and searching on Google, but there are expats embedded here and even locals that don’t know some of this because many of the more convenient digital/online services just launched in the last year or two and they stopped looking for better ways to do things. If you don’t know how to do a thing or where to buy a thing, ask and keep asking until you find a solution that works for you. If I’d listened to the people who were supposed to help me, I’d be in much worse shape, living in a way less nice apartment and overpaying for most things or just doing without. Instead, I found a couple of Americans who had been here for long enough to share what they had learned and compiled everyone’s knowledge gems into one place. I hope this guide is helpful to someone. I know I would have loved to know these things before I landed here, but even if the details become obsolete, the basic advice of “keep asking” will always be true.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

If You Like This Content, Buy Me a Cup of Coffee?

All Donations Go to Covering the Blog Fees and Writer’s Coffee!

Help Me Maintain the Blog Fees?

Choose an amount

$1.00
$5.00
$15.00
$1.00
$5.00
$15.00
$25.00
$50.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Ahhhh… That’s Better: Getting Settled in Dakar

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

I knew when I was drifting through the cortisol laden depths of anxiety and despair that getting my own space to live in was going to make a huge difference in my outlook and wellbeing, and wow I was right. As of November 22, I finally got my very own place to live! It’s made a huge difference in the way I feel and my ability to tackle other challenges of living here. After 6 weeks of living in Dakar, I’m so pleased to finally be able to start sharing something good.

Good News, Good Vibes

I know my first three posts about Dakar were very rough, but it’s so here’s some other fun things/achievements I’ve gotten to do.

Trivia Night!

Every other Thursday there’s English language trivia at a bar by the sea. The bar is called Kraken and it’s in a tourist/expat part of town, so there’s a lot of people leaning in and trying to sell us stuff over the railing. They have a decent selection of drinks, but I tried a local beer with Picon added in. I had never heard of this before, but apparently Picon is the French version of Amaro and has a bitter orange botanical flavor. Picon beer is a thing. It was nice and added a lot of depth of flavor to the otherwise cheap local beer. The theme that night was FIFA which did not go well for us, but I had fun anyway, and I plan to keep going.

Thanksgiving Dinner

One of the ETAs I temporarily lived with hosted her very first Thanksgiving (first as hostess) and went full out with it. The ETAs from orientation came back into town and we had a nice evening sharing food and conversation. She made chicken instead of turkey (I helped because she’s vegetarian and didn’t know how to tell if it was done) plus mac and cheese, cornbread, cornbread stuffing, green beans, roasted root vegetables, mashed potatoes, a zhuzhed up canned cranberry sauce, and three pies: pumpkin, apple, and peanut with both vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. It was wonderfully homey to have a group of good people to share the holiday and meal with, too.

Loman Art Gallery

I didn’t realize it at the time we went, but it turns out there’s a gallery very close to my apartment. It’s an Airbnb and artist residence with a rooftop bar/restaurant. They had a lovely Ethiopian buffet the night we went. The art installations weren’t fully up inside, but the rooftop was gorgeous and we sat in the most elaborate gazebo-esque table to enjoy the food. I ordered a house wine and was pleasantly surprised (I guess the French influence extends that far) and I got some fresh roasted coffee afterward. The barista brought the pan over to the able to show us how she was roasting the beans small batch!

Shopping

I had a fun day out at the Sea Plaza shopping mall. There’s a disproportionate number of handbags and shoes for sale there, but I found a cute café and more importantly the large version of the Casino grocery store that I visited in my second week here. I don’t want to have to go there every week to shop, but it is nice to know what’s there in case I get a craving. There’s also a plethora of import food shops for different ethnicities around town. My friends found a Chinese shop, and I spotted a Korean grocery from a taxi the other day. It’s really nice to have regular access to variety!

English Club

I went to the first official day of the English Club at my university. I was pleased to be able to help the student led club get a real faculty sponsor and a classroom to use. I’m not real faculty, but I sent some messages out to people in charge and asked for them to get what they needed, and my voice carried more weight than the students alone. They meet on Saturdays, and I’m busy every Saturday in December, so I definitely wanted to visit before November ended. It was a lot of fun to see the students engaged in practicing English by debating veterinary medicine hot topics and I’m looking forward to going back in January.

PO Box / BP

I went to the post office to get my PO Box (boite postal) set up in order to get mail and packages. I was deeply entertained by the fact that they wanted to know my address … buddy if I knew my address I wouldn’t need a BP? Eventually they just wrote the general area along with my phone number and email. They made a copy of my passport, and collected my 5k (about 7.50$) which pays for a full year of service (it’s usually 10, but they were having a reduced rate special, Thanksgiving may only be in America but Black Friday is global). Then we searched through a box of about 100 keys, everything from 24000-24099. The three of us (me and the two postal workers) had a little race to see who would find my number first. They gave me one copy of my key and showed me where to go to find the box. I’m not sure how well this will work, or how long it will take things to get to me here, but I have a way to get mail now. 

Apartment!

I finally got a place to live!

What I Learned About Finding Housing in Dakar

This was not supposed to be a thing I had to do on my own. You can read the stories in my other Dakar posts, but it turned out to be one more thing I needed to do for myself while here and what I learned is: the best thing you can do to find a place to live here is ASK OTHER EXPATS. There are real estate agents (required for official rentals) and even some websites where you can search and view apartments, but it’s a minefield. The real resource is fellow foreigners.

If you’re coming here for more than a week, I’d say book something very reputable (high ratings, good reviews) for the first few nights you’re in town so you can touch down in comfort and safety, then move to a cheaper place after you arrive and can go see it in person before you book, and finally, find your long term stay by reaching out to the expat community. If you are moving here for the long haul (5+ years), you might want to get an unfurnished place and fill it yourself. The deposits are murder (4 months of rent!) and furnishing will be a hassle, but the rent is much cheaper on unfurnished units. If, like me, you are planning to be here less than 2 years, you might want a pre-furnished place.

For any length of stay, look before you pay! If you have to book a place sight unseen, check the reviews, make sure there are verified reviews that are recent and not just the landlord’s friends and family. I saw a lot of places on Airbnb that were total lies. The ones that were true to photo were mostly other expats. Ask about everything. Don’t assume a thing works because it’s there. Check it yourself. Make sure all the appliances, wifi, electric, hot water, a/c etc work. Imagine your apartment is a used car you are buying from a sketchy used car salesman. Kick the metaphorical tires. It will be exhausting, but worth it in the end. 

