To St. Louis and back

The world flashes by in an effervescent melange when your hanging off the back of a Car Rapide, the world takes on a whole new look, and a slightly disturbingly close aspect, especially when you see the street sweeping by just inches away from your feet. I never thought I would be haning off the back of the Car Rapide's like I've seen so many young Senegalese people doing, but we got of our Jagen Jay and just ran to the nearest bus we saw and hopped on.

Take the ticket, Take the ride.

"Transport en commun", that is the logo printed on the side of all the Car Rapides in Senegal, yet its so much different that the public transportation anywhere else. In the U.S. and (I am assuming) other European countries, the public transportation sector started out as a state funded entity. In Senegal it is anything but that. The Car Rapides, half the time even the Taxis are just anyone who could find a car, paint it with the appropriate colors, and learn how to drive well enought to get around the city. Many lack real liscences (a fact I personally know since one time I had to bribe a police officer to let our taxi keep driving). Even though there are police checks up and dow the Route National (the most heavily used highway in Senegal) and even all over in Dakar, there aren't enough police checkpoints to discourage a lot of people. Its amazing how things still work, in the U.S. we always feel that without at least some measure of government presence or assurance that all infrastructure would fall apart, but people here have it together, they know how to organize and keep a system going, despite the lack. The Car Rapides are typically Senegalese, they are old European made vans that are converted into small buses. First they start by stripping the car of anything they deem unnecessary. Usually this includes all inside decorations, even the spedometer (I have never once known the speed we were going while in a car in Senegal, all the spedometers are in the cars but they never work), I believe they do this because they think it'll bring them good luck. Once they strip the car of everything they saulder seats in place, leaving just enough room so that your knees dig into the back of the seat of the person in front of you. Even the hallways have seats that fold up and fall back into place, so you can pass through but then sit down when the Car is full. They then hang up curtains (which at first just seems ridiculous, but now I realize does help when the sun is glaring through the window for a 4 hour ride) and put various stickers everywhere. The amazing thing is that they are always the same stickers, these cheap detail stickers. The most common ones I have notices are City Boy, A madonna picture, and roses. The Car Rapides are perfectly Senegalese in this way, they take these images, which they probably have no idea whay they really mean, and they use them to their own use. When you first come to Dakar you notice that people paint the Nike symbol everywhere, it has taken on a new meaning in this context.

I guess you could call it reculturification, but its amazing how it works here. The way people take images and just repeat them because they seem important, even though they don't know why they are important. All tire shops here have hand painted replicas of the michelin tire men (some hillarious renditions too). These shops may not sell Michelin tires, and they may have never seen a Michelin tire in their lifetime, but for them this little man made out of tires is some universal symbol stating that tires are sold at this location. This is the same with many images. Everything from Vitalait (milk) advertisements, to Djibiteries (Djibiteries are the restaurants that sell tradtionally cooked goat meat). I guess in a country where a large percentage of the population is illiterate that they symboles serve their purpose, even if someone can't read they can see this man and know that they can buy tires at this location.

Everything in Senegal seems to work as if by magic, it seems to make absolutely no sense, yet keeps moving little by little. Along with all these symbols the fact that other systems exist, such as the various Unions that dictate the rules in terms of transportation and tourism. Its amazing how quickly people form unions once they start an enterprise. One stunning example occured while I was trying to take a Sept-Place, a station wagon that rents seven seats, to go back to Joal. There hadn't been any Sept Place's at the garage for several hours, and this meant there were a lot of hot, dehydrated and hassled (because a taxi man will seriously talk to you the entire time you are there telling you how stupid you are for trying to wait for another Sept-Place, when he could take you right now to Joal, just for 3 times the cost). Finally a taxi pulled up and said he would bring four people to Joal for the same price. I ran and got in (you actually have to run and push your way through others to get a seat) and waited. What he was doing was technically illegal, he did not have a liscence to bring passengers between neighboring cities, his liscence only allowed him to bring passengers between desitinations within the city. This prompted an explosion of arguments between the driver and the other taxi men, who immediately got out their cell phones and threatened to call the police if he took us. We ended up having to get out and wait for another, liscenced cab. I was amazed how well the system was worked out and how faithful people were to the system. The other taxi men refused to take a bribe (which our driver offered).

Sitting in a Jaygen Jay is a great experience, it lets you see a part of Senegal, both in terms of traveling and in terms of seeing what most senegalese people actually do, the transportation they really use to get from place to place. Sitting cramped between so many people, makes you feel trapped, almost like you are going to drown, but once you learn to live with it, to make the most of it you seem to float on it all, almost enjoy these kind of situations. Like what a Senegalese man said to me the other day, "Now you are inside, in the middle of it all". He was talking about my cultural adjustement, but it pertains to this and so much more.