Last night in Dakar

Walking back to the hotel, I was full of raw fish and raw garlic. The Korean food was served with a red sauce, leaves of lettuce, and halved raw garlic cloves. I made wraps with the surprising ingredients that mixed well with each other. I was super happy with my last meal in Dakar, a $20 splurge well worth the taste of melting fish.

The 15 block walk to my 6th floor hotel room was surreal.

I walked down the middle of the street instead of the earlier weaving through the moving masses of car jams, carts, people, motorcycles, trucks. I walked unobstructed compared to the earlier feelings of being part of a video game hugging parked vehicles watching my feet and the protruding side mirrors of taxis as they beeped their way through narrow passageways.

It was a moment of silence.

The heavens were darkening with the setting sun. The sky was full of dark birds circling above. The air was full of prayers sung from loud speakers.

It was a moment of religious silence.
Everything seemed to be praying.

The narrow alley like streets below 2 story buildings were lined by non-moving huge trucks stacked high with bags of onions, by resting metal carts, lined by rows of men facing Mecca bowing in prayer, full of wooden benches of men breaking fast with coffee and sandwiches a feeling of a quiet rush to fill empty stomachs and wet dry throats.

I felt a sense of deep reverence, a sense of deep solidarity as a city prayed and broke fast.