Oppression, It’s Digital Now!

Les Indigenes is a film about North African soldiers who fought with the Free French during WWII. It highlights the racism and ungratefulness faced by Arab soldiers who gave their lives to liberate France from Nazism. It’s a good movie, one of those touching films about unappreciated bravery, like those films about black Americans fighting for American ideals only to be reminded of the hypocrisy of US racism. Yall know what movies I am talking about, like Glory and Tuskegee Airmen and shit. We saw the film as part of the Tirailleurs Senegalais Week being held at the French Institute. The Tiralleur Senegalais was the name of the black French colonial army. Although they were from all over French West Africa, they were designated generically—in typically racist fashion—as all “Senegalese.” These soldiers fought for France during world wars I and II, in addition to helping France subdue anti-colonial insurrections from Morocco to Mali to Vietnam. They were paid and trained less, punished more severely, and treated as cannon fodder. For putting up with all of that, they did not receive their pensions and were quickly forgotten by the French government. In fact, the former French president Jacques Chirac, agreed to increase the pension payments after claiming to be inspired by the film. Two days later, we saw the opposite of “Les Indigenes” which although it’s Hollywood for example making the protagonists the most heroic Arab soldiers that ever fought for France. was still realistic and showed the racism of the French Army and criticized colonialism. One of the best shots of the film is when the Arab soldiers are anxiously standing tight in the hold of a ship about to land to invade France and the PA announcer beams about “their” return home, a country none of the soldiers have ever seen. The second film was “La Force Noire” a fluff piece on the history of France’s black African colonial army made by two conservative French historians which avoids criticizing France in the least. It quickly glosses over gross acts of discrimination, like the lesser pay and training, and key events like the Thiaroye Massacre to paint a shiny picture of La Force Noire. More than anything the historians seemed more enthusiastic about showing all of the recently digitized archival footage of black soldiers. The crowd was mostly conservative and laudatory, only one person—a young army cadet—asked about the lack of mention of racism in the French army. The dude’s answer was classic: one, you have to judge these things in context, it was 1914, everyone was racist, you know, two, denial, it wasn’t that bad, they weren’t cannon fodder the French just wanted them to, umm, feel warmer closer to the bullets, three, and my favorite, at least we (the French) weren’t as racist as the Americans. I mean, France allowed black people to die for its freedom, while the US segregated its black soldiers and didn’t deem them worthy of death. Let this be noted as one of the few times when I would prefer American-style racism. I would rather not die for a country that hates me. But look at these amazing images we found in the archives! Look the French teaching Africans to brush their teeth and smoke cigarettes! Look at them killing Asian people for France! It’s digital now!

Too Far

I was supposed to start my internship at Oxfam-GB in Dakar last Wednesday but my first day was postponed twice due to “popular unrest.” On the same day that the bus drivers for the major bus company in Dakar went on strike, the government decided to enforce its ban on street vendors. The result was some of the worst rioting in Senegalese history. The street vendors, mostly young men who make a precarious living—lucky to make a dollar a day—selling phone cards, towels, watches, water, peanuts, clothing, etc. to drivers stuck in Dakar’s never-ending traffic, rebelled by burning trash, trash cans and tires. They shut down downtown for two days, which along with the bus drivers strike made getting around the city impossibly difficult. How dumb and arrogant is the government here? How can they try to take cats’ livelihoods away and not expect a violent backlash? I definitely not a fan of street vendors, but I understand that it’s not their fault they are poor. They live in a country that can only provide stable jobs in the formal sector for a minority of the population—and well-paid jobs—to even fewer, and they are basically forced to hustle or starve. If anything, I am surprised that shit hasn’t popped off before. As poor as this country is, it’s surprisingly stable. People have been incredibly patient, mostly expressing their dissatisfaction through the ballot box. But eight years after President Wade promised “sopi” or change, it’s clear that the people are starting to get frustrated. Again, it’s a testament to Senegal’s political culture that the country has avoided a meltdown like practically all of the countries in the region given how fucked up shit is out here. It’s good that the people showed the government that they went too far, and decided to fight back. For the moment the mayor said he would lay off temporarily, although there will likely be more violence if they try to get rid of the street vendors again.

The Music Rarely Disappoints

I only got to catch one movie all weekend, the very disappointing comedy “Africa Paradis.” Taking place in 2033 after Europe has declined into poverty, colonialism and war while the recently created United States of Africa has become the center of global wealth, the movie follows the attempt of a French couple to illegally immigrate to Western Africa. It’s a wonderful premise, yet they blew it. The movie is low-budget, boring, and melodramatic.

I also only caught one session of the series of conferences on the history of slavery. Predictably, there were no Senegalese there, with more French people in the crowd than Africans born and still living in Africa. For inane reason most of the discussion ended up being about diversity training for teachers in France. Queen Mother Blakely brought up reparations and the response was underwhelming.

The concerts, however, didn’t disappoint.