There are tons of people “renting” furnished apartments by the night who are entirely willing to make monthly discounts. The place I’m in was going for 25k/night (would be 750k/month) but I got it for 600k (local currency). I found it because one of the ETAs who has been here longer was able to reach out to her WhatsApp group to ask if anyone had something. There’s also a FB group called Dakarium Turfs & Cribs that people can post what they are looking for on and get replies from people who have places to rent. I didn’t use that method because I was not really sure how it would go with total strangers, but I think if you don’t know any expats from your work or whatever brings you here that it might be a better bet than trying to go through a Senegalese agent.

Another reason to go through expats is the language/culture barrier. It’s much harder to get repairs done from Senegalese landlords in part because you are as unlikely as I to speak Wolof, and in remainder because things just aren’t urgent here. My American landlady understands my American urge to have things fixed ASAP, so anything she can fix, she has done right away. There are things she’s stuck waiting on some locals for, but she communicates about it with me. Meanwhile, my friends renting from a local were washing dishes in the bathroom for several days while waiting for their landlord to get a plumber into the kitchen sink. Thankfully, they got it fixed before Thanksgiving!

Home Sweet Home

After 5 weeks of stress, I have moved into a nice furnished apartment in Mamelles (which is a neighborhood that means “boobs” in French because the French colonizers saw the two hills and were 12 yr old boys about it). The building is shared with some businesses on the ground floor and has a fairly new elevator (less than 2 years old) which speaks with a very interesting (not remotely African sounding) accent. There’s a lot of people around and the building manager is friendly and helpful, so I feel safe and welcome. The lady renting to me is also American, and usually rents the apartment out by the night on Airbnb but is happy to have me in for a long term rental since it means a steady income and probably less breakage of furniture. 

There’s a small kitchen which we made smaller by installing a washing machine. I think it’s worth it to be able to wash my own clothes at home and not in the sink. It’s got a dorm fridge, so I guess I don’t get to keep pints of ice cream at home, and the “stove” is a propane hot plate on a wooden countertop. The main room is a living/dining area, but I’ve shoved some of the furniture aside to make a space for me to VR dance in. I’ve also installed my Chromecast and switch on the TV. The bedroom is a bit sparse, but the bed is comfy and the bathroom has ALL THE HOT WATER. I didn’t really realize how much I missed that until my first shower in here where the water came out steamy and stayed that way the whole long shower… my first really good long hot shower since arriving in Senegal, btw.

It came furnished, including a towel and 2 sets of sheets, but I got some new pillows for myself. It also comes with a cleaner, which is something I may never get used to. The places I lived in Jinan (China) and in Tabuk (Saudi) had cleaners, but the one in China only came once a week, and the one in Tabuk was in a hotel, so they came when I asked, but I didn’t ask often, and I always pre-cleaned because all I really need help with is floors and bathroom scrubbing, and I don’t really *need* that, because I lived without a cleaner the whole time I was in Korea and did not drown in dirt. This lady comes 3x a week. Her service is included in the rent. It definitely makes me think about not leaving my undies on the floor or my dishes on the sofa.

It’s in a very residential area, which has pros and cons, but overall is probably for the best because it’s quieter and safer. The roads are made of dirt, and there’s a larger than average number of horse drawn carts. There’s not as many restaurants and no big grocery stores, but the manager at the corner grocery store was really kind to me when I came in, and showed me where to find the stuff I was looking for and welcomed me to the neighborhood. There’s a bakery, and some fruit sellers around too. Plus, it’s a much easier area to describe in this addressless land when I get stuff delivered. I don’t have a private terrace, but there’s rooftop access and there’s a beautiful view that includes both the lighthouse and the Renaissance Monument.

#Thankful

I literally cannot say enough how much better my life is now that I have this place to live. Nothing feels too big or too broken or too overwhelming anymore. Even when I went to see the English club only to discover that my new laptop didn’t connect to the projector, and also for some reason had the wrong country plug (even though I bought it here), and that the cleaning crew had disconnected my office desktop from power (which I was able to fix) and apparently also the internet (which I was not), I wasn’t particularly upset. I was just like, oh, ok, I’ll take the laptop back home and figure out the problem, I have an adapter there, too. My latest online order had a problem where they took my money and then said the order didn’t go through and I couldn’t speak to a rep because language barrier, but I was ok with figuring it out later, and it was ok, two days later the website had resolved the issue itself and my stuff is on the way.

I’ve been exploring, walking, taking photos, taking…. Well not risks, but getting comfortable living more normally. I finally got to dye and cut my hair and I have high hopes that being able to have a regular bed means a regular bedtime skincare routine and my hands and feet might be able to recover from the DRY. I was able to start working on stuff like minor sewing repairs and LAUNDRY. I have a space to disinfect my produce and can finally have fresh fruit/veg snacks again. It’s SO nice not to be living with the weight of stress and anxiety and just be able to enjoy living here. I’m astonished it took so long, but I’m glad that I was right when I promised myself that I’d get to this point.

Bienvenue au Sénégal!

Je Suis Arrivé: Senegal First Impressions

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

I’ve been in Senegal for 2 weeks. I’m about to lay down some solid developing nation meets first world privilege complaining, but despite all that, I’m still glad I came here. It’s been a REALLY long time since I had to adjust to a new country to live in (vacation is not the same, because you get to stay in temporary housing and explore and have fun while knowing your safe and comfy bed is waiting for you at the end of the trip), and besides – no vacations during COVID! More than that, adjusting to Korea was very different than here, it was almost all culture and language barrier based because the standard quality of life in Korea is overall quite high. This reminds me more of learning to adjust to China or Saudi, the main 2 differences now are: I’m over 40 and I crave a basic level of creature comforts that younger me was more willing to do without in the name of sparkly new adventure – and this is objectively less developed than either of those places. It may in fact be the least developed part of the world I’ve traveled to, and that’s not an insult, it just means as a white American lady I didn’t have this perspective. It’s good for me, stretching me outside of my complacency and comfort zone (again), so I don’t regret it. I’m not mad about the conditions here, nor am I demanding unreasonable levels of comfort (clean, safe & accommodating my health). I just want to be honest about what I’m experiencing here, and how it makes me feel.

Getting There Is Half the Battle?

