The thing nobody tells you about Dakar's rainy season is that it's not the rain that gets you. It's the suspense. The sky goes a bruised purple-black around four in the afternoon, the air gets heavy as a wet blanket, and the entire city slows down like it's holding its breath. And then, maybe, nothing happens. Or the heavens split open for ten minutes and the streets turn to rivers. Yesterday it was the rivers. Today, the sky is just sitting there, threatening, while I'm standing in line at the DPETV office in the Plateau with my passport, a wad of passport photos, and an application form for the Carte d'Identité d'Étranger that I've filled out three times.
Nanga def, amigo. My Wolof is getting a workout, even if it's mostly me smiling and nodding and understanding one word in five. The good news is the woman in the window at the DPETV speaks French, and my broken French is slightly less broken than my Wolof. The bad news is that I'm missing a stamp. Not a document, not a signature. A 15,000 CFA franc fiscal stamp, which I can apparently buy from a vendor across the street. So I'm out on the pavement, the heat simmering off the tarmac, looking for a guy with a briefcase full of paper stamps, praying I don't have to come back tomorrow. It's about 25 dollars for the privilege of bureaucratic patience, and I'm told the récépissé I get today will be my stand-in for the next six months while the actual card is being produced. Welcome to expat life, part two.
I get the stamp. The guy is right where the security guard said he'd be, under a tree with a plastic chair and a laminated sign. It takes sixty seconds. I go back inside, rejoin the line, and twenty minutes later I'm holding a piece of paper that says I exist in Senegal. It's not the sexiest souvenir, but it's the most important one. After that, the morning is mine. And my first proper mission, after the coffee I'm desperately in need of, is to find the rhythm of this city. Not the traffic rhythm — though that's a symphony of car horns that never stops — but the actual music. The sabar drums. The sound that is the heartbeat of Dakar. There's a spot in the Médina, the Maison de la Culture Douta Seck, where I'm told there's drumming on Friday afternoons. But today is Sunday. So I'm hoping for a different kind of luck.
I duck into a café first. Not a fancy one, just a spot near the Palais de Justice. I need a coffee like you wouldn't believe. A cappuccino runs me about 1,500 CFA, which is around two and a half dollars. I sit at the counter, the ceiling fan doing its best against the humidity, and I watch the world outside. A car rapide goes by, one of those 1970s minibuses painted with bright colours and names and spiritual slogans, jammed so full of people that a few are hanging off the back, the driver's apprentice shouting the destination. The fare is 200 to 500 CFA, roughly 40 cents to a dollar, depending on how far you're going. It's chaos, but it's organised chaos. A yellow taxi honks at a bus, the bus honks back, a moped weaves between them carrying a family of three and a mattress. I finish my coffee and decide to walk. The traffic is the fastest way to understand this city, but the walking is the only way to feel it.
I walk east, away from the grid of the Plateau and into the Médina. This is the side of Dakar you don't see on the postcards. The streets are narrower here, the buildings a mix of pastel-painted concrete and older colonial structures that have been patched and repurposed a dozen times. It's dense, loud, and absolutely electric. This neighbourhood was created abruptly in 1914 when the French forced the African population to move out of the city centre after a plague outbreak. That history is still written in the layout — it wasn't planned, so it just grew, organically, block by block. The Grande Mosquée raises its 67-metre minaret in the distance, a landmark I use to keep my bearings. I'm sweating through my shirt, but nobody else seems to be in a hurry. Old men sit at tables in front of small shops, playing checkers or just watching. Women in brightly coloured wax-print dresses walk slowly, balancing enormous bowls on their heads. I'm a ghost here, just an observer, but that's okay for today.
The hunger pangs hit me around 1pm, right on schedule. And there's no way I'm not having thieboudienne on my second day in Senegal. I find a local canteen, a small open-fronted place with plastic tables and a giant pot bubbling on a charcoal stove. The woman in charge, who introduces herself as Awa, lifts the lid and the steam is thick with the smell of tomatoes, smoked fish, and a heat that comes from somewhere deep. She serves me a generous portion with a piece of the fish, the jollof rice, the carrots, and a wedge of lime. It's the national dish for a reason. The whole thing costs me about 1,500 CFA — around two and a half dollars. It is, without exaggeration, the best thing I've eaten in years. I think it might be the best thing I've ever eaten. The rice is perfectly cooked, each grain soaked with flavour, and the fish is tender and smoky. I sit there, sweat dripping down my face, in a state of pure bliss.