The music was good and varied, even though the only representatives from the Diaspora were some Martinicans performing Martinican folkloric music and dance, and Netsayi, a black British “acoustic soul” singer who also sings in Shona. She gets credit for putting female instrumentalists on stage (a rare sight in Senegal, where the only women on stage are young, pretty “singers”) and for actually saying something in her songs. Still, it’s regrettable that there was only one non-Francophone artist. Then again she was sponsored by the British Embassy, and it’s not like the Brazilians or Cubans can afford to send someone or Senegal afford to bring them. Beyond that there were some tedious Mbalax bands, a gnawa band which made me really nostalgic for Morocco and the highlight of the weekend, the Senegalese hip hop, R&B, and dancehall trio Daara J. I had seen them perform on SummerStage in Central Park last year, and remembered how the crowd just wasn’t ready for them. This time though they came on at 3 AM on a Saturday playing before their core audience of young, working-class Dakarois men and they put on a great, high-energy show which woke everybody up. It made up for having to take the ferry at 4 AM and then having to waxale with cabdrivers while my teeth were chattering due to the cold.

Goree Diaspora Festival

As much as I hate on Dakar (like Dominicans) I love it. That weekend I went to the Goree Diaspora Festival, a series of movies, conferences and concerts in Goree, an island of Dakar famous for its colonial architecture, car-free streets (cars are illegal) and La Maison des Esclaves or Slave House. It’s a touristy place and I had avoided going because first of all, it’s expensive for foreigners to take the ferry and the slave house is not an experience I was ready to face alone. But I decided to drag myself out there for the festival, although I still haven’t gone to the Slave House. When I arrived at the port in Dakar, I was predictably approached by a tout. I told him that I didn’t want a tour as I was going to the festival, but that if he could get me the Senegalese price for the ferry ticket he could keep the $8 difference. Although he looked like an old drunk he turned out to be quite smart, speaking English and Spanish fluently. He said he had a degree in history and we spoke about slavery and the African Diaspora over beers. I argued that Africans don’t understand the true impact of slavery on its descendants, or even on them. After all—even in purely economic terms—West Africa lost the most productive members of its labor force for centuries, and that’s without even looking at the social and psychological costs. West Africa would not be in the sorry state it’s in now, being the world’s poorest region, if it weren’t for centuries of slavery. Still I have been struck by how ignorant and/or insensitive people out here are about slavery (again a problem that is just as much “ours” as “theirs”). As far as they are concerned, slavery is just another way to get “white” folks to come out here and fork over lots of money, with “roots tourism” being essentially no different than taking folks to the beach or selling them batik. Lonely Planet even warns against the fraudulent claims of the tourist guides in Georgetown in The Gambia who have created a local roots industry by renaming random old buildings to create a “slave prison,” “slave house,” “slave market” and even a “freedom tree,” which would guarantee freedom to all those who touched it; and of course a “visitors’ book” encouraging donations in the memory of slavery. While I can’t knock the hustle (50 Cent and all of them fake studio gangstas need to shut up and come to this part of the world, if they want to see real hustlers), and understand that cats are poor and Black Unitedstatesians are wealthy in comparison, I find such fabrications disgusting. It is an insult to OUR ancestors. Ultimately, these were the relatives of their ancestors who were kidnapped, dehumanized and enslaved. It’s tragic that people would feel the need to pimp the suffering of their own just to make a quick buck. Ironically just as I was telling homey about how I hate people hustling me as a “homecoming African” it was clear that he wasn’t listening still busy thinking about how he could hustle me for some CFA. Once on the island, I met Queen Mother Blakely a remarkable woman, the community mayor of Harlem and a long-time reparations activist. She has been coming to Goree since 1990 and is trying to realize her dream of turning the island into a first-class tourist resort for Black Unitedstatesians to come “home” to Africa and “heal.” I am skeptical, but will keep my mouth shut out of respect to her. While building with her about what had just happened with my “guide” she made an interesting suggestion which still has me thinking. She asserted that Africans would never understand slavery, and we shouldn’t even try to explain. This reminded me of something I remember hearing in one of the classes I took on the African Diaspora. American Blackness and African Blackness are similar, but have different roots. For those of us on the Western side of the Atlantic, our blackness was born the moment whitey threw the shackles on you and crammed you onto a boat i.e. it was born during the middle passages. Thereafter, your ethnic group didn’t matter, you were a slave cause you were black and you were black cause you were a slave. For black folks on this side, they weren’t black until the French came over and started naming streets after their generals, i.e. people saw each other as Wolof, Sereer, etc. until the French told them they were black. Thereafter, they were black because they were colonial subjects and they were colonial subjects because they were black. Now that’s two different forms of blackness, which could justify the logical implication of Queen Mother Blakely’s stance: Pan-Africanism without Africa. I am still not sure if I am ready to go that far, but I can confess that after five months in Senegal it’s getting harder to claim that I am still a Pan-Africanist.