Arriving was not actually difficult. A long flight – 3 flights – but nothing a regular international traveler can’t handle. Flying in over the Sahara was fascinating. I could see the landscape change from endless sand to green farmland. There’s the jet lag package (fatigue, dehydration, swollen feet, etc), but I had a whole day in my hotel to rest before orientation. I had arranged an airport pickup with the hotel as well. So far, so good. The program is covering all those costs (assuming my expense report is accepted). The drive from the airport was looooooong, almost 2 hours. The main highways here are fairly well kept, but once you get off the main drag, the roads are not just dirt, but the dirt that remains after badly laid asphalt has cracked and eroded from flooding. There were potholes that could be kiddie pools on the road my hotel was on and I have to say it surprised me to see that this was the norm in the ritzy part of town, and made me wonder what the rest of the city looked like.

The hotel was nice, but I had forgotten to think about things like a mini fridge or a kettle, and there were no shops nearby anyway, just beachfront restaurants and an American imported goods store because I was staying in the fancy part of town near the Embassy. I thankfully have had experience with finding and using local delivery apps and quickly got my first meal delivered to my room (Dakar Food Delivery if anyone needs it). I was also a bit sticker shocked by the prices, but it seems only the expensive restaurants can afford to do delivery. A meal was costing me 10,000-13,000 CFA or 15-20$ USD. I know Americans think that’s a good deal for delivery food, but it’s wildly cognitively dissonant to be in a place that is so underdeveloped and also costs that much. Plus, I have a lingering “former poor” brain function that gets activated when I’m under stress so it feels insanely opulent to eat delivery food 2x a day for a week, which is basically what I did minus 2 lunches at the Embassy. For comparison, my Embassy cafeteria lunch was 4,000 CFA about 6$ US. I survived by reassuring myself that I was still well within the average daily food/transit allowance that is included in my budget, though I now better understand that a person eating at Western style restaurants and taking a taxi (buses are not recommended for expats for safety as well as comfort reasons) could actually use the full budget allotted to us. I expect when I’m comfortable enough to actually start taking taxis to explore other parts of the city, I’ll need that budget, too.

Post Arrival Orientation

We were hosted at the US Embassy for a 3 day orientation from Wednesday Oct 18-Friday 19. The orientation was a good way to introduce us to Senegalese culture because nothing started on time or went according to plan. (I said there would be complaining, but it’s not helpful to think of cultural differences like this as better or worse. I honestly think the number of cultures that place a high value on timetables and deadlines is much smaller than those that are more … flexible. It’s just frustrating to be raised in one style and have to live and work in the other). The policy on Embassy provided drivers changed but no one told our coordinator until the first morning, so while I could have easily walked the distance to the Embassy from my hotel, she had me ask the hotel to call a taxi and then also called the hotel herself to confirm. I have to say that while I found the whole process frustrating and confusing at the time, I do appreciate the lengths she went to that morning to make sure we were all safe and comfortable. It’s not her fault that my comfort level is directly linked to my ability to control my own environment (yay trauma responses!) so waiting around for ages and relying on other people to tell me what to do or how to do it or even do it for me is deeply anxiety inducing to me. I walked the remaining 2 days.

Getting into the Embassy is an ordeal if you don’t work there. One at a time, we handed over our passports in a little secure bank teller style window and got a visitor badge in return. Then again one at a time, we entered the security screening room where we handed over all electronics (including charging cables!) and for some reason also my nail clippers and umbrella. Even the TSA lets umbrellas through security. All our banned things were placed in a numbered box, we were given a token with the number on it and then a fairly standard x-ray for the bags and metal detector portal for us. Then we walked across a courtyard into another building where we again had to pass through a metal detector, have our bags visually examined and record the number from our token on a visitor log. We were also limited to only the front area (the American Center, the meeting room, and the restrooms) unless we had an escort, and our coordinator could only escort 4 people at a time, so had to get help when it was time to take us to the cafeteria. Somehow the free English language program that they run here is inside all this security, and local Senegalese people who want to participate have to go through an application process and pass through this kind of security every time they want to come to a class or event. It does make me kind of glad that it’s not my primary base of operations, though I am sure I’ll go back to do a guest lesson or something.

I enjoyed meeting everyone in the orientation. There were only 2 of us Fellows (we are the older, more experienced teachers… grizzled veterans of expat life) and 6 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who are all adorable 22 year old Gifted Children™ that just graduated from their BAs and all speak fluent French. Only myself and 2 of the ETAs are stationed here in Dakar, the rest are scattered around St. Louis and Thies. There were also a metric ton of presenters, but since there was zero printed or electronic materials (beyond the schedule which as I mentioned was not followed), I don’t really know who all of them were and remember even less about the details of the programs they talked about. I’m trying to get it in written form, but it’s hard especially as our full time Regional English Language Officer (RELO) isn’t here yet and the deputy (our faithful coordinator) is trying to do all the work on her own.

People I remember well – the press officer and cultural officer were both fun to talk with mostly because they were also new to Senegal and more relatable to me in terms of common background and interests; the HR person who gave us our cultural lesson was awesome (Betty Hubbard, which sounds SO white, but she’s really an African woman with a lot of experience in the US and several African countries, and was delightful, I wish I had a good photo of her, but I only have what the embassy emailed me, which is mostly us). The guy who runs the largest English Club network made a good impression simply by virtue of his enthusiasm, but I was a bit sad that I probably won’t do much with their organization (although he has ‘threatened’ to invite me to come and give a guest lesson) since it is for k-12 ages and I’m going to be spending most of my time with the University. Other presenters were … not used to presenting. Several had classic “read the slides verbatim” or monotone voices. Almost all the Senegalese spoke so quietly that even at the other end of a small conference table, I struggled to hear them. It made me want to create a workshop just for them to be better presenters, an idea I may pitch to the Embassy later on.

Health & Safety

There was a security briefing, which we also got in the EPIK orientation in Korea, and those are almost always extreme, but here I’m not so sure. Things like ‘motorcycle thieves’ people who ride double on a motorcycle so the passenger can snatch bags off pedestrians and the driver speeds away are apparently very real here, such that even locals have warned me to wear my backpack on both arms or at very least, move it to the side away from the road. Don’t carry more than your money and empty shopping back into open air markets (regular brick and mortar shops are ok). Don’t walk after dark alone. Don’t hold your cell phone too loosely or someone might snatch it (motorcycle thief style). Don’t use ATMs on the street, only inside a guarded building. But also, say hello to everyone in your neighborhood, greetings and inquiring after wellbeing are crucial to being recognized by the people who might help you if you’re ever in trouble. People who keep to themselves are left that way.

