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Geneva to Ziguinchor, Senegal - October 3rd-5th 2012 

I was not fortunate enough to get offered a salary for it but I was fortunate enough nonetheless to be offered a 6 month internship in the southern Senegalese city of Ziguinchor. It was a place I’d visited once before in 2006 and had fond memories of so it was a great opportunity to a) work for nothing as opposed to sitting around at home for nothing, b) get away from the European winter and finally get revenge on all of those who called me from warmer climes on those cold April mornings when I was living in Helsinki and c) get within view of the first rung on the job ladder which was seeming ever more elusive.

The cheapest way there was with Turkish Airlines, the company which very kindly left my mother and I in the crap for 2 days in Abidjan a couple of months ago. I had a 22 hour layover in Istanbul which I figured was probably enough to account for Turkish Airlines scheduling, booked myself a dorm bed in a hostel downtown and hit the airport for the uneventful flight to Turkey.  I had a vague knowledge of how to get into the centre of town and after a metro and tram ride to the stop by Hagia Sophia, I realised that I had no idea where this hostel was aside from that it was roughly in this area. I had a street name which no one (including the taxi drivers I asked while wandering around) seemed to have heard of and the name of the hostel which, obviously, no one seemed to have heard of. Having walked around old Istanbul for well over an hour during which I accosted various people in the street, restaurant owners and tourists armed with guide books all to no avail, I finally found another hostel where I got directions to the one I was looking for. It was approaching 1am so I did the sensible thing and walked off to get an Efes beer, had a chat with a couple of Italians on the next table and hit the sack quite a bit later than I probably should have. Two hours later, I was woken up by someone in the dorm heading to the toilet and then kept awake by someone else who was snoring with great vigour and after several more hours of sleeplessness I decided to get up. My flight wasn’t until late in the evening and I’d planned to have a day walking around Istanbul. I’d had this same plan on the way back from Abidjan but had been foiled by the flight delay, and this plan was now foiled by a quick inspection of my bag which revealed that I had forgotten to pack swimming shorts and the cables for both my shaver and my laptop.

Having quickly considered growing a large beard, being unable to work and being reduced to skinny dipping, I headed off to a part of town I’d seen on the way in which seemed loaded with electronics shops. The street on the way there was full of clothing shops and housed probably enough bikinis for every woman in Turkey yet male customers were, as in many places, slightly less enthusiastically catered for. I finally found a shop where I was directed to the basement but decided to pass on the small selection of garish Speedos, gave up on this quest and went on a hunt for the laptop cable. An hour later I found a shop with a decent selection, found the cable and whipped out the 17 lira indicated on the front of the box and was promptly informed that the price wasn’t in lira but in US dollars. After a bit of discussion I managed to pay in Euros and emerged into the bright Istanbul sunshine intent on doing at least a bit of tourism. Having seen a few of the mosques and landmarks in town and went for the totally pointless yet satisfying quest of walking from one continent to another, spotted the closest bridge from Europe to Asia and set off on what turned out to be a 2 hour trek to where I discovered the bridge was for vehicles only. A slight letdown, and it was time to head back to the airport for my flight to Dakar.

Despite my experiences coming back from Côte D’Ivoire, I had to say that Turkish Airlines’ inflight entertainment system is second to none and I spent the 10 hour flight watching films, various series and playing Sudoku on my little screen in the seat in front of me and enjoying the food which is, by airline standards, pretty good. Washed down with a little Turkish red wine of course...

Dakar airport can be a slightly bewildering experience. I’d only been here once before and it was to fly out and so the arrival was a new experience. The baggage hall was packed with guys who were trying to help me with my bags and enquire as to whether I’d been to Senegal or not and by the time I’d shaken them off and got to a little hostel by the airport it was 1am. Displaying much sense just like when I arrived in Istanbul, I took a Gazelle beer and enjoyed the heat, still close to suffocating at this time of night, sent a few emails back home and got to sleep at 3am. 6am came, my alarm clock went off and I dragged myself out of bed again to Dakar’s central station, a vast wasteland filled with the saloon cars that make up the majority of Senegal’s public transport system. Waiting time can be anything from minutes to hours as you wait for the car to fill up, being offered everything to buy while you wait – sunglasses, phone chargers, food and drink, mobile phone holders and what can only be described as some sort of assault flick-knife which I assumed would be far more useful to the vendor as a tool for mugging passengers rather than something to sell.

Comfort-wise, the trip depends very much on when you arrive at the station. The first passenger gets the front seat and travels in luxury, the next 3 get the middle row which is fine, and the last 3 are squashed into the back row like sardines. I arrived 5^th and so had a place in the back row but still had to wait for another 2 passengers to arrive which they eventually did in the form of 2 large rastamen, meaning that we spent the majority of the 10 hour trip awkwardly squirming, each trying to get a few drops of blood flowing into our feet. The rainy season was just coming to an end and so the country was plastered in a beautiful array of shades of green, dotted with enormous baobab trees, getting greener as we crossed over the Gambia River courtesy of an improbable looking ferry where workers had to build a ramp out of earth every time it docked to allow the trucks and cars off at each end.

Arrival in Ziguinchor 57 hours after leaving Geneva was as good as I could have hoped – met by new flatmates who were all very nice and went straight for beer and chicken with them.

I’m back……