Jon and I recently came back from an adventure trip in Senegal, where we went to visit our friend Ian, who's a Peace Corps volunteer there. When we landed in Dakar on the evening of June 14th, Ian came to pick us up at the airport with a couple of his PC friends - Frank and Emily. The adventure started right away: getting out of the airport is insane, there is an incredible number of people offering to sell taxi rides, food, help... It' s a bit overwhelming. Jon was reluctant to shake hands with this unknown man who came up to him smiling and holding his hand up, but then thought it was OK when Ian greeted him warmly: I'm his friend, said the guy, don't worry. Jon then went ahead and shook the guy's hand, but almost lost his engagement ring (it turned out that Ian had never seen the man in his life - the unknown guy was just bluffing to try and get the ring). We sneaked in at Fana Hotel for the first couple of nights, making sure to mingle among the PC volunteers