There was also a health briefing from a nurse who instilled in us the very real fear of Senegalese water if nothing else. They also talked about soaking any fruits or veg you don’t peel in a diluted bleach solution and rinsing with bottled or boiled water. I’m actually not sure what her policy on dish washing is, but I’m using the tap so far, just make sure it’s all the way dry before I put food on it? I have already mentioned my extensive vaccination regimen and of course my weekly anti-malaria pills, so I was fairly well prepared. I figured out how to get smaller (1.5L) water bottles delivered to my hotel, but I’m still working on proper water delivery. I’m going through 2-3 liters of water a day here, so it’s thing. Maybe when I get my “real” housing I’ll be able to do a night boil for the next day’s water, but so far that’s been fairly impossible. The nurse also said that we would all definitely get diarrhea (yeah ok, gross, but this is a very real issue travelling to places with massively different bacteria). The ETAs kind of laughed it off until the older of us were like, no, she’s right, this isn’t a thing you avoid, it’s a thing you minimize and prepare for.

I hoped my globe trotting stomach was well equipped but I still had some antibiotics my pharmacist prescribed to me before I left the US for this exact reason. I have only had bad travelers diarrhea once in my adult life, and that was my first visit to Egypt when I got so sick I could not even keep down water. I remain hopeful that was a once in a lifetime event. My issues in Dakar were comparatively very mild. The first bout passed in a day, and I thought I was free and clear, but then it came back and lasted and lasted. Part of the problem was a lack of ability to eat gentle food. I tried to order things like a labneh (similar to yogurt) on pide (like a pizza dough but oblong) and plain rice or plain chicken, but it was difficult. I only got to go to a grocery store when I moved to a new “hotel” after my first week. Then I ate yogurt, bread, bananas, rice and oatmeal for 2 days before I gave up and went to the pharmacy for some Imodium.

Phone: Connection, Translation, Maps and More

I don’t know how I lived in China and Saudi without a smartphone. I know I did it, but for the life of me, I am baffled. I walked literally everywhere in China with my little pocket dictionary and took months to learn how to properly use the public transit system on my own. I used Wi-Fi on a tablet to pull up maps in Saudi, but mostly I only had a company driver to take me places. During my travels from 2015 on, it seems like having access to a local Sim card and internet was essential to getting around, navigating language barriers, public transit, shopping and everything else really. I like having data as soon as I land. I often get it in the airport or at a shop near my accommodation on the very first day. In this case I had deliberately not taken care of getting my own SIM card because it was on the schedule for the first day of orientation that we would do it as a group. I decided to go with the group because maybe they will be more help than I could have been on my own. No.

First we went to an Orange kiosk (Orange is a telecommunications company in this part of the world), which did not sell SIM cards (I feel like this could have been ascertained ahead of time). When we finally got to the store itself, they collected all our passports and had us wait. The store actually closed with us inside it, and finally they said that they had no SIM cards that day, and we should come back tomorrow. When we returned the following day, we had a better idea of what to expect, but we still got a bit of runaround, being told to go out to a different location to get the SIMs. I suspect they simply didn’t want to deal with a large group at the end of the day. Which, I sympathize with. I can think of several ways to have done this which would have made life easier for everyone including the shop employees, but it’s a learning experience. 

In addition to our fearless deputy RELO (a local who has worked at the Embassy for many many years), several of the French speaking ETAs got involved in trying to solve the issue, which also resulted in crossed wires. We went out, we came back, we waited. Finally they began to issue us SIM cards. They cost 500CFA (75cents US) and are connected to our passports, but that’s normal in most countries that aren’t America. It took a while to get everything sorted out, finding our numbers, loading the Orange app, etc. It was hot (no AC in the store) and stressful (language barrier and multiple mixed messages), but once I got back to my hotel and could examine the system on my own in cool air, it was easy enough. We also went back the kiosk from day 1 to learn how to add money to an Orange account. Phones are all pay as you go and there’s no way to add money online, so you have to physically take cash to an Orange kiosk. Fortunately they are everywhere. The minutes and data that came with my SIM expired after one week after which I found that the minimum purchase for a 30 day period was 2200CFA or about 3.30$. I chose a flex plan and started with 2 hours of talk time, 500 text messages, and 1.5G of data at that price point. I don’t know how much of that I’ll actually use in 30 days. Since I’m on Wi-Fi at the hotel and at school, and I only use the phone to talk to delivery drivers, I think it will last. All this could change if I go somewhere without decent Wi-Fi, but for now, it seems like the phone plans (unlike the housing and restaurants) are DEAD CHEAP, which is nice because it means more locals (students) are likely to have access.

Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat?

Housing has been a source of some great stress. I discovered as I was preparing to leave Korea that having safe stable comfortable home base is very critical to managing my anxiety levels and my willingness to do new adventurous things. My friends in the US did a magnificent job of making me feel safe stable and comfortable while I was in their home, but it’s their home. Here in Senegal, I knew that we would search for apartments after I arrived (frustrating but ok it’s probably better to see them in person), but I did not expect the reality. No amount of looking at apartments online could even slightly prepare a person for the reality. The day after our orientation finished (Saturday) my social sponsor (the only professor at my uni who speaks English and therefore got stuck with this job) picked me up to go house hunting. I had spoken with him at length in advance about the budget needs (monthly rent + finding a pre-furnished apartment) & my health requirements which include the need for air-conditioning & my inability to navigate stairs. He said he understood, but when the day came, it was obvious he did not.

Side note about stairs and health: a lot of people judge me because I’m overweight, they assume it’s laziness, and that if I’d just eat less and exercise more I’d be healthy! Nope. I’m a member of the invisible disability club “But You Don’t Look Sick”. Sometimes I am well enough to climb multiple flights of stairs, but not always. Heat makes it worse. If I’ve already walked a lot, it will be harder. It’s hot AF here and I walk everywhere. I’m going to be hoarding my spoons the whole time I’m here. (spoon theory) I don’t believe that people with chronic illness or disabilities should just NOT do things. We know what we need to accommodate ourselves. I can’t do as much. I need to rest more. I need AC for my health not just my comfort. And I need stairs to be a choice as often as possible.