The Dakar Rally

The Dakar Rally is an off-road endurance race where people ride cars, motorcycles, trucks, vans, and every other kind of vehicle imaginable overland from Europe (here in Senegal they just call it the Dakar Rally, which makes sense considering it starts in different cities) starts on January 5^th in Lisbon and ends in the outskirts of Dakar on January 20^th. Most of the participants don’t make it across the Sahara desert but I did. I engaged in my own sort of Dakar Rally traveling overland from Madrid through Morocco and Mauritania and reaching Dakar about 40 days later. Lest you get the wrong impression, it wasn’t that glamorous or romantic. It’s not like I rode a bicycle or camel back here or walked across the desert; most of the trip consisted of long-ass bus rides. Moreover, I took the easiest route across the Sahara, hugging the Atlantic Coast all the way down (mind you I said easiest, not easy). Still, it was quite the adventure. Not always fun, but always interesting.

Home Sweet Home

After 40 days, and, however many thousands of kilometers I finally made it back to Dakar. I had even missed the place, but all feelings of nostalgia quickly dissipated, blown away by yet another interminable traffic jam before we even arrived in Dakar proper. Sometimes I swear that Dakar must be Wolof for “traffic jam, detour and road work” and people just don’t want to tell me the truth. Also the money just started pouring out of my pocket again.

To Beat the Same French Horse

St. Louis was built by (and for) the French, and was the capital of French West Africa until 1902 when the capital was moved to Dakar. It remained the capital of Senegal and Mauritania until “independence.” It’s a pretty city—or at least the island where the French used to live is pretty—but sadly it’s crumbling. It reminded me of La Habana Vieja with its decaying facades and rotting windows and doors. Then again like in Havana, the city has more pressing concerns than restoring its historical center, like feeding and caring for its residents. But if they ever get around to issues of presentation, they really need to change the names of the streets. The main square in St. Louis is named after Louis Faidherbe, the first French governor of Senegal. Why? Are you not independent? Why is your main square named after your colonizer? Why? I am not even Senegalese and it drives me crazy. Two of the main streets in Dakar are named after Faidherbe and de Gaulle, while Mandela and MLK get two tiny streets downtown. People need to get their heroes straight. I mean, shit, is it that hard? It’s a simple test, did this person want your freedom or not? If not then they don’t get a street. The only thing that should be named after the French is the local garbage dump.

Charity

Since being in Senegal I have had to learn to rudely and unmistakably ignore everyone who comes up to me. I hate being like that, but if you pay any attention you will soon learn that your nice new friend sells overpriced statuettes or can arrange your tour of a nearby national park or can help you find a cab or good hotel. In other words, it’s never sincere. Actually, I am sure it sometimes it’s a genuine greeting but it’s so often just a sales pitch that I don’t have the chance to find out (kinda like how most women have to set-up the surface-to-air missile defenses whenever any dude approaches them, even if he just wants to know what time it is). Sometimes it gets murky though. For example, when walking around the island in St. Louis we were approached by a nice, middle-aged Senegalese man who asked us how we found St. Louis. Immediately, I doubted his intentions but he seemed nice enough. He took us around and broke down mad shit about the city and its fishing industry since he was born and raised there and works as a fisherman. After about 25 minutes, though, the truth came out. He confessed that he had come back from asking a friend to borrow money and that he had been unsuccessful and really didn’t want to go home empty-handed, could we buy him some food? Since I fear that my heart is turning to steel here in Senegal since I have to say no to begging children, handicapped people and old folks on the daily I decided to buy him some milk and coffee for his family. But that’s the problem with charity, it depends on the mood of the rich individual. Sometimes I give, sometimes I don’t, depending on how guilty I feel for being a toubab on that given day. Still, charity is not justice and is not the solution to the world’s poverty because few give people give us as much as they should and then it depends on mood, personality and chance. I have tried being consistent with to whom, when, and where I give, but it’s hard to decide who is “worthy” and who isn’t when everyone has a human right to food, housing, education and healthcare, and when really it shouldn’t be up to me or anyone person to decide whether someone gets to eat today or not. Furthermore, I have found that the richer people are the greedier and more tight-fisted they are (duh, like my dad used to always remind me, you don’t get rich by spending) making any “more philanthropy is all the world needs” solutions laughable. I have been impressed by how even the poorest people in Senegal give regularly to others poorer than them. Although that also has a lot to do with the religion with alms to the poor or Zakah being one of the five pillars of Islam (does anyone else think it’s fucked up that Islam assumes that there will always be beggars to receive alms?) it’s still admirable.
Our fisherman friend.