After lunch, Awa brings me a glass of sweet attaya tea, a small ritual that takes an eternity to prepare, pouring it back and forth between glasses to create the froth on top. She asks me where I'm from, what I'm doing here. Her face lights up when I try out my few phrases of Wolof. She laughs, not unkindly, and corrects my pronunciation. This, right here, in this tiny canteen with the plastic tables and the smell of charcoal, is the thing people mean when they talk about teranga. It's not just hospitality. It's a warmth, a generosity, a sense that you are a guest and therefore you are family. My conversation with Awa is short, but I leave with my soul a little more fed than my stomach. Even the rain that finally breaks, hammering down on the tin roof, can't dampen the feeling. I wait it out, watching it turn the red earth street into a miniature river.
The rain passes as quickly as it came, leaving the air washed clean and the streets steaming. I've heard whispers that there might be some music at a cultural centre in the Médina, not far from the mosque. It's a long shot, but I'm following the thread. I find the Maison de la Culture Douta Seck, a large, somewhat institutional-looking compound. I'm not sure what I'm expecting — maybe a quiet museum on a Sunday. But I can hear them before I see the gate. The low, insistent rumble of drums. The sabar. I pay the nominal entry fee, a few hundred CFA, and I walk into a courtyard that is absolutely alive. There's a circle of people, maybe thirty or forty of them, and in the middle are three drummers, playing the tall, lean sabar drums with one stick and one bare hand. Sweat sprays as their arms move in a blur. The rhythm isn't just a beat; it's a conversation. A language. The crowd isn't just listening; they're participating, clapping, ululating, calling out. A woman in a yellow dress gets up and dances into the centre, her movements sharp and fluid, her heels hitting the ground in a staccato that answers the drums perfectly.
I'm rooted to the spot, watching. For the first time since I landed, I don't feel like a tourist trying to figure things out. I feel like I'm inside the pulse of Dakar. The drumming goes on for another hour, waves of rhythm crashing over us, occasionally breaking for a solo where one drummer goes off on an incredible, complex tangent before the others pull him back into the fold. The sun is starting to get lower, the light turning golden, and the humidity is finally letting up. I catch the eye of one of the drummers between sets, and he gives me a grin and a nod. I don't need to speak Wolof to understand that. It's the same feeling as the thieboudienne, the same as Awa's tea. It's an invitation. It's the sound of a city telling you to relax, to let go, to join the rhythm. The whole city plays sabar, if you know how to listen.
Exhausted and buzzing, I eventually tear myself away and make my way back towards the Plateau as the dusk settles in. The city is changing again, the street lights flickering on, the food stalls setting up their charcoal braziers for the evening meal, the smell of grilling fish and onions filling the air. I take a taxi back to my guesthouse because my feet are done, my legs deep in a sabar-inspired jelly. The driver, a man named Ousmane, negotiates the price before I even get in — 2,000 CFA, which is about three and a half dollars. It's a fair fare. We sit in traffic for a while, listening to a mbalax track on his radio, the bass thumping. He tells me, in a relaxed mix of French and Wolof, that the economic mood in the city is hopeful. New money from the oil and gas fields is starting to trickle in, and construction never stops. The future is being built, block by block, right here.
Back in my room at the guesthouse, I kick off my sandals. The fan is whirring, the street noise is a faint, constant hum below my window. I turn on my laptop, and the charging light flicks on, only to immediately flicker out. The power has cut out. Just for a moment; the inverter in the guesthouse kicks in with a gentle click, and the light comes back. A reminder that life here has its own current, its own fluctuations. I think about how much I've spent today. Maybe 6,000 to 7,000 CFA all told, about 10 to 12 dollars. Coffee, lunch, transport, and a cultural experience. In Dakar, a comfortable day of exploring costs less than a movie and dinner in the US. But you don't come here for the prices. You come for the teranga. You come for the rhythm of the sabar echoing in your bones. You come for the taste of the best thieboudienne of your life. I'm only on day two, but I'm starting to understand why they say Dakar gets under your skin. I close my laptop, listening to the faint sound of a distant drum still pulsing somewhere in the night, and I think to myself — nanga def, Dakar. I think I'm going to like it here.
Tomorrow is a new day, and I've got my eyes on a ferry schedule. But that's for later. For now, the fan is spinning, the rain is threatening to come back, and the city is settling into its nocturnal rhythm. It's a good rhythm. It's alive. And for tonight, that's exactly what I needed. Ba beneen yoon, my friend. Until next time.