My last day in Senegal. I went to church in the morning and on my way home, I had an interesting exchange with the taxi driver. I flagged down the taxi, stated my destination and my price, to which he beckoned me to get in. However, as soon as we started driving, he began to ask for more money. I told him no, we’d already agreed on a price and we argued for a bit before he shut up, accepting my price – I assumed. But when we arrived, I paid him and as I was walking away, he jumped out of the taxi, ran after me, and grabbed onto my bag, pulling me back, and yelling at me in Wolof (demanding more money I guess). This stirred up quite a scene and not too long after, there was a crowd circling around us. One of the bystanders heard out my side of the story and then yelled something at the taxi driver, who responded by letting go of my bag and heading back to his car, realizing he was now outnumbered. A little rattled, I thanked my liberator and made my way up to the apartment. There, I was greeted by an awesome Ivorian meal that Franck had cooked up to celebrate. A combination of the stressful taxi driver situation, my hunger, and having part of my mind on my flight this evening, caused me to forget to take a picture or write down the names of the different parts of the meal. I will do my best to describe it though. There was fish, like always, but done in a special fashion, different from the Senegalese way. There was a really nice, tasty red sauce, consisting of a variation of chopped vegetables. And finally, there was the piece of the meal that's the hardest to explain. It was these little, white, cake-type things that were kind of like a rice muffin but they weren't rice... Whatever they were (I will ask Franck for clarification), they were very good with the sauce! After lunch, I took my last Dakarian shower and then finished packing my bags – which turned out to be a small challenge. Hopefully nothing gets bent, broken, or damaged during the flight. My plane was scheduled to take off at 22h40. We arrived at the airport around 20h10, which gave me enough time to check in my luggage and then go back outside to spend some precious last few minutes with Franck. Nobody cried, but it was very emotional nonetheless, saying goodbye to what has been my home for the past seven weeks – and more importantly, saying goodbye to my new, African brother. After promising to stay in contact regularly, I headed back into the airport to make my way through security and board the plane to Nice.
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