Welcome Back

After six weeks traveling, Senegal felt like home. I felt in my element once again. I could negotiate in my crappy Wolof, rather being dependent on my Arabic speaking friends. Moreover, I actually had an idea as to how much things should cost. The first thing we did after settling in, in Saint Louis was to get some beers. I liked Morocco but I missed just being able to sit down and have a cold beer when it got really hot. I loved all the tea, but sometimes only a beer will do. I also appreciated seeing people smiling and looking happy again. But then I also returned to all the negatives of my stay here in Senegal. I once again gave up my anonymity to become a highly visible symbol of wealth and privilege in a deprived country. I had to get used to the constant harassment from vendors and child beggars, although the vendors weren’t as insistent in St. Louis as they usually are in Dakar. Seeing the children is as always heart-breaking. It was also just hot as fuck, which makes it even harder to be patient, keep walking briskly and mumble “non, merci” 20 times before they get it that I am not buying their Senegalese soccer T-shirt.

Oh Lord, Rosso

If crossing the border into Mauritania was a quiet, forbidding but organized affair, crossing the border out of Mauritania was the opposite, chaotic, crowded, and noisy. Before we could even grab our stuff out the trunk of the sept-place we were being harassed by cab drivers who offered to take us to the border post. I negotiated what I felt was a decent price, until we realized we could have walked and therefore the only decent price would have been $0. The cab driver had a young male assistant who spoke English because he is Gambian and who was actually really helpful in getting us through the madness at the border. First of all, I can’t remember well because I was worrying about where our Gambian friend had run off with our passports but there was an animated crowd of black folks before the gate. Were they seriously trying to sneak into Senegal? Is this like Haitians finding the Dominican side better even though the Dominican Republic is still poor as fuck? I didn’t have time to contemplate this though, as a soldier quickly opened the gate to let us through while simultaneously trying to hold back the crowd. We were promptly approached by another man selling tickets to the ferry which left just as we got our tickets. Beautiful. We got our passports stamped and then a soldier came to ask us for money. Now, let me get this right, I have my passport and the stamp in my pocket, why would I give him money? I tried to be funny and tell him in French that I had paid 10€ for my visa and that if he wanted more money he should ask his government for it. Sadly, I don’t think he spoke much French and even if he had I doubt he would have found my joke funny. After that we just had to negotiate a pirogue ride across the Senegal River to the border post on the other side. The Senegalese side was just the familiar chaos of Senegal, nothing special. There were dudes offering to carry our stuff, “help” us with customs, and exchange CFA, none of which we needed. The border officials made us wait but other than that the process was smooth.

The Fast and the Furious VI: Nouakchott

Nouakchott too got the one-night treatment. We took a cab to the “garage” where the bush taxis to the Senegalese border take off from. I remember it as a regular street somewhere except for the numerous sept-places chasing the customers getting out of cabs. There were literally station wagons chasing after us our cab slowed down. Even though it was a sept-place we had to wait to have nine passengers before taking off. Our driver even took a tenth passenger on, in the form of a moped that ended up on the roof of our ride. A police officer saw this and chased the car down on foot as the driver and his assistant weaved through people, cars, tires, construction materials, incoming traffic and the gas station toward freedom before resuming the chase for the elusive eighth and ninth passengers. I love that these dudes are driving around these tore up old cars and yet still trying to make moves like NASCAR drivers. Fortunately we didn’t get caught and we were able to drive—calmly—for several hours to the Senegalese border through territory that looks just like Northern Senegal only drier.

George III Blvd

The three former French colonies I have been to recently have principal streets named after General Charles de Gaulle. Now de Gaulle was the French president that finally realized that the direct colonialism party was over and France would have to transition to neocolonialism and would be better off leaving peacefully and putting friendly rulers in power everywhere. So de Gaulle was the president that “granted” independence although he did so tactically and reluctantly only after it was clear that the game was over once the French were defeated in Indochina and Algeria degenerated into bloody civil war. Consequently having Avenue Charles de Gaulle in downtown Nouakchott and Dakar is like having Broadway in NYC or Pennsylvania Ave in DC renamed King George III Blvd. I mention this because we were staying off of de Gaulle in Nouakchott. At the same time the other major street in Nouakchott is named after Gamal Abdel Nasser the famous pan-Arabist, anti-imperial, authoritarian independence leader of Egypt. Two clashing personalities, one busy intersection.

Budge

For what yall are paying me I can’t give yall the “t” or at least that’s how I felt when we reached our hostel in Nouakchott. To be right in the middle of town we paid even less—2,000 ouguiya or about $8—for a bigger room with four beds (in true hostel fashion they had dormitories) but no sheets. I guess the $2 difference is the sheets. The hostel also doubles as a camping and we could have paid even less for a tent or the space to set up a tent.

