I haven't been in Senegal too long, and today I'm supposed to go to the US Embassy with the other new missionaries to get some paperwork done.
The plan is to go to the language center, where Muriel (a missionary who's been here longer) will meet us and ride with us to the embassy.
I set out on the forty minute walk, as I do most mornings instead of taking the overcrowded bus. It's rainy season and the skies are dark with the promise of rain, but I take my chances.
A little over halfway there, the skies open with a most impressive downpour. I don't have an umbrella with me (because trying to manage one in storms that usually have lightning and wind just seems precarious at best). For a brief moment I consider hailing a taxi, but that would require standing and waiting on the curb for who knows how long. The taxis are always more scarce in the rain and the drivers want to charge two or three times the going rate. Best to just keep walking.
So I do.
By the time I get to the language center, I am drenched thoroughly - wet all the way to my skin. Hello, I'm Rachel, the drowned rat.
Muriel meets us there and we bump along in the car to the embassy. She can't come in with us - she's Canadian - but she waits with us at the gate until we get in. Inside, we notice how the grounds smell oddly different. Yes, this little piece of "American soil" does actually smell...well, American.
Another window, another line, and finally we're inside the building itself. (Where we have to wait yet again.)
I shiver.
This is one of the few air conditioned buildings I'll encounter during my two years here - and I can't even enjoy it. My teeth are chattering and my wet clothes stick to me like glue. Freezing glue.
Perhaps this is where it all begins...my strong aversion to air conditioning.
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