The first apartment we stopped at was inside a restaurant. I mean, the entrance was at least. There were 2 ways to access it, but fundamentally the stairwell was inside a restaurant. Ok, hey, easy access to prepared food at least? However after we completed the first flight of stairs and began the second, I stopped and reminded my sponsor that I could not live in a place with that many stairs. I think he thought I was just being a lazy American when I told him about it in email, but thankfully(?) my edema was bad enough on that day that I could show him the physical effects. I hate that people have to see a health problem before they believe it’s real, but here we are.

The second place we went to was under construction and slightly underground. They told me things could be cleared away and cleaned up, but there was no AC, no kitchen, and very little in the way of natural light. Plus it was under some stairs and had a canted ceiling which gave the whole thing a Harry-Potter-at-the-Dursley’s feeling. In that case, not only would I have had to wait until it was finished and cleaned up, but I would have had to arrange to furnish it with literally every appliance and stick of furniture. I’m only here for 10 months! And even if I was up for all that, the place was tiny and dim, and I remembered how depressed I was in my shoebox in Gyeongju vs how much better I was with a more open space and a view. Another no.

The third place had a ground floor entrance, but only the living room was on the ground floor. The bedroom and kitchen were up a flight of stairs. Having to continuously explain your needs and not be listened to over and over is exhausting and demoralizing. They showed me another room in the same complex that was so tiny that the bed almost completely blocked the entrance to the kitchen. Like, you had to side scoot around the bed to get into the kitchen. Plus, no place to do any work besides the bed (again, a thing I knew from my first Gyeongju apartment during COVID was a recipe for depression). I began to suspect that they deliberately took me to some sketchy places so that the mediocre place they actually wanted me to live would seem great by comparison.

The 4th place we visited was actually a very nice building. Concierge at the front desk, and an elevator! The unit we viewed was only one floor up, but still, not having to do stairs with heavy groceries or on a bad day is always wonderful. The unit however, was unfurnished (though at least had AC installed already). I do have a budget that would allow for buying necessary furnishings, but it takes time and expense reports, and then what do I do with it when I leave? Despite all this, I almost went with this unit because it was the nicest by far. However, they demanded 4 months rent up front, and it became apparent that 3 of those months would never be returned. 1 was just an agency fee, and 2 were a security deposit that by all accounts would vanish and I would have no real recourse after leaving the country to get it back.

The 5th place, and the place they clearly want me to end up living, is the building I’m staying in now. It’s called a hotel, but is in reality a series of furnished apartments rented out by the day. My social sponsor has negotiated a monthly rate, but the apartment we viewed will not be ready until November 5 or 6, so I’m in a different room paying the day rate for 2 weeks, I guess. More expense reports.

This room is … unideal. It had a lot of flies when I moved in, but it seems since I killed them, no new ones have appeared. It only has AC in the bedroom, so I’m not inclined to use the other room. The TVs don’t work so I’m back to watching Netflix on my laptop. There was a washing machine which I was able to get the staff to help me use, and that was nice, being able to do laundry after a week of sweating. However, the shower was 80% broken, water came out of the seams around the shower head, and there was some kind of a leak around the toilet that made the floor always wet. I was not supposed to be in that room at all. I was supposed to go to a different room while we figured out the long term housing, but the person leaving that room hadn’t left by the time we arrived. Then I was supposed to be in this room for only one day, and I waited around the entire second day for someone to tell me where I was moving to, only to learn at the end of the day that I’d be there until Saturday (29th). Now I know I’m staying in this room until my monthly room is ready. I got the bathroom fixed at least.

I desperately want a room that I can know will be mine for at least a few months. I need to unpack, and settle .Twice now, I’ve woken up at 4am to discover the power in ONLY my room is out and had to get dressed enough (Alhamdulillah I still have my abaya, socially suitable to put over PJs in any country) to go the front desk to ask (in sleepy French) for the power to come back. By then, I’m too hot and agitated to go back to sleep well. The weekend brought the exciting discovery that somewhere above me someone is trying to run a nightclub from 1-5am with extreme bass. I mostly can’t hear it with my headphones in, but it was not conducive to good sleep. Aside from my comfort level, there’s finances to consider. My contract covers RENT, not hotels (it does cover hotels for a short while at the beginning, but at one point one of the people helping us look for apartments thought it would be reasonable to stay in a hotel for a whole month while we figured out housing!) And the even crazier part is that my “moving in” budget comes from the same pool of money for any projects I want to do that benefit my host country, so the longer they make me stay in hotels, the less money I have to spend on materials, supplies, or even micro-scholarships for them. I need to be in a monthly rent agreement place for so many reasons both personal and project based.

In a very recent development, a new option appears. One of the other ladies here on the Fulbright program had already done a homestay last spring, and her host mother turned out to be a realtor. In many countries, realtors help you find and rent apartments. I had that arrangement in Korea, too. The realtor my social sponsor arranged was the one who picked out all the sketchy apartments. Anyway, they got her in touch with me, so now I have a thread of hope that a better apartment may be forthcoming.

The School – Veterinarians

Ah, my “job”. I keep telling people this isn’t a job like other jobs. It’s a fellowship (yeah like Frodo!, no not really) and a project. My primary goal is the university I’m assigned to, but I’m also supposed to have side projects and other cultural whatsits to be involved in. I’ve already put out some good feelers for a side project which I’ll write more about if anything comes of it, and I’ve been invited to come and speak at some nebulous future date at at least 2 venues. Secondary projects abound, and I can take, leave or redefine them fairly easily. The challenge is my host university.

I was placed with the Ecole Inter-Etats des Sciences et Médecine Vétérinaires, and even if you don’t speak French, some of those words will be familiar science, medicine, veterinary… It is a veterinary school located inside the Cheik Anta Diop Univeristy here in Dakar. They aren’t into the humanities. They don’t have an existing English department, and for reasons I’m not clear on, they can’t just send their students over to the school of foreign languages next door to take some English, they are in fact trying to create their very own curriculum.