This Time We Stopped for Tea

After only a night in Nouadhibou and where we got to taste their Senegalese-style shwarmas (with fries in the middle and same seasoning) we took off the next day for Nouakchott. Once again a bush taxi, except that unlike Senegal where you have French seven-seater station wagons at Nouadhibou we had to take a regular ancient Mercedes 190D four person car crammed with six dudes (no women of course). The dudes were really nice and accommodating about the whole situation with no one complaining about being crammed into this car. On this ride the desert changed from grey and rocky to a monochromatic yellow of fine sand, easily blown about by the wind. Naturally, we got stopped a couple of times by soldiers wanting to check our passport. After four or five hours we stopped in the middle of the afternoon for a long rest stop; probably to avoid the heat or winds or something. We sat in a tent with passengers from another shared taxi and had tea of course. Then we ate some bland, greasy rice with a tiny portion of lamb with our hands before hitting the road again.

Senegal>Morocco

Mauritania is a transition from “Arab Africa” to “Black Africa” in the conventional wisdom. It’s somewhere between Morocco and Senegal, but in my expert opinion having been to both countries it’s more Senegal than Morocco. Granted it’s the desert and is “The Islamic Republic of” and speak Arabic, and there are all of these Arab looking dudes walking around with those long, puffy robes with the long slits down the side, but even in Nouadhibou 50 km from Morocco I heard mbalax, saw Senegalese-looking people everywhere and it just looked like Senegal, horse-carts, mad dusty, telecentres, dibiteries, unfinished concrete 2-story buildings, and beat-up old French cars. It even smelled like Senegal. Which brings me to one of the most unsavory aspects of Mauritanian society, yup you guessed it, its deep-rooted anti-black racism. Mauritania basically has three main social groups. First there are the moors of Arab and Berber descent (the ones of “purely” Arab descent or Bidan are the elite according to many sources), then there are the former slaves of the Arabs the Haratin or “black moors” (think Othello) who have assimilated Hassaniya and Moorish cultures, and finally the Soudaniens or black Africans who are basically the same ethnic groups that live on the other side of the Senegal River, the Peul, and some Wolof and Soninke. Then again I don’t know how accurate this schematic is since I did meet a woman who self-identied as “black moor” (maure noire) and spoke Hassaniya but also spoke Wolof and French. What’s certain that this kind of ethnic mix is a explosive (just look at similar situations in Chad and Sudan). In 1989 there were race riots which almost threatened to escalate to war with Senegal as the black in the south rebelled against Arab domination of the government and economy, including for example the imposition of Hassaniya. Furthermore, Mauritania has been condemned by international human rights groups as one of the handful of countries worldwide that still tolerates mass slavery. It all just makes me wonder why God chose black people to suffer so much (but then again in Mali and Niger it’s the black folks oppressing the Moors from the desert, so I guess it really is just structural, still black folks have an awful tendency to show up at the bottom of structures worldwide, with Mali and Niger already being among the top ten poorest countries in the world).

Budget

Although both Jonathan were assuming that we would be going all the way to the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, we didn’t find out until we were at the Mauritanian that this would be basically impossible not if we wanted to make it there before midnight. Therefore we had no other choice but to spend a night in Nouadhibou, the biggest town in the border area. Our driver was trying to convince us to stay at some expensive hotel (it was hard to make these calculations, quick how much is 8,000 ouguiya?) and we had to keep insisting that we really didn’t have that kind of money. It’s like people can’t distinguish between kind of travelers. They see all foreigners as rich—which we are—but there is a still difference between a millionaire and a billionaire; even if it might seem trivial to us the billions of non-millionaires out there. I am not a business travelers, clearly if I were I wouldn’t be in your van with the clanking shells and instead would have flown into Nouadhibou or Nouakchott if I really had business there. He kept stating that he didn’t know the city and was tired and we asked him if he could help us find a hostel that was recommended by Lonely Planet. It was on the main street and from we could tell from the map Nouadhibou just isn’t that big. As he argued that he didn’t know where it was, Jonathan yelled out that we drove past it. Our driver didn’t believe it and when we drove back around I saw it and he insisted that he still didn’t see us. Finally we just got out of the van, realizing that he wasn’t going to be staying there so that the only thing that matters is that Jonathan and I saw it. The spot certainly was budget, 2,500 ouguiya or about $10. For this I got the barest accommodations of my life, our “room” consisted of a prison cell sized box (about 6’ by 12’) with two foam mattresses laid on the floor, and a table. There was no window, and the bathrooms were outside obviously. Again playing the “minimum acceptable” game with hostels and winning I guess.

Mumkin, chiwa

Did I like Morocco? Mumkin, chiwa. Maybe a little. Although I clown and criticize Moroccans, I actually really liked Morocco. I, mean, I did stay a whole month for some reason. The good: the food, the generosity, the natural beauty, the cultural, geographical, racial, ajdlinguistic diversity, walking swiftly through the medinas, the only place that could have produced gnawa, the heart pound (whenever people greet you the put their right hand across and gently pound their chests), the fashion, cabs with meters, decent public transportation. What I didn’t like: the anti-black racism, their “particular” form of patriarchy, cats don’t smile (they are a sad looking bunch), wack authoritarian government, adventures crossing the street, hustlers and touts, and the Islam just ain’t moderate enough.

