Disclaimer: Anybody with some strange kind of foot phobia, I suggest you avoid this post.
My feet here are going through HELL. Dakar is currently under construction, so everything is very, very dusty and dirty. There are huge rocks lined along the side of the road to block cars off, massive holes in the road where you're walking, ditches, tar being laid every other day, and lots and lots of clay. (The idea of sidewalks is a total joke.) In addition to my clumsiness, these obstacles are just bad news. The amounts of cuts and scrapes that I notice on my feet day by day is getting ridiculous. I even broke a pair of flip flops my very first week.
I thought my feet would only have to deal with Dakar's awful streets, but then Goree Island came along. At Goree, I decided it would be a good idea to jump off the rocks into the ocean. Somebody had done it right before me and warned me of the sea urchins on my way out. Mind you, the water was so clear I could actually SEE the sea urchins scattered on the rocks in the water. Anyway, the water was frigid, so I quickly swam to shore, stepped on a sea urchin without realizing it, and walked with a bunch of black pricks and blood on my left big toe. Really delightful. A friend managed to pull some of them out, but the rest I have to let dissolve in my foot. Apparently Google was right--soaking it in white vinegar really does the trick! The best part of all of this? I woke up that morning with my right eye swelled shut due to a mosquito bite and spent the whole day wearing sunglasses, even when indoors. Although all of this pain is totally worth it, I really hope my luck turns!
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