I wrote a little about the forced removal of the lepers in my street some weeks back, and the 'walking markets', guys who sell stuff informally in the road. Except it's not so informal; it's the mainstay of Senegalese commerce. People are frustrated; there were some violent riots while I was in Ghana, so bad they made it onto the pages of the Guardian.

What is so shocking to everyone about this is that Senegal is, and has always been, the cheri of the west's eyes. While the rest of the region is either mid-conflict, post-conflict or in the hands of drug barons, Senegal remains relatively peaceful and 'democratic'. It suits everyone's agenda for it to remain, and remain looking, that way. So the attacks on uncomfortably vocal activists, journalists and musicians, the student riots, the underhand treatment of the ex-Prime Minister who was fired for calling the President's son to the national Assembly to explain spending on the infrastructure for the 2-day Islamic Conference next year (somewhere in the region of £90 million for useless road projects alone), have been glossed over by all except the frustrated few in the country. Except now those frustrated people are becoming a big beast that, by the look of the riots two weeks ago,is growing in numbers and force. People have started to sit up, notice, and take action.

This week is my 7 year anniversary of my relationship with Senegal. I have been thinking about the changes which have gone on during my time here and I was left feeling really sad. The gap between rich and poor is excessive, and not just that the rich are getting massively richer but the poor are getting massively poorer. I find it hard to find a budget that I can survive on, and I am part of the rich. The cost of living is unlivable, and the President continues to make rash decisions that anger the growing numbers of unemployed, dissatisfied people who are no longer happy to say, 'ca va aller' and reach for the prayer beds. There is a real feeling in the air of violent frustration that is, sooner, rather than later, going to turn nasty.

But I thought I was just being dramatic, so kept my thoughts to myself. After all, can an intuition about a socio-political situation really be right?

This afternoon I met a friend at the supermarket (I must be rich), who is heavily involved in the music industry. We talked about the number of musicians who are starting to get vocal again, which is usually a good barometer for how the rest of the population are feeling. She said that in the next six months, she expects there will be a serious backlash against the government. Later, I was talking to a representative of a UN mission here, who told me that by next spring, a serious violent confrontation will have occurred, and he didn't mean another riot of shop-keepers throwing stones. He was talking about something much more serious. And I feel it too.

It is exciting, in a way, because what is bubbling under the surface will finally come to a head and maybe it will produce better results. Maybe, like happened in Guinea this year, people will be able to show that they have a voice and with it can make positive changes. But it also saddens me. Senegal has, in the words of every newspaper article about the place, been the bastion of peace and democracy in west Africa. But if you ask me, it's a false image that is just waiting to shatter.