Saturday night, and I was on my way to see Omar the Tailor, to pick up my silk sleeping bag for the trip to Ghana. Winding my way through the back of the bus station as darkness fell, I received a phone call from the photographer, Aubrey, in Liberia, who I was to meet on the Slok flight on Sunday morning. Our flight, he said, had been cancelled. The airline said they could get him on a Belleview flight on Tuesday, but apart from that, there was nothing to be done.

Aubrey, once a next-door neighbour from London, and I are meeting delegates from a chocolate company in Ghana on Tuesday. They are taking us out to a remote village to meet cocoa farmers. We have to get to Accra before Tuesday, or we will likely lose the trip. Slok, the Gambia National carrier (this had rung warning bells in my ears), are famously unreliable, cancelling flights five minutes before take-off and forgetting to stop in the cities along the way, leaving passengers for Monrovia stranded in Freetown, with no way of returning.

“These planes,” said Vijay, my young Indian travel agent, “are like buses. They should not be going in the air.”

While Omar finished up my bag, the machines in the atelier rattling away, I called Vijay and asked him if he knew anything about it. He said he would ring Slok and call me back. Five minutes later, as I tried to explain to Omar what The Independent magazine is and why it matters if I don’t leave for Accra on Sunday, Vijay rang me back to say he had rung Slok in Dakar, who knew nothing about the cancellations and were still selling tickets, who had rung Banjul to discover that all planes have been grounded for a month. “The planes,” explained Vijay, “are past their expiration date. Some planes can stay for one hundred and twenty five years, some for one hundred and fifty.”

“And Slok planes,” I asked, intrigued to know how old Vijay thought they were, “how old are they?”

“Maybe two hundred years. Yes. They should not be going in the air.”

“What am I going to do?” I wanted to know.

“I will get you to Accra tomorrow madam, please do not worry. I will call you back.”

Ten minutes later, with Omar sitting beneath the glow of the atelier light in wonder at this back and forth of text messages to Liberia (Aubrey trying to get on a UN flight), the chocolate company in London, and various friends who have all flown Slok and who all have their own techniques as to how to deal with the inevitable cancellations, Vijay rang me back to tell me the good news.

“I get you on a flight to Abidjan and then you will stay in transit to Accra. It is two hundred thousand francs more. And I must issue the ticket tonight or else you will lose it.”

I hadn’t yet heard from the chocolate company to know if I should pay the extra money. “How late can you issue the ticket,” I asked him, “before we lose it?”

“Madam, I do not go to the night club, I am here with my laptop. If you call me at twelve or one o clock in the morning I will issue the ticket. Please do not worry about this.”

Promising to call him back, I sat down with Omar and we decided to make a scarf out of the remaining strip of silk. It was nine o clock before we finished, and Omar walked me home.

“It is easy for you to create things,” Omar said, and I felt pleased. Senegalese do not give compliments that often. “You can see nice things quickly.”

This morning, I went out to get money for the ticket. Outside the cash machine, boys hung around selling Herald Tribunes and top-up phone cards.

“Do you have a card for twenty-five thousand?” I asked a young boy who held a strip of the orange and black cards, flapping them in my face.

“No,” he said, sucking his teeth. “Buy ten thousand.”

I ignored him and crossed the road, but heard a loud hissing, turning into, “oh-ho”, from behind me. The same boy was pushing his friend towards me, his friend holding out a card for 25,000 francs. I bought one, and the two boys slunk back to their post outside the cash machine.

*****

Vijay’s office overlooks the smelliest place in Dakar. One day, when they have finished digging the tunnel that will turn the road into a veritable super highway, of exactly the same size as it was before, it will be well positioned. But for now, the office is constantly covered in dust, the air outside is indigestible because pits of raw sewage lie festering and open, and the men who sit about like spare parts beside the road works, waiting for something exciting to happen, hiss and shout, following you with waving hands if you try to make your way to the office.

“Where are you going?” they demand aggressively, as you climb over random pieces of metal and rocks to get to the front door. “What is your business here?”

It doesn’t occur to them that I may in fact be going to the row of shops overlooking the roadworks, and not about to climb down into the works themselves. They must think toubabs are really stupid. Or perhaps they have nothing better to do.

Now I ignore them and walk on. Let them follow me, if they want.

Vijay is inside the office, his motorbike also parked inside. He has opened up the agency for me, on a Sunday morning.

Quickly, he prints me out my ticket. He asks me if I am with Reuters or Associated Press.

“Neither,” I say, and tell him who I work for.

“So that means when Kenya Airways crashes you have to go to Doula and things like that?”

“Um, not exactly, but that kind of thing, yes,” I say, unsure.

“Okay well have a good journey anyway,” he laughs.

*****

‘First time in Africa!’ exclaims the board in the smoky hotel lobby. ‘Broadband internet in the rooms!’

I telephone the front desk to ask for the password for the internet router.

“Twelve dollars for twenty four hours,” drawls the man on the other end of the phone, the cable of which I have to hold in place for a clear line.

*****

At the airport, my hotel bus hasn’t arrived. I go to the hotel information desk and ask the young man if he can help me.

“Do you have a reservation? Can I see your proof of confirmation please?”

I tell him I have no proof that anyone confirmed my booking, although I’m sure someone did, but could he call the hotel anyway and ask them to come and pick me up.

“I can give you the number of the hotel, but I can not call them for you unless I can see your proof of confirmation,” he says. I can not bear to continue this conversation and take a taxi.