Moving home

There is a way to do things and there is a Senegalese way to do things. I have never hired a removal van before, in any country, so I’m not sure I am the authority on how removal vans should be packed, but I will attempt to describe the way in which packing a house up is done in Senegal.

First of all, you send someone you know and trust, a man, and a Senegalese, to walk up to random strangers who happen to be driving along in, or sitting in, or sleeping in, truck-type vehicles (this could extend to four legged powered vehicles). You get their phone numbers, and then on the night before you are due to move your entire belongings to the other side of town, you get that same friend to start calling them, ploughing through the “this number is not available at this time” messages until you find one who has given you a number that works. Then you tell him what you need, and you tell him how much you can pay.

This pricing arrangement does not of course work with people who have unlimited funds, like I do. If I paid “as much as I have” every time I was asked to, I would be long broke. But my trusty companion Now took charge of the whole process and he said he had £15, and so that is what he arranged, for two trips from my old house by the sea to my new house in town, on Friday morning.

By Thursday night the flat was dirty, empty-looking, and very sad. Luckily the witch who lives downstairs was clanging away, her screeching voice reverberating through the tiled building, and it acted as a necessary reminder as to why I was moving from this lovely neighbourhood where my friends were literally on my doorstep from morning to night, to another part of town where people probably don’t say hi to each other in the street.

I sat in the shop on Thursday night with Now and I made tea. At the beginning of this talk of moving, months ago, Now had protested (but understood), loudly. Now that the move has arrived, he says nothing, but the silence is deafening. My silence says I feel the same way.

Before the sun had risen on Friday morning, I was at the telephone company office paying for the transfer of my phone line. By the time I got back, the van had arrived and Now was giving the driver, a young man who said very little, breakfast of Nescafe and powdered milk from an old margarine tub cup. When Naomi had moved her belongings and the horse and cart that was to take them to her new place out of the way, we started loading the van.

Now had brought his room-mate George along to help. George works as a security guard and used to be the guard at one of the houses in our street. He was the one who removed the frog from my plant the week I moved into my flat, a year and a half ago. George had been at work all night and was on his way to bed when Now cornered him into coming to help. He made out it was just what he wanted to be doing after a night standing out in the cold watching someone’s house.

Little by little, the plants, the boxes of jam-jars, the bags of shoes and boubous, the endless cushions, and then the bigger things- the teak table which takes three men to move, the bed, the bookshelves, they all came down the stairs, and no one complained, they all made out they were having a whale of a time. The driver got inside the van and lumped the boxes around, as I winced and asked my self what I would do if my Mexican olive-oil pourer got smashed, and then the driver took everything out again and the baskets went in, then they didn’t fit either so the table went in, then the baskets, then the boxes, and after an hour, every single one of my belongings minus the fridge and bed, had gone inside this tiny little van, and there was not an inch of space, not one tiny little crack of air left, and it felt pretty much like a miracle had taken place.

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It’s always a surprise to me when some part of my life changes and I discover that I am not the totally self-sufficient Superwoman that I imagine I should be able to be. Last night, lying in bed with the parrot squeaking away in the beauty salon three floors below (“Better a parrot than that hell-fire witch-face downstairs from you in Mamelles,” said Cecilia), and the roar of the city outside the French doors, I felt like I had been severed.

It’s true that it is hard to live alone in Africa. There has to be a small team of people around you who can help clean the ever-pervading dust from everything you own, who can find you an oven when you want to buy one, who can put you in touch with the man at the electricity company who will connect your flat up without delay, who can find you boxes, get you vegetables, tell you where to buy an ironing board, find you rice at lunch time. Because nothing is straight forward here, you don’t fix things by going to the shop and replacing them, and life takes a lot of energy.

When I moved to Dakar from Ziguinchor permanently, I barely knew anyone and certainly not people who knew where to find, and how to bang in, masonry nails. But Now’s boutique, and the people around it, provided me first with practical help, and later, solid rewarding friendship. Somehow, despite coming from totally different cultures and educations and upbringings, Now is one of the tiny group of people in Senegal who I could tell anything to, and expect an understanding response. And now it feels like he is a very long way away.

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But settle in I am starting to do. This morning, Sunday, despite being out till 6am, I unpacked the rest of the boxes, and arranged a little furniture. From where I sit at my table, through the balcony doors I can see the imposing white cathedral (about 100 metres away) and hear the choir singing. I can see the ministry of information just across the way, and look down into the American Embassy. There is a cool breeze and although I can hear traffic, I can’t hear my neighbour screaming, for which I am truly grateful. There is a very nice feeling in the flat, which I sensed immediately that I came to look around. I think I will be happy here.

Pictures to follow...