Believe it or not I will soon have 3 equally useless driving licenses. First, I got an Albanian, then a US one that expires this month and soon I'll get a Senegalese bit of plastic that will allow me to drive these bumpy roads. The process of getting each of them has allowed me to interact with the locals in quite a deep fashion. To me, getting a new license does not mean driving...but making new friends. In Albania I passed the written test with an Italian translator sitting by my side (since I do not speak Albanian), in Boston I learned how to drive automatic 1 day before the test, magnificently taught by my friend Ursula. Here in Dakar, Fatou from
autoecole Sarraut is finally teaching me the driving code and Mr. Whispers (still haven't understood his name since his voice is too feeble) makes me drive an old sweaty Nissan Sentra every morning at 9am. The car
per se deserves some lines: I thought Mr. Whispers had built it himself. It is so old, patched and beaten that sometimes people need to push behind it so we can start up the engine. The worst is actually not that, the most painful part of my daily driving is that the seats are covered with plastic and given the levels of heat in Dakar...you can already imagine the sweet feeling of sitting on top of plasticized seats. Mmm. Picture of the Nissan that I took hiding from Mr. Whispers above.
I want to be a good driver but probably not as good as BH. He is the Robin Hood of the Roads. He basically imparts the driving code while driving:
priorite!, move!, you drive too slow!, change your lights!, do no park there. He shakes his hands and hits the wheel, makes really angry faces, reprimands, and even klaxons (long ones....peeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh). Most drivers in Senegal never studied the code or even have a proper license, my little experience doing the 'vision' test here tells me that at least half of them would probably need vision glasses to drive....so, it is in this plasticky, sweaty, bumpy and half blind environment that I am learning how to finally drive and that you have to drive every day my dear BH...so relax and be patient.
Comments