The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 28

It's the night before the big day. All I have managed this week in the way of swimming is a piddly half hour at the Ngor hotel. My cover's blown there- I lied about staying there and now they know I'm an imposter. Anyway, it's not swimming which is going to get me across there now, it's pure adrenaline and stubborness.

What I am doing right though is not going out tonight, which is tough because I have a brand new beautiful pair of hand-made shoes, designed by me, for me, which I am gagging to wear. But it's Saturday night, almost 11pm, and I am listening to Angolan ballads and about to go to bed.

On Friday afternoon, Ceclia and I were on our way to the swimming pool when a lady called tp say her son had been playing in an abandoned building near my house and had found my bag with my keys and press card, and phone number, inside and would I come and meet her to get it.

I went along there with my friend and neighbour, Julie, who has a car. When we arrived, the girl sent her son off to the house, where he had found the bag, to bring it to me. But when he came back empty handed and said that a man who was there said I have to come and get it myself, both Julie and I had a bad feeling. but we had no choice so we went along, into a lonely-looking area of half-built houses beside the airport fence, and were led to a shell of a house where a few people were sitting around inside. The boy brought me my bag, damp, the handle snapped, but showed me all the H and M receipts, keys, soggy business cards, which he had carefully folded up and put inside. We said our thankyou's and went on our way.

But as we were leaving, a crazy-looking man who was standing on the roof and had been watching us, shouted that we should wait and he came down to where we were standing. He was short, with eyes bulging out of his head, a pot belly falling over his low-slung trousers. He looked angry, drunk, or mad, I wasn't sure which. He came storming over to where I stood holding my bag and ripped it out of my hands, reeling around and shouting at the others who were standing around watching this spectacle. When he grabbed my bag, it was like it was all happening again. Out of the houses and streets came 20 or 30 people, all thorougly interested in what was unfolding, which was a total mystery to Julie and I. For the next twenty minutes people shouted at eachother, shouted at me, stormed around, all the while this little black patent leather bag sitting in the hands of a young girl, the daughter of this aggressive man who was apparently trying to get his cut of the money I had supposedly paid the girl who had called me about the bag in the first place.

Eventually, I got my bag back and Julie gave me the keys of the car- by this time I was so shaken up, breathing uncontrolably and having to do everything in my power not to cry- and I just ran and locked myself in the car. And we drove, very fast, away.

Neither Julie nor I could understand it. It wasn't a misunderstanding; it was clear cut. The bag belonged to me, I had behaved in the proper way, thanking everyone who helped me, yet this enormous and unneccesarily aggressive drama bubbled up out of nowhere and left me feeling absolutely wasted, a shivering shaking mess.

I always thought that if someone attacked me, I would fight them with all my strength. But this has effected me more than I could have imagined. Today I screamed when someone came near me on a busy street in broad daylight, and then when Now came with me to the shop, 50 metres from where I live, to buy eggs, I jumped into the verge when a young guy looked at me for more than a second. Now assures me this will pass, and I hope so, because life's a bit tricky when you're afraid to go out of your house.

One of the interesting things about this incident is seeing who comes to the rescue. The people who have been most sympathetic or helpful are people who I might have overlooked as friends. And some of the people who I trust most, have let me down. I have seen that people here have seemingly unending quantities of generosity, that people who you know just in passing, will go to the ends of the earth to help you if they can.

But I have also seen that people can be full of distrust, they can hold grudges and never confront you about them but just let them go on and on, torturing them and your friendship. I have seen that people just wnt to be your friend for what they can get from you and that when you need a little tenderness, they are nowhere to be seen. That you can put your confidence and trust in people over a long period of time and when it comes to the crunch, they, for some reason I just can't fathom, turn their back.