Concert Cancelled...

Allow me to pick up where I left off on the last post before we left Dakar for our vacation.  While there was the manifestation on Friday late afternoon on February 17th, there was another in our neighborhood that started up again in the late afternoon  Saturday the 18th but not before we had already taken P/A to a birthday party.  How did we find out about the new manifestation - when it was time to pick them up we walked out and  down our street -  we just turned our heads to the right and this is what we saw on 3 separate intersections - and I did zoom in a bit on these so obviously we look closer than we were but granted it was close enough as it was. Fortunately this was contained like all others in a direction we did not need to go to.

We concluded at this point - our concert at the French Institut we had tickets too was cancelled. Here is a picture of a familiar scene now - stores putting up plywood to protect their windows. As we walked farther away from the manifestation all streets were actually quite quiet.

About an hour later when we returned back home with the boys from the birthday party which by the way you would never have known anything was happening it was just far enough away - we came across the following and all things had ended for the evening...

 

Until Sunday when things flared up again on Lamine Gueye -  from afar Addison, Parker and Manning  checked things out like many of our other neighbors on our street - what they observed was stone throwing and they could hear the tear gas and rubber bullets. They would see people going into the crowd and then returning again for a cup of coffee in one of the Nescafe carts nearby like this one. A few shops that are open on Sunday - closed their doors but owners stayed close by for the possibility of opening back up

eventually M,P and A left and hours later after the manifestation ended we all went to get the better of our curiosity and saw the following aftermath

Innocent bystander - pocked marked by thrown rocks

Serious Riot Gear (zoomed in)

While Lamine Gueye looks like a mess - Felix Faure (where the green/yellow mosque is on the corner) and down our street and the side streets - open for business...that is a game or two of soccer!!