There is really only one guy who speaks English well enough to be comfortable talking to me, and he’s (self described) low on the totem pole, so doesn’t have a lot of the answers to my questions about the details of what they want and what resources they have for this. I finally got their curriculum proposal (in French, but Google Translate is better than nothing) which is only half written and clearly by people who have no clue how language acquisition works. I also had a brief meeting with the gentleman in charge of scheduling details, but can’t get any answers about things like instruction hours. I clearly don’t know how the semesters are structured here. It’s been explained that it’s not like a liberal arts style class where you go at the same time every week for 10-16 weeks (quarter vs semester), but that students rotate through very short and very intensive courses of study (2-3 weeks at a time?). I’m still trying to figure out if I need to design English classes on that time scale or if it’s even possible to have students regularly show up 2x a week. So far I’ve written a 4 page counter memo explaining the overambitious nature of their dream and the crushing weight of compromising with reality, but I don’t know who to give it to.

They also want clinic workshops which are much easier to create and run, but less effective for overall language acquisition. Since I have next to no data or guidance, and everyone who could speak to me about it is apparently out of town or busy for the next two weeks, I’ve decided to spend some time on YouTube and TikTok looking for videos by vets that are: a) educational, b) funny, c) both — in order to design some short one-shot workshops around those. However, since I can’t design anything until I have some idea of the students actual English level, implementing a widespread level assessment test is the first goal.

But that’s not all! They want the faculty, admin, and IT staff to have English lessons relevant to their needs! While I was cleaning 3 years of dust off the pre-COVID Fellow’s desk (now my desk) I found a schedule which had him doing 18 hours of classes a week! That is a high amount even if it’s your only job because on average, 2 hours outside of class for every hour in class is a good balance for adequate lesson prep and homework/assessment grading and feedback on a new course. Once you’ve done a course a time or two, you can drop that down to 1:1 because the lessons are basically made and you’ve developed some tricks to grading the assignments, but considering I’ll be designing the curriculum and either finding or creating all the materials, and I’m expected to have outside projects, that’s INSANE.

What Am I Doing Here?

So, here I am, wandering between my shabby hotel apartment and the local café, writing in my blog and diving down a veterinary rabbit hole on YouTube because I have no qwerty keyboard at my office and no access to the curriculum material or student information, and my social sponsor is out of town.

I wish I could tell you about the city, and the food, and culture, but honestly, I’ve been fairly mono-focused on my base level Maslow’s needs here, contending with vaguely poor health while having to negotiate in a foreign language daily for things like food, water, and shelter. I’ve talked before about culture shock, and the fact that even simple tasks take more energy in a foreign place/language. It’s no joke, and it hasn’t left me with much energy for adventure type exploring. I’ve walked around some. The sidewalks are used for parked cars leaving pedestrians to walk in traffic (yay). There are lots of vendors on the street that I look forward to investigating soon. I have downloaded the recommended ride share apps that should allow me to avoid haggling with taxi drivers, but I probably won’t do much “touristing” until December when the weather is less aggressive and I can be outside for more than an hour or two without getting dizzy.

Welcome to Senegal.

English Language Fellowship: the People Side

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

The human element is something that I got less and less of during the pandemic, but will be a big part of my next adventure. Although interminable paperwork is the hallmark of any international and/or academic project, the English Language Fellowship application also requires multiple interviews, and the pre-departure process benefits from making early contacts.

Interview Process:

Almost as soon as I got the application fully submitted, and my last reference completed their essays, I got an email inviting me to a video interview. It happened much faster than I thought possible. The email gave me a basic overview of what to expect in the interview and three date/time slots to choose from.

The time allotted was 30-minute for the Zoom interview. I was told it would focus on “behavioral competencies which have been identified as important to the success of Fellows working overseas in challenging environments” including: Flexibility, Resourcefulness and problem solving, Leadership, Cultural adaptability, and Working with others. For each behavioral competency, I then had to address three aspects: (1) the situation or task in which you displayed the behavior, (2) the actions you took, and (3) the results of those actions. A recording of my answers, I was told, would then be added to my application.

I agonized the entire time between receiving this email and having the interview. I had to take a later date because I had already planned my trip to the ski resort, so I used the time to brainstorm ideas and bounce them off my friends. I wrote down multiple possible situation/tasks for each competency and thought through the actions and results. I got one friend who was skilled in education and one who was more skilled in presentations and projects, and I asked them for time to listen to my options and help me choose. I am so glad that I did this. Although I was nervous, after really discussing each competency and how my examples highlighted them, I felt truly prepared. I also decided to tell my situations as stories, which, again, if you’re here on the blog, you know is something I love to do.

It was a great decision. The interviewer loved my storytelling! He really complimented my presentation style and said it was something that would serve me well in the fellowship. After participating in the pre-departure orientation, I realized why – there are a lot of videos and presentations where fellows tell stories from their fellowship as a way to share their experiences and help promote cultural exchange.

The first interview was just to gather my answers so I could be placed in the matching pool. The day after my zoom call, I got the email that I was officially in the applicant pool and could receive my 2nd interview anywhere from a week to 5 months. This process is not for people who can’t live with uncertainty, but again, they are looking for flexibility in candidates. I was putting off giving notice at my university until the absolute last moment I could responsibly and professionally do so, which is 90 days for me by the way. February was still early enough in the semester that I wasn’t too worried about a delay, but I was anxious in that kids before Christmas way because this was by far the best opportunity I had encountered in my search, and I really really wanted it.

Nevsehir, Turkey

It took me most February to find my future HVF Dr., and in the mean time I was still doing my online classes and applying for other jobs, not knowing how serious the “not a guarantee of placement” the disclaimers were. Finally, on April 21 I got a match with the program in Turkey. This was a little startling, as I had just declined a job offer in Ankara, Turkey in March (that university didn’t think I would have any time to explore the country because of my work hours, which was a pretty big red flag). The Fellowship position was in Nevsehir, which is a little remote, but not any worse than my current town in Korea, and I’ve never been to Turkey, so it would be something new.

Unfortunately, the interview was a bit underwhelming. Before my interview, I was sent a pdf guide that outlined questions we might be asked and might want to ask, which was a very thoughtful tool. But, when I was given the chance to ask questions back to them, they seemed entirely unprepared. I asked some fairly basic ones, like “what do you like most about your town?” (the tourist attraction “fairy chimneys” was the unanimous answer, and I believe they are beautiful, but I have been living in a beautiful but boring town for 4 years now, so if the locals don’t have anything else to say about it, hmmmm).

