Bad Experience at the Airport

My mom FedExed me a package last week and it got here yesterday. I had to go to the airport to pick it up for some reason. So I took a taxi out there. The not-so-great experience started in the taxi when we got stopped by a policeman who talked to the driver in Wolof. I gathered something about the exhaust coming out of the car...but I am not really sure. My taxi driver gets out of the car and goes somewhere to talk to some other policeman. I can't see him and am sitting in the back seat of the taxi for a while by myself wondering if the driver was ever coming back.

He eventually did and we head off towards the airport again. The drive there is beautiful cause it goes right along the ocean. I hadn't been in that area since the first day I got to Senegal and it was cool to remember all the things I thought about my first glimpse of Dakar.

I finally get there and have no idea where to go to find this package. For some reason people like to sit outside the airport and try to "help" all the people who are coming or going. So instantly I am surrounded by Senegalese men who are asking me too many questions and telling me to look at them and telling me that they want to sit and talk. I have learned the best thing to do is to keep walking if you don't want to sit there for an hour explaining why you don't want a Senegalese husband.

I asked a guard where to go and he said the other side of the airport. As I am walking there a guy with a badge comes up to me and tells me he can help me. So I figure this guy has a badge that says he works there...he must know what he's talking about. Yeah...from there the story just goes down hill. To make it short (kinda) this other guy starts helping me by talking to all these different people and taking me from the hanger where all the packages are to the customs building several times. I waited in some random waiting room for a long time...I don't even know what I was waiting for...and then this guy tells me I have to pay half of the value of the package which would be $50. I definitly did not have that much money with me so the guy tells me he can negotiate the price if I explain to the customs guy what is in the package. So they tear open the package and are pulling everything out... which totally takes the fun out of getting the package...and then they took the package away and made me wait some more.

This whole time I was so confused and frusterated cause the guy wouldn't explain to me why he was doing things and he kept asking me for money to pay for these "necessary" steps in getting the package. Lots of weird stuff happened like him going behind closed doors and not letting me in while he was "negotiating". He was making me really mad and frusterated but there wasn't really anything I could do. It was some shady business and I am not sure if I saved money or if I got scammed. Probably the latter.

I was there for a couple hours and it didn't help that I hadn't slept much the night before. I finally got everything approved and paid for and took my package to leave. The guy told me I had to give him money for helping me for the last couple hours but I was so annoyed and literally only had enough money with me to pay for the taxi home. He got mad and stormed off and then this other guy hopped in my taxi with me and told me since he also "helped" me (he didn't do anything) that I could pay for his taxi home. He was being so rude to me but I was sick of arguing so I just let him (like I had much of a choice) cause it didn't cost me anymore. On the way home he keeps bugging me to give me a present from my package and at this point I am so frusterated that tears are welling up in my eyes. Then he starts telling me how he wants my phone number cause he wants to be friends and that "friends are more important than money" and all this crap trying to make me feel guilty. I just said no and didn't talk to him. I think if I had said anything else I would have started crying.

I eventually got home to my apartment and had the really cool package that my mom sent me. I got tons of food and some pants to wear (which is really exciting) and presents for my host family. So much trouble just to pick up a package! I probably didn't explain the whole thing very well, but just know it took forever, was really unorganized, didn't make any sense, and cost me a lot of money. My friend MBaye says it was a good learning experience. Right. I never want to go to the airport again unless I am getting on the plane to come home.