Nothing Stops Tea

The next day I got picked up in a van by the shady dude I had negotiated with the day before. Predictably he wasn’t the driver, in fact he wasn’t even a passenger. I gave him half the dough upfront (I needed some insurance cats wouldn’t throw me out in the middle of the desert between Morocco and Mauritania. And say I survived I couldn’t imagine the embarrassment at confessing to my mother that she was right. Even more embarrassing was that I had gotten so far, to start thinking like my mom; if those fools had wanted to throw me off they were going to anyway, money or no money.) and then before leaving of course we stopped for breakfast (many rest stops, how Moroccan of the Saharawis). After breakfast, we picked up Jonathan, a Canadian dude heading to Timbuktu through Senegal, who joined me, the driver, his younger friend who also drove for a bit and the businessman crossing the borders with merchandise that clanked and clanclanked all the way down and which he swore were only “shells.” As soon as we hit open road, our driver, Mustafa, decided it was tea time. He admitted that he gets groggy if he doesn’t have a cup in the morning. Now I had never seen anyway make tea on a moving vehicle before, but somehow he made it work. He also explained—again in Spanish—how Saharawi tea tradition is different from how Moroccans drink tea. It was something about how Saharawis always do three rounds of tea, while Moroccans are greedy with their tea. The tea tasted the same to me. Then of course we made one more rest stop at the last gas station on the road to Mauritania which had a surprisingly nice restaurant where I had my last tajine dish. We even had to eat it traditional style, picking at it with pieces of bread cause they never brought us silverware. Followed up by, yup, more tea. Once more gasoline arrived and we filled up we could leave and then it was another couple of hours of monotonous, dry, rocky scrubland before we reached the border and the fun began. The Moroccan border consisted of heat, lots of waiting, silent exchanges, checking in with the police, military and some third state force, getting our bags checked and boredom. It moved slow, but thankfully smoothly and we were eventually cleared to leave the Morocco. Between the two borders is a 5-km stretch of no-man’s-land where there are various land mines from previous hostilities in the area. There were a couple of charred car stasis/chassis that served as a powerful warning that this not an area where you fuck up around. But there were even more “reassuring” signs like lots of litter, plastic bottles and bags, car parts, and newspapers that are evidence that this is a routine voyage for many people. Although it is romantic to think that you are in a part of the world free of law, where anything goes, really I am sure people just use to get cheap car parts and avoid petty taxes. On the Mauritanian side it was clear that we were in a different country. First of all, it was much smaller and looked even more low-budget, with even smaller, poorer equipped offices that looked even more cheaply built. Then there were some of the guards which were “Senegal black.” In Morocco you see Moroccans that could be black in the US, but I didn’t see any really that would be black in Senegal, most of the cats in Mauritanian would be black in Senegal (that’s essentially because they are Senegalese, or cause really these countries and labels are colonial fictions, but more on that later.) Mauritania is an Islamic Republic and the importation of alcohol is illegal therefore they like to check your bags with alcohol as a pretense. Although the guy checking us was a complete asshole completely undoing Jonathan’s packing and taking apart most of mine. Then when I told the other guards that I was going to Dakar where I had been studying French and Wolof, and tried some Wolof on them (again what are Wolof speakers doing in the middle of the desert?) they told me my Wolof was terrible. The actual visa wasn’t as much of a hassle, even though that I think that was due to the bill our driver slipped the customs official when they shook hands quickly as we left. For 10€ we got a three-day transit visa, if you want to stay longer you have three days to get to Nouakchott and get an extension. There are lots of police checks in Mauritania not cause it’s disputed territory, but just because it’s a plain military Islamic dictatorship. It was easier than in Morocco though. No dumb forms to write out yourself, our driver just handed the first cops we saw a bag of sugar—for their tea of course—and the passport check was no problem.

Sajara

50 million stops and a whole day later I finally arrived in Dakhla, officially known as the capital of the middle of fucking nowhere. After my final army checkpoint, I saw the single most appetizing advertisement of my whole life. A billboard before entering town advertising in English for the best place to rest after a long journey through the desert, The Sahara Regency Hotel. Alas, I couldn’t afford that and instead checked into the only budget hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. They lied about it being clean, but for $6.50 I got a double and picked the cleaner of the two beds, in addition to shared squat toilets and shower facilities, though at least there was hot water. So I had to squat to shit for the first time in six weeks. I almost missed it. I also saw my last Moroccan sunset over the Atlantic. After settling I had to figure out transport to Mauritania since there is no form of public transportation across the border. Literally asking around me I met Ahmed, a proud Saharawi—who scolded me for referring to it as Morrocco, I would never had done that though if I hadn’t spent the whole day trying to remind myself not to say Sahara in front of police so that I wouldn’t have any issues—who spoke shaky Spanish (for example pronouncing Sajara instead of the more Spanish Sahara with the silent “h”) and helped me find transport. FYI If you are thinking of crossing the border in Dakhla there are some random men who sit on near the plants in front of the Sahara Hotel. It was weird to be in the Sahara desert speaking Spanish, I would have expected French (and Arabic too obviously, although Ahmed also scolded for referring to as Darija or Moroccan Arabic instead of Hassaniya, the Mauritanian dialect) but never Spanish. Now I really need to go Equatorial Guinea and visit Spain’s “only” two African colonies, the scraps they got when they lost out on the “Scramble for Africa.” In return for helping me out, I bought Ahmed a sandwich (it cost $1.25, Dakhla was the cheapest place I visited on my whole trip) and he told me how he was about to get on the bus cause he has to keep it moving from the police. But if I was ever in Dakhla or Laayoune I could stay with his family, he promised. Hospitality was his duty as the people of Cuba have expressed their solidarity with the Saharawi cause. Too bad I am Dominican.

