Ile de Goree

Lying just a couple of kilometres off the coast here in Dakar is Ile de Goree, a world heritage site which is principally known for its role in the slave trade. Its a small island, easily visible from Dakar and only a 20 minute ferry ride from the port, but that 20 minutes takes you to a completely different world. The island has no cars and a small permanent population which is swelled each day by visiting tourists. Most of the buildings on the island date back to the 19c and earlier, with some dating back to the 15c when the Portuguese first arrived here. Not having had a chance to visit it so far, I'd arranged to go to-day with Judith, a colleague from the wfp office. We took the 10am ferry, and after a quick but very pleasant trip arrived in the little harbour, where local lads in the water were calling out for coins to be thrown in which they would then dive down and retrieve - all within a few metres of the ferry.

The island itself was an absolute delight - a real little gem which surpassed all expectations. Quiet, narrow lanes with little surprises at each turn, lovely terracotta buildings and little squares with trees and shrubs in blossom.

We were particularly struck by one huge palm tree - with some very strange looking fruit - colleagues at Vodafone may recognise them - in fact it's the local mobile phone mast! (see pic). On the far side of the island, away from the village, a small artists colony has grown up, based around some large gun emplacements from the second world war. There is also a small mosque, supposedly one of the oldest in West Africa, which looks like it must originally have been a church. One of the old houses has been turned into a museum on the slave trade, and includes a 'door of no return' - an opening out to the sea through which slaves were supposedly taken onto ships for transportation.

The weather was beautiful, right up until the point where we got on the ferry for the return to Dakar, at which point a storm which had been threatening all afternoon arrived with a vengeance. The ferry had to wait for the worst of it to pass before setting off, but even so every one got soaked to the skin, and then I had to drive the scooter back home through the driving rain as well - interesting!

The island was an absolute treat, and I will definitely be going back there.

Back home, and dried off I checked the cricket score - and England have won the Ashes!

Scootering aound Dakar

I’m mobile now – finally bought myself a scooter (see pic), so now every morning rather than negotiating with a taxi driver I just get on my scooter, drive along the corniche and into town. Its only about ten minutes into the office, and so long as the rain holds off (which it has so far), very pleasant, with nice views of the Atlantic ocean off to my right. Just have to be aware of the trafiic around me – apparently my scooter has a special feature which makes me completely invisible to taxi drivers! After work I can drive straight from the office to the club Atlantique for a swim, before going home again along the corniche, with views of the sun setting over the ocean.
In the office I have been working on getting some of the projects moving. The main work this week has been on a Food Voucher programme. This is a relatively new initiative for WFP – rather than distributing food, the idea is to give those in need vouchers which can be exchanged for food at local stores. This can be useful where the problem is high food prices rather than lack of food. One of the advantages of this approach is that it can help stabilize and inject liquidity into the local economy, and can also offer cost savings as there is no need to transport large quantities of food across what are often long distances. A number of pilot programmes have been run and it is expected that this will become an increasingly important way of distributing aid to those in need. I have been looking at how IT can support these programmes, as there are no real solutions available at the moment.
Ramadan starts at the weekend – either on Saturday or Sunday, depending on sightings of the moon. Of course this means that the local Muslims (by far the majority of the population here) will be fasting during the day, so I would imagine the atmosphere will be quite different.
Despite being here in Francophone West Africa where cricket is completely unknown , I’ve been able to follow the Ashes series as well, via TMS on the internet. Apologies to any readers who don't know what cricket is, and also to any Autsralians reading this (Salma?) - but right now listening to a frankly unbelievable comeback by England following the dismal performance in the last test – at this rate they’re actually in danger of winning the series.

Two weeks further on

I can’t believe that another 2 weeks have passed by. If there are any regular readers out there in blogland – apologies.
The French lessons at the Institut are still going well – we have had a couple of new joiners, including one girl from England – who’s just arrived in Dakar, and the airline have managed to lose all her luggage. I can’t say I feel very much progress – but perhaps it’s all sinking in somehow. Last week there was another concert at the Insitut. The band included a Kora player who played like Jimi Hendrix on speed – stunning, all the while with a huge grin on his face. A man that clearly enjoyed his music, which was great, but the concert had been so poorly promoted that there was hardly anyone there – such a shame.
On the work front, my boss, Alpha, is now back from vacation, so I spent some time earlier in the week taking him through my findings and recommendations on the projects. Generally in agreement on what we need to do, so now it’s a matter of prioritizing, but I would say there is plenty to keep me busy. We are also trying to arrange a regional IT team meeting, probably in September/October, which will be great chance to meet the IT teams from the rest of the region. Alpha is keen for me to provide some Project Management workshops as part of this meeting – should be interesting.
I’m trying to get myself mobile at the moment – it’s a pain (and expensive) having to rely on taxis all the time so I’m looking to buy a scooter. Have had a look at some, but can’t actually buy one yet because there’s been a delay in making payments from WFP and so I don’t have sufficient funds! Anyway hopefully it’ll be sorted soon – but it’s very frustrating. Anyone in Rome reading this –please help.