Wednesday
Today we have the day off of work because public transport is supposed to be on strike. They are striking because gas prices are at around $7 a gallon - true, down from the $8 a gallon they were recently, but still. When the government lowered the price from $8, the raised the price of cooking gas by about $1 a liter - meaning by about $3 a gallon. Thanks, Abdoulaye Wade!
It’s nice to be sitting in my living room drinking hot tea and wearing socks and a sweater instead of freezing in a dress in front of a room full of grumpy children, but I just can’t get excited about the fact that I have a day off because life is so absurdly expensive that the average person simply cannot survive. Despite this, I think there was some mistake in the timing, because the city busses are definitely circulating. Olivier says the strike is supposed to start tomorrow. On Friday the constitutional commission will declare whether or not Wade can constitutionally run for a third term - which he cannot, but they will say that he can, and then he will cheat and win. Who knows if we will work tomorrow, but I sincerely hope we do not work on Friday - not because I want the day off, but because I am 99% sure that it will not be safe to move around the city, transport strike or not.
Everything is just a big rumor. Nobody knows when this strike is going to happen, the constitutional commission’s decision date keeps getting switched, and there is nowhere certain to find the information. Senegalese news websites are 1/8 news and 7/8 useless articles about premarital sex scandals, and international news does not cover this stuff.
Olivier still had to go to work today, so I got up and made him breakfast and now here I am. It’s nice to get to relax instead of being at work, but as I told my students, I hope everyone who has today off (for no real reason, in the end) is spending some time thinking about why they have the day off.
