Dakar Rally

The famous Dakar rally is going through Tamba today. Or went. I swear there were a record number of toubabs (white people/foreigners) in Tamba yesterday associated with the race... watching or working for it. Even the Senegalese were lining the main street to catch a glimpse of the fast cars passing by. I have to confess that this race is almost about the least interesting thing for me. I have no interest in car races at all so my information is limited and it's not like I'm going out to get more for you. Sorry.

Our friend Doug + 2 niblets came up last year for the race. It meant waking up at 4:30 in the morning for them to be at a place where the cars would race past. You can imagine that it was not really a contest of whether I was going to get up for it or not. I gladly slept in and missed it.

The bad thing about this rally is that the cars go by so quickly, that every year there are niblets that get run over. Last year there were at least 4 small children that were run over. Kids are all over the place here and parents don't exercise the type of control that we do in the Occidental world. Secondly, the regulations and red tape to race in Africa is very loose, so the rally people like that and it's not too expensive for them to set up and run this race, even when a few kids die. It's one of Senegal's claim to fame and I would doubt that Senegal wants to give that up.

In other important news: HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOLFIE!!!