Frogs

Last week in Dakar, returning to the hotel after a day at various meetings and stuff, the gentleman at the reception desk asked me about the frog in my room. I told him, yes, I had noticed it. (I didn't do anything about it, figuring it would leave the way it came when it was ready.) "Did you bring it?" he asked. Um... no. He wasn't convinced; according to him, there was no way a frog could make it up to my second floor room on its own. Assured that I was not intentionally keeping a frog in my room, he sent someone up to remove the frog. I hope he was taken somewhere comfortable.

This morning in Tamba, a very similar frog was hopping around my room. None of my traveling companions have had frogs in their rooms; apparently this is something unique to me. I asked Abdoulaye what frogs signify in Senegal, and he assured me that they are always a good thing—where there are frogs, there must be water nearby, a pretty big deal in a country as dry as this one. So I'm choosing to believe that being trailed by frogs around Senegal is a good omen. Keeping my eyes peeled for more.