Sweet Time

After an idyllic day in Essaouira I had to force myself to get on a bus to Dakhla. Estimated running time: 22 hours. It actually 24, although I am convinced that you can do the trip in 13 or 14 hours except the bus literally stopped every other hour. Furthermore, I swear that that bus wasn’t moving half the time since the breaks were so damn long. Some of the stops were at bus stations at every major town along the way. Others were rest stops were the food was cheap, the passengers sleepy and the bathrooms filthy. And a couple of times the bus stopped for no particular reason other than the driver didn’t want me to get a comfortable sleep. Somehow after 24 hours on a bus I was still sleepy.

Disputed Territory

Everything was smooth, with the bus making stops every 90 minutes for 90 minutes until right before getting to Laayoune. Laayoune is the capital of Western Sahara. There I ran into the first of six police checkpoints. After 14 hours on the bus, I had learned to ignore the stops, only this time I was the sole reason for the stop. The soldier poked my shoulder rudely, waking me up and demanding my passport. He asked me for the essentials, name, date of birth, nationality, and profession, and I felt terrible for holding up the whole bus. An hour and change later, we got stopped again. This time the soldier made me go down to his little office by the road in the middle of fucking nowhere, and took even longer in getting my info. Afterwards, the bus driver advised me to write down all of my relevant information on scraps of paper I could hand out to the soldiers as they stopped me. I thought the whole thing was so silly. The dudes were copying my information in the most random places. One dude wrote it in his planner, another on the back of some other document he had, and the others accepted my scraps with some recopying it and others just taking it as is. Why don’t they just have a form you can fill out? Well, what’s all the fuss about? I was in Western Sahara which is claimed and occupied by Morocco as part of its own territory, while the Saharawis assert that they are an independent nation oppressed by Morocco. Western Sahara was for centuries part of Morocco’s empire, but it didn’t really exist as a formal political entity (as always in Africa) until colonialism. The French and Spanish divided Morocco between themselves, with the French taking the tastier morsels and leaving Spain with the scraps: the mountains in the north by the Spanish border and a large chunk of desert in the south that the Spanish renamed Rio de Orio (Gold River) even though there was no water or gold. Although Morocco negotiated its independence from France in 1956, Spain resisted the tide of colonization and held onto Western Sahara until Franco’s death in 1975. The UN was supposed to administer a plebiscite to decide whether Western Sahara would be independent or join Morocco. King Hassan II of Morocco though interrupted the vote (maybe forever) when he ordered the “Green March” where 350,000 Moroccans marched down into the desert to claim Western Sahara as part of a historical “Greater Morocco.” Really the King just understood the value of nationalism and possible foreign war in distracting people from more urgent domestic concerns, and also the value of the phosphate deposits in Western Sahara. Mauritania was supposed to get a slice too, but quickly withdrew after a new Algerian-backed armed independence movement, POLISARIO arose and forced them to retreat. POLISARIO warred with the Moroccan government until a ceasefire in the 1991, although hostilities never completely ended. The UN has a highly visible presence in Western Sahara and they are still supposed to organize a vote on Western Sahara’s political future but there are disputes as to who is going to be allowed to vote since many Moroccans have moved in encouraged by the Moroccan governments investments and tax exemptions. Most likely Western Sahara will remain part of Morocco and the Saharawis yet another nation without a state. Again, all this meant for me was having to be woken up by soldiers several times who just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t an investigative journalist going to meet the rebels. I just wondered why anyone would fight over this territory. I mean, honestly, it’s the desert. There is literally nothing. I didn’t even see the tall dunes of fine yellow sand that is burned into the Western imaginary, rather it was all dull looking, rocky scrubland. Not very romantic at all, but still if the Saharawis want it that bad I think they have put it up with it long enough to deserve to call it whatever they want and govern themselves however they wish.

Essaouira

Essaouira is a beautiful place. It’s a town on the Atlantic Coast and although it’s mad touristy no tourist could spoil it. We laid on the ramparts, and just concentrated on sound of the waves crashing. There are several amazing views of the ocean. We walked alongside the tidy beach, it was just great.

