The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 25

Only 4 days to go. Last swim: Saturday. Today: Wednesday. Mental state: borderline

Still suffering from the closure of the Piscine Olympique, I have taken my way to smiling my way into hotel swimming pools. My lastest was the Ngor Hotel, which has a beachside rectangular pool of 17 metres. I went on a saturday at midday and joked with Johnny the life-guard that I was going to do 2.5km, that's 150 lengths. Ha ha ha, we all laughed.

But then the idea was in my head, and suddenly I was at 50 lengths, then 100, and then I just had to finish it up. So after 2 hours of midday sun and 150 lengths, I was dizzy from all the turning around, tired, and incredibly sunburnt. I cycled home in a near-coma, at which point Badji, my neighbour's guardian, remarked: "You're all red!" and I knew it was going to be bad.

That evening I was invited out by my friends Mr Ambassador and his wife to dinner and a concert at a garden restaurant (which actually has a pool, but too many steps, which I might knock my teeth on). I had already chosen my black linen dress with the low cut, cross-strapped back. Which had been to the cleaners and come back again, my only ironed piece of clothing. But when I put it on, all you could see was a red and white Speedo stripes effect going on, along with a swimming bonnet mark across my forehead. But there was nothing I could do, so with my body temparature somewhere around boiling point, I went off to dinner, drank a lot of wine, then went dancing until 4am to Orchestra Baobab (live), taking a few turns with an old salsero in a straw hat.

The next day, and the next, and the next, I was incapable of anything, swimming or otherwise.

Which brings me to why it is now Wednesday, four days to go, and I haven't been swimming yet this week.

Last night I went out to a new bar, called Chic et Fast, which when said by a Senegalese sounds like 'Chicken Fast'. There was a band playing and I was taking photos for my seminar in Sweden. Cecilia, who you may remember is my swimming partner, got out of her sick bed to accompany me (she has been sick since the goat hair incident), and we passed a pleasant evening talking about other people's boyfriends. She and another friend gave me a lift home, and dropped me at the end of my road so I could walk the short walk home to my house.

Just as I got out of the car and it had driven off, I rounded the corner of a little restaurant and there was this young man who made a bee-line straight for me, at which point I knew I was in trouble and started to run, or run backwards, i can't remember which. But he caught me and grabbed me by the back of the neck, then held his fist in the air and started jabbing it towards me with his imaginary knife. But of course, there was a power cut and I couldn't see whether he had a knife or not so in the confusion, I thought the worst. It must have been ten seconds for him to get my bag off me, maybe less, but in that time I had the following thoughts:

1) He's going to stab me in the throat
2) They say that if you're being attacked, you should do one of two things: scream, or not scream
3) I know that one of these things will make the mugger run away and that one will get me killed. But I can't remember which.
4) I'm screaming. What if it's screaming that gets you killed?
5) So, if I'm doing the wrong thing and he stabs me, is a Senegalese hospital going to be able to save me?
6) No: therefore, I'm going to die
7) That will break my mum
8) And there's lots of people who love me: they'll be really sad too
9) Damn, he's got my phone, camera, £60, press card, driving license, bike, house and post box keys, and my first ever handbag, which I love dearly.

That's almost one thought per second. Impressive. I really thought I was going to die, I thought he was stabbing me because all I could see was this hand going up and down towards my throat. but what was suprising was that the sound that came out of my mouth wasn't a sound I had heard my body make before. it was like this deep primeval gurgling which retched ad bubbled from the core of my body. It was the cry of someone who really thought they were going to bleed to death with a slit throat on the sandy road at Mamelles.

When I realised what had happened, that he had got away and that I was OK, I started calling out for someone to help me, and a sleepy guardian appeared from behind the wall of a house, and let me into the compound. Then his boss, an Italian man in boxer shorts (who was wearing the same ones when I went round this afternoon to thank him for looking after me) appeared and brought me a chair. By that time I was hyperventilating and terrified. Then all these men appeared, and I thought one of them was him, which sent me into a further panic, but they were just guardians from the surrounding houses. They walked me home, giving me a good dose of sympathy, the Senegalese way:

"You're so stupid to walk alone at night"
"What were you doing, carrying all that stuff in your bag?"
"Why didn't your friend drive you to the door?" etc.

Enough enough.

Badji, my friend and guardian in our street, was happily on guard at Ann's house and came out to hug me and take me to my flat, where I struggled with matches, trying to get candles lit whilst unable to breath properly. Then my neighbour, Doudou, came to sit with me while I shivered and put on jumpers (and he sat sweating in a vest).

Every time I tried to sleep, I would close my eyes and see this young man coming out from behind the building and running towards me. Consequently, there was not much swimming, or work, done today. I did go to the office, where I had to borrow money because of course I have nothing and no way of getting money, and bought myself an amazing tarte au chocolat for lunch. That cheered me up.

Well, it's a sad day for me and Dakar. I always felt so safe here, and I let my guard down. Now it's taxis to and from the door, until I can buy a car. And a sad day for swimming, because right now, it's the last thing on earth I want to be thinking about.