Seattle Times

This is for all those of you who have faced the airport chaos in Dakar.

OK. It's a quiet Saturday at the Hampton house. It was a hectic week, including some planning yesterday with Aaron about how to keep the two-dozen women of the Wheaton Soccer team busy when they come in mid-May. And then there was that 6-foot long cobra that he and the guys killed the day before. I know he took pictures. Somebody write Sara and demand a post!

But back to my quiet Saturday. So after working on my bills and as I chatted with my wife, I was sorting through old files, trying to actually throw some things away in spite of my pack-rat nature. And Jane opened up the next file in the stack and said, "Hey, what this?"

It turned out to be a 20 year old newspaper from Seattle with an article about Dakar. Well, we weren't yet here 20 years ago, so I'm not sure how exactly we ended up with it in a miscellaneous file on my desk in our apartment in Ouakam. But reading the first few paragraphs was such a "hoot" that I just had to share it with you. I quickly searched on-line and was shocked that the full article by Jerry Large is still available! If you want to see the whole thing go to http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900902&slug=1090925.

Here is the funny bit:

"After a flight of nearly 4,000 miles and 13 hours across Africa from Nairobi, Kenya, my wife and I arrived, safari-stained and weary, in Senegal's capital city late one November night. Our first encounters introduced us to two characteristics of the city - high-energy salesmanship and preoccupation with style.

Taxi drivers swarmed around us at the Dakar airport, offering their services at prices inflated well beyond those posted by the airport to prevent drivers from cheating new arrivals.

I tried being nice, but firm. I tried nasty glares and hostile tones. They weren't fazed. In exasperation, I stood in the middle of the circle and yelled my final price. It didn't work.

I thought of the scene from ``The Birds'' when the crows are pecking at the heads of people and chasing them from a school yard. It helped to see the humor in the situation.

I relaxed, folded my arms and let the drivers yell until one decided to take us to the hotel for something approaching a reasonable price.

We were hemmed in on both sides by other taxis parked helter-skelter. But our driver, we quickly learned, was the kind of person who sees opportunities where others see only obstacles. He stepped on the gas and rammed one of the offending cars out of the way, putting a nice crease in the sides of both vehicles."

And that was twenty years ago!

He goes on to talk about some of the great sides to Dakar and life in Senegal, but like most of us, the first impression is the chaos of the airport! And if you see the humor in it, of course, you move on and find the rest.