Nevşehir, Turkey. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons Credit: rawpixel.com

I asked some things about the school, and teaching styles, which got some cookie cutter answers, and I asked why they wanted me, why they were in the program. That was the hardest, because the answer was basically, “We want an American because our students never see one.” And, I totally understand that getting students to speak to native speakers is great, and that this town wanted more tourism and needed to get people used to seeing Americans. But, I have played token foreigner before, it’s an unfulfilling role. Like being a character in a theme park. It can be fun when you’re out at the big tourist destinations, but it stops being fun when you just want to do your shopping. I don’t think there’s anything objectively wrong with what they want from the program, I just worried that I was not going to be as fulfilled by it as I had hoped.

I left the interview with a lot of mixed feelings. I really wanted to be in the program, and to get out of my current situation, and to have a new adventure. I had applied to the other job in Turkey because I though that since flights are crazy with COVID, maybe living someplace where I could do a little extra travel by train would be nice (Korea has great trains, but you can’t get to another country from there overland). Turkey has a lot of cool neighbors, and it seemed like I could get a lot of adventure from there. Conversely, it seemed like plenty of schools in Turkey hired English teachers directly, so why go through this particular program to this particular school if I felt safe, comfortable and competent to get a position in Turkey on my own?

I decided that I would accept the match if it was offered. I worried that turning it down would boot me or at least make me less desirable to future matches. To be very clear, I would not have accepted any position that was not an improvement on my current circumstances. This wasn’t me settling for less. I had some very high hopes for the ELP after everything they told us about remote and unusual locations, but I was already looking at a position in Turkey (just one with a better work-life balance than my March interview). I didn’t think I would be unhappy in Nevsehir, and I was dreaming of how to help locals make English language AirBnB experiences to meet their tourism goals, and looking at local activities, photos, and blogs that very night to think about the cool things I could do.

I woke up the next day to see that the host university declined the match. I was a little bit sad, but mostly relieved. I was back in the pool, which meant more limbo waiting, but it also meant a chance a match that could be more in line with my ideals.

Taiwan Sidebar

In the mean time, I was still applying for other schools and conducting other interviews this whole time because the DoS kept saying “no guarantee you’ll be placed”. One such was in Taiwan. Although Taiwan has the same ‘fly to leave’ problem as Korea, it was still on my list of desirable countries because a) I speak Chinese better than Korean, and b) I really like Chinese culture, but didn’t see myself going back to the mainland c) Taiwan is the most liberal and forward thinking democracy in Asia, and d) the food.

I had an earlier interview with one university whose representative was extremely enthusiastic about my demo video (a real video of one of my real classes that I edited for highlights). I was awaiting a secondary interview with them when I got the match for Senegal. Although my interview for Dakar was May 4, and on May 5 I was offered the post, nothing was official until that health form and all the other intake paperwork was complete and approved, so I wasn’t quite willing to put all my eggs in one basket yet. As a result, I accepted their invitation for a second interview when it came.

Despite the fact that they were quite enthusiastic about my resume and demo, they were very demanding as well. Part of that was entirely understandable, they needed to be sure I had all the required documents to meet the governments visa rules. The other part was more red flag, or at least a yellow card. There was desk warming, and micro-management, and pretty much zero flexibility. It wasn’t bad enough for me to walk away from (no worse than EPIK), but it wasn’t awesome either. Plus they were REALLY pushing me for a multi-year commitment. They were only hiring because their last English teacher didn’t meet the new updated visa requirements. I said that if things went well, I was happy to stay 2-4 years, but that I wouldn’t know until I got there. They did not like that answer.

Dakar, Senegal

Just a week after the interview for Nevsehir, I got my next potential match for Dakar, Senegal. The overview of the job struck me as a little strange since it was for a veterinary school, but without any additional details, I assumed their English program would focus on international standards for participating in study abroad, international conferences, and publications (spoiler alert, there IS no English department!). I was far more excited at the prospect of Dakar than I had been about Nevsehir. For one, I have wanted to experience sub-Saharan Africa for years with no real opportunity to do so. Tourism in Africa is actually both difficult and expensive, while jobs for English teachers are thin on the ground, the only ones I’d found before were either volunteer, pay to volunteer, or required French fluency.

For another, Dakar is a big urban space on the sea, which is definitely one of my favorite combinations. Senegal is a very stable African country, and Dakar is a cultural hotspot. I could live and work in Africa with support and security, be based in an urban center, but have reasons and ability to travel to the countryside and villages. 10/10 on the adventure scale more than made up for whatever obstacles I could imagine encountering teaching English at a veterinary school. I had to wait some more, there were some holidays in Senegal at the time, so my actual interview was May 4.

The interview process was night and day different from the one with Nevsehir. The first match interview was a group zoom with the Embassy representative and three English teachers form the local university. I was obviously there to talk to the teachers, and the Embassy rep was trying to facilitate. It felt a lot like a traditional job interview for any university program. The zoom call with the folks in Dakar was 2 people from the Embassy, the very American white guy and a local woman who had worked in the Embassy for many years (oh, and the American guy has since relocated, so I get a new boss!). There was no one from the university involved. Additionally, the mood of the interview was more causal, laid back and easygoing, where the one for Turkey felt very stilted and performative.

We chatted about expectations and obstacles. I think they understood how challenging West Africa is for Americans to adjust to with rolling blackouts, unreliable water supplies, and a general lack of teaching supplies in most schools. I told some stories from my own life (pre-Korea, cause let’s face it, it’s really soft there), and I told them the one and only time I’ve had to leave due to such issues, and they seemed quite shocked that I had lasted as long a I did at that particular place, and assured me they did not expect anything quite so bad in Dakar. Once we reassured each other that I could take the problems they anticipated and they wouldn’t expect me to put up with conditions I knew I would not, we had a really lovely chat.

They did briefly address the lack of any concrete plan for me or English classes, but in the end, I told them quite honestly that I was so excited by the chance to live and work in this part of the world with a support network and safety net, that there was very little they could say to dampen my enthusiasm. I got the official offer the next day. (despite the many surprises that I have encountered since accepting and the mounting pile of confusion and uncertainty, I am still very enthusiastic).

Life Choices:

Although I got the offer May 5, I didn’t get my actual contract until June 25th. Experience has taught me that it’s not real until the contract is signed. In the case of life-after-COVID, a signed contract is still dependent on travel conditions and government restrictions, but it’s as reliable as I can expect. During this very long wait, I had a lot of thoughts and anxieties, not the least the political unrest in Dakar over the summer about the elections. My brain started having tiny little panic attacks about the idea of giving up my safety and comfort. Was I being totally irresponsible to wander off on a short term project in a pandemic and a brewing European war impacting travel, the economy, and the job market?