Smile!

I won’t be hating on Morocco forever, but I have one more complaint: motherfuckers don’t smile. How you not gonna smile? You see people’s pictures and they aren’t smiling. For women it’s dangerous to smile cause men there take anything as I sign of attraction, so it makes sense, but the dudes? Natasha introduced me to the term ibengoggen, an “only in Morocco” word that refers to men who spend all day at the café buying only a cup of coffee and sits alone or a small group staring at others and when in company commenting on passersby. Although it’s a hobby, don’t think anyone has any fun. The typical face is a mixture of bitterness, boredom and sadness. They might also smoke a cigarette or two. Here is a picture of me and some actually ibengoggen, followed by Currun and I trying to imitate the look.

Relative Heat

I thought it was hot as fuck in Marrakech, but I kept seeing people wearing coats, or sweaters and blazers, with hats even in the middle of the day when I felt like if I didn’t get enough water I would pass out. People in Senegal are ridiculous about the heat too, thinking that anything in the 70s is cold, and the 60s is freezing, but Morocco just took heat tolerance to the next level. It’s like the men were subconsciously trying to understand what it was like to wear a black burka in 95 degree weather, by wearing several layers. It was just weird to be walking around in a t-shirt and jeans and wishing I could be in flip flop and shorts, and then seeing people in wool coats and hats.

Tourism, Power and Authenticity

In Marakech they sell you this image of Moroccans as generic desert nomads/Arabs even though like all stereotypes it’s largely inaccurate. For example, I bought a hookah even though Moroccans don’t really do sheesha, it’s more of an Eastern Arab and South Asian thing. Djaama El Fna was full of tourist attractions, like the snake-charmers, who speak English and chase after you, just like they did 800 years ago. I bet they also accept visa and MasterCard. In addition, there is the lady who yells out to all of the female tourists for henna tattoos. It’s the kind of commercialization of tradition (completely removed from its cultural context) that just reeks of inauthenticity. But then what is authenticity? Is it just something that’s corny? Some authentic traditions, i.e. not Hallmark made up or pumped up like holiday movies did to the mistletoe for example, are genuinely corny like some Europeans really do yodel. And many “tourist spectacles” have both “authentic” and “inauthentic” components (and now I have to use scare marks) like Brazilian and West Indian carnival celebrations. Moreover, cultures are dynamic and change, and people have been borrowing from each other since some cavewoman discovered fire and others began to replicate her trick, so it’s hard to say what is authentic or not. The issue primarily seems to be about power and how much the host society can define it’s own image and how low it’s forced to stoop for tourist dollars. So that for example, Spain is super-touristy and there they sell a stereotypical image of flamenco, bullfighting and tapas, but the difference is, that Spain can decide how cheesy it wants to be. There you get overcharged too, and in many ways it’s worse cause you are getting robbed in euros. Still, it’s done formally, they announce that you will be paying 30€ for a cheesy flamenco show and therefore everyone get overcharged the same. But Morocco is more desperate, more dependent on tourism (that’s the other issue too, economic diversity, New York City for example probably receives more visitors than all of Morocco every year and definitely pimps them for even more dough and would be seriously in trouble if those folks stop coming and buying Broadway tickets, but there the economy is more diverse, so you don’t notice it as much.) Therefore Morocco gets defined, and they are going to sell you whatever you want. They will be whatever you want them to be. They will cater to your every fantasy and fetish. The poorer the more exploitative and “inauthentic” it becomes. These same dynamics can play themselves out within the same country too obviously, whenever (which is always in our fucked up world) there are serious inequalities. One of the authors of one of the books I read on the subject gives the example of Baltimore, where wealthier white folks redeveloped the waterfront and created their own fantasy of a happy, whitebread Baltimore. Or think of the Native Americans in the Southwest, and the long history of misrepresentation, mythologizing and racism there. Although they are better off in relative terms than Natives in other countries, and have greater power to portray themselves to the world. People should visit each other. They always have, and again in an equal world we wouldn’t have these issues. Tourism can be done right, but that’s hard with so much inequality.

Sorry More Politics

It also annoys me that so many Moroccans refer to Moroccan Arabic or darija as argot or slang when it’s the language of the people. Fuhsa, or modern standard Arabic, is spoken only by the educated and (from what I understand, I ain’t no Arabist or nothing, or even speak Arabic except for like three words) is not really spoken anywhere with some Persian Gulf dialects just being close to it. Some Arabic speakers couldn’t understand each other, but for political reasons you can’t say the truth which is that most “Arabic” speakers don’t speak the same language. Which brings me to the other side of the language issue in Morocco: Berber. Or rather the different Berber dialects which are spoken by many Moroccans. A bit of Moroccan history: many groups have invaded Morocco throughout the centuries, the last being the French and Spanish, but before them were the Arabs