Last night, rattling into Dakar, the moon obfuscated by man’s bright lights and pollution, my ankles rivaling my thighs in size, every inch of my body affixed by sweat or god knows what grime to something else—be it the old man next to me whose lips moved in silent prayer for the entire five hours he sat rigidly at my side or Kendall’s Senegalese pillow with its used weave stuffing poking through busted seams or the Bassari palm wine drinking gourd resting at the crook of my arm as though it were a baby, or the veritable baby sitting on its mother’s lap behind me and enjoying the feel of my white flesh between its tiny fingers or the exposed foam of the seat beneath me or the steal bar jutting into my legs as the foam of the seat lacked the requisite base-level thickness attributed to foam or the gray plastic covering of the bench seat before me on which my heavy head rested—I furthered my appreciation for the whole notion of relativity.

“Civilization!” I cried at the first signs of the city hustle: the interminable Dakar traffic, the gendarme’s whistle, the metallic thuds of vendors hawking our N’Diaga N’Diaye (a mini bus/colorless car rapide), the shrill prayer calls made shriller still by crackly PA systems…And indeed, civilization, at its most basic definition, was and is an apt word. But that sure wasn’t what I thought two months ago when I was first accosted by the chaos of Dakar, of Africa…or even two weeks ago, before I left on this little southern Senegal jaunt.

Shoot. And now it’s dinnertime. With any luck I will get this first installment up tonight to wet the appetites of those who actually follow this blog. And tomorrow I will resume, hopefully posting more of my adventures complete with a sampling of my many pictures.

Until then...