The Taiwan school had yet to make me an official offer, but had made their interest very apparent. They were pressuring me all this time for a commitment, and I kept trying to tell them that I was interviewing at other places, but that IF they offered me a job and I accepted, I wouldn’t back out. They kept saying I had to commit before they made the offer. It seemed like neither one of us wanted to be the first to say yes.

I told the story about Taiwan because at this point in the process I had a come-to-Disney moment (it’s like a come-to-Jesus moment, but Disney). I got Pocahontas’ first song stuck in my head. I don’t even like that movie very much, but I know all the songs because it was one of the ones my little sister watched daily for about a year. I still like the song about rivers because I want an adventure life too. It’s the same reason I love Belle’s song about “adventure in the great wide somewhere”, though I’m not as into Ariel’s “part of your world”. My Disney Princess Moment was experienced while sitting on my balcony I realized that the job in Taiwan was more stable: they wanted a long term commitment, Taiwan just launched a “bilingual by 2030” initiative so job stability was in. I already knew I could communicate, and get around having visited back in 2019 on my own. It would be new enough to be exciting but also familiar enough to be safe. Then it hit me: Taiwan was Kocoum.

(In this metaphor, Senegal is NOT John Smith, I really prefer the no-prince spate of recent Disney movies to the romance minded and culturally problematic movies of my own childhood, but in the context of the song, it’s Kocoum vs Adventure. I prefer more “Moana choosing the sea” as a metaphor, but I never memorized the lyrics to that song, so it doesn’t pop into my head unbidden in moments of existential crisis).

Both Feet In:

I got the agreement June 25, signed it and sent it back, checking the online portal to see the last piece of paperwork approved, and it didn’t come. It turns out that there had been a glitch in the internet when I hit send, and it went into my drafts folder instead of to the program. Thankfully, they checked on me, and I found and fixed the mistake, and the final approval was granted on July 6. It took me a few days to realize that the school in Taiwan was not going to take a subtle hint, so on July 10 I finally sent a very clear, “thanks but no thanks” email. They didn’t reply.

Once I was committed, I started the work of preparing my necessary travel vaccines. Unlike with the HVF, living in Korea was actually an advantage this time. I could see that my required vaccines were up to date, but there was a laundry list of other recommended vaccines and one that might be required for me because I had been in Korea. Korean citizens are required to get the Yellow Fever vaccine before going to Senegal while Americans are merely recommended to do so, but that’s about location and exposure, and I didn’t want to take any chances that they’d see my Korean visa and turn me away. In the end, I got 6 vaccines – 2 boosters and 4 new. The yellow fever vaccine was the worst in terms of side effects because it’s a live vaccine, but rabies vaccine required 3 shots over 4 weeks.

Maybe I won’t need any of these, Dakar is a very cosmopolitan place, the risk of exposure is low there. However I will be spending a lot of time at a veterinary school and animals are vectors for a lot of disease, plus I hope to get opportunities to travel into the countryside where unfortunately risk of exposure is higher. The vaccines help me feel like I can do all that without worrying too much, and in Korea they are 3-4x cheaper than in the US where most of them aren’t even covered by health insurance. I don’t think I would have gotten them all if I had to pay US prices. My year supply of anti-malarials was also 1/4 the cost of the same medicine in America. If I was in America, I probably would have bought a 90 day supply in advance and then acquired more when I got to Dakar, but it’s one less thing to worry about. Yay Korean healthcare!

The Community of Practice:

Since that time, I’ve zoom calls and WhatsApp chats with former Senegal fellows, the new RELO, and the COP (community of practice) for both the fellowship orientation and the Training of Trainers course. It’s so different from any other job or program I’ve been a part of because I’ve been working on it in one way or another all year and it hasn’t even started yet. It’s also different in that peer & mentor support are everywhere! Whether I’m getting reassurance from a more experienced mentor or reassuring a peer who has less international experience than me, it’s truly marvelous to be a part of a supportive community, and I look forward to meeting even more folks face to face when I arrive including the embassy staff, the Fulbright scholars, and my host institution professors.

I’m currently in the US, busily having fun with friends and family so, I haven’t written as much about the TOT (training of trainers) course as I would have liked. It’s a lot of work, and wrapping my brain around new ideas, but I feel like I’m elevating to a whole new level in my career! Also, my start date in Dakar was pushed back to October 18, so keep an eye out for the “Welcome to Dakar” post around Halloween. Thanks for reading!


Jeff Attaway from Abuja, Nigeria, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

English Language Fellowship: I’m In!

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

I am pleased to share with you that I have been selected by U.S. Department of State for a prestigious English Language Teaching Fellowship, and on October 11, 2022, I will start my 10-month fellowship project training teachers and teaching English in Dakar, Senegal at Ecole Inter-Etats des Sciences et Medecine Veterinaire as one of only 200 U.S. citizens chosen to travel to over 80 countries for the 2022-2023 English Language Fellow Program.  The program enables Fellows to enact meaningful and sustainable changes in the way that English is taught abroad, and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) with funding provided by the U.S. government. Fellows work directly with local teachers, students, and educational professionals to improve the quality of English language instruction offered at prestigious universities and other academic institutions.

Since 1969, the English Language Fellow Program has sent thousands of TESOL scholars and educators abroad to promote English language learning, enhance English teaching capacity, and foster mutual understanding between the U.S. and other countries through cultural exchange. On assignment, Fellows teach English, conduct teacher training, develop resources, and organize events and conferences. These projects are challenging and the teachers selected represent the best of the U.S. TESOL community. In return, the program provides professional development opportunities to help participants experience different cultures and build skills that can greatly enhance their TESOL careers.

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State, administered by Georgetown University, Center for Intercultural Education and Development. For further information about the English Language Fellow Program or the U.S. Department of State, please visit their website, contact them by telephone at 202-632-6452, or e-mail ECA-Press@state.gov.

And if that sounds like a press release, it’s because it is! Formalities aside, I am extremely excited. The English Language Fellowship mini-series will start with stories about my application process, interviews, and pre-departure training and prep. After that, I hope to have plenty of posts about Life in Dakar starting in mid-late October once I’m settled in and get the Wi-Fi rolling.

Welcome to the next adventure!!!