27

So today is my birthday. I've got over my whole thing of being 27 and wondering why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm doing becsue it's what I'm good at, and because it's what I always wanted to be doing-living in Africa, speaking different and fun languages (I learnt the Wolof for 'puncture' yesterday, 'bain-bain'), being paid (eventually) to meet people and tell stories.

Last night I had some friends over for dinner- Naomi, a freelancer, Steven, a Congolese friend who's still at school but somehow is grown up for a 19 year old, Ann, my neighbour and friend, Dan, a Reuters journalist, and then Chi and myself. I cooked fish on the fire and we drank wine and ate brownies and ice cream and I realised that for the first time since I have lived in Senegal, I was hanging out with people that I had actually chosen to be with, rather than people I was thrown together with because we speak English, or we're journalists, or just because we're foreign. It was a really good feeling.

We sat around my teak table, which suddenly seemed to make sense with people around it, and talked about A-Ha (who we saw in concert this week), bird flu and other stuff that wasn't related to work or involved me desperately trying to find find things I have in common with people, or me trying to prove myself. So much of the last year, I realise, was spent trying to be strong in the face of established journalists and seemingly sorted people, wishing I had people I could talk to, friends to be 'me' infront of instead of being 'Rose New in Dakar Looking for Work'.

At midnight we all piled into Dan's car and drove to town in search of KoolGraoul ('Grow-oul', meaning 'Cool' in Wolof) a monthly club night held in a scuba diving club. All we knew about it was that it was somewhere by the sea but since Dakar is surrounded by sea except for a narrow neck that attaches it to the mainland, there were a lot of possibilities. Eventually, after driving through some diplomatic area where men in balaklavas stood guard outside huge gates and poor Steven screamed from the back seat 'c'est interdit' because we hadn't seen the signs, we were stopped by the police. 'There are too many people in your car' he said gleefully, his green beret sitting lopsided on his head. dan got out of the car and showed the policeman his driving license-and his wallet (which had £1 in it)-and Steven got out to help. After ten minutes of arm-waving, Steven came back to ask for 2,000 francs, £2. The policeman had obviously seen Dan's empty wallet and decided we were a bunch of students and not worth really ripping off. Then he gave us directions to the party. Why Dan had come out with no money I have no idea.

The club was a beautiful terrace covered with overhanging trees and with a good mix of people- toubabs and Africans. We danced to salsa, mbalax, reggae, ska, hip-hop (no Akon thank god), funk, and my favourite, Congolese soukous. With the overhanging branches it was warm and leafy, and with good music, cold Gazelle beer, good friends, it all felt very fitting for a birthday party.

Why you should never be a freelancer or a taxi driver

I will turn 27 on Sunday. It feels somehow dangerously close to 30. I've been asking myself all sorts of things, like why am I still struggling to make my income meet my outgoings, and will my job be this hard when I am 30?

At the moment I feel consumed by the fact that it is Friday and that I have earnt nothing solid since this time last week, but spent a lot of money (not) doing so. This is because I spent Monday and Tuesday being robbed of my mobile phone and trying to recouperate the number, and writing an article that I have since realised needs to be re-written, and Wednesday onwards working on a radio piece that, due to a series of 'mis-understandings' has taken up the rest of the week. It just seems unfair that I'm not paid by the hour, but by the finished product. So if someone is incompetent somewhere and I have to do extra work, I lose out.

And when accounting departments lose bits of paper, I don't get paid (although they do). So really I haven't had any money coming in for two months- it's all numbers on an Excel spreadsheet called 'incoming'. Numbers do not get very far in Dakar taxis.

It feels like a long hard slog, and to what end? I met a man in Casablanca airport recently and he asked me what my five year plan was. I thought I was organised, but I realised that I don't have one, and wonder if I should. My plan for the last three years has been to survive as a writer. In July this year, I will have been a freelance writer for three years. I feel then that I have to decide whether it's going to be make or break. Do I carry on and hope it gets easier, that stories come to me more easily, that my writing needs less re-writing, that my edits are quicker, that my editors stop cocking up and causing me more work, that accounting departments start doing the jobs they are paid for? Or do I call it quits?

My Senegalese neighbour, a 26 year old woman, keeps on asking me what I'm waiting for. She's talking about babies of course. She can't understand why anything could be more important than making a family. I hope we're not still having that same conversation when I am 30, and that I'm not still sitting at my computer on a Friday night at 9.30pm worrying about what some editor in the US thinks about my latest scoop.

There are some wonderful things about my job. Last week I went to interview a musician about whom I knew nothing. Even after researching him, I still had nothing to ask him. So I asked my taxi driver. He gave me five brilliant questions, like, 'why don't you ever sing songs for taxi drivers?' This, as it turned out, was the most pertinant question of them all. Apparently, this musician is planning a song about taxi drivers, because, in his opinion, taxi drivers are one of the most imoprtant but least valued members of society. I wonder if he will write one about journalists? Although, journalists don't take women in labour who have no money to the hospital for free.