June 21st

Today I walked again. Only about 18km, but it felt good to walk, though urban Dakar is not as meditative as the Camino. Many people had told me that when the Camino ends, peregrinos still feel the need to walk everyday. Like an hitch. I didn't have that feeling. I think because when we finished, I was so tired, to have overcome my two tendinitis, and to have Angelina fly back to Brazil, and to travel to a new continent. But now that I am a bit adjusted, yes, I kind of feel the need to move and be on the go. Though the beauty of the Camino was to be within a frame made for peregrinos, and surrounded by people who either are peregrinos or who know all about it. It almost felt like when I was living on campus at American University. Surrounded by people in the same frame everyday. Easy to befriend people, easy to relate to one another. Just a relaxed atmosphere of people with the same overall objective.

Once out of Spain, it is a totally different story. In a way I am glad that I am hanging out with Astou for a while as I think it would have been hard for me to "graduate" from the Camino and then be on my own to digest all this in a totally foreign context.

So today is also the first day of summer. Ha! Yes, it makes me realize that just like when I spent a summer in Kuwait, deciding to travel through Africa during the summer was perhaps not the bests of ideas. Lol oh well...I am here now...so I will make the very best of it.

I am amazed at how being in an healthy balanced relationship with Angelina is making me have a different approach on things. This afternoon, Astou was asked to be part of the jury for Elite Model Agency Africa region casting. Had I been single I would most definitely have jumped on the opportunity and begged Astou to take me with her. Today though, she offered me to go with her, but I declined. Instead I went walking 18km in the burning sun outside. No regrets at all.

Did you know that Dakar has the only shopping mall of francophone west Africa? Quite funny actually, as it does not look like those giant malls in the US. This one is rather like Bay Side mall in Miami, relatively small. And the funny thing is that apparently, many people come from all over not just to shop, but also to see an escalator for the very first time. They go up and down on it as if they were in an amusement park.

I still haven't found where I will be volunteering. I cant wait as I feel the need and want to get out of Dakar and move on to the next stop. Dakar is very expensive and not necessarily what I am looking for on !y trip. Good thing though is that it is allowing me to see another side of Africa that I wouldn't have suspected. It is more than apparent now that Africa does have a lot of money, but it is only concentrated in the hands and pockets of a few families. Is that unfair? Am not sure. I think that the unfair part is rather that the rich have enough money to grease the hands of the government and the administration to allow them to move ahead while the poor are stuck with what they have and have to simply accept what the administration is giving them and the pace at which it is administering. In such countries, money is a necessary evil if one wants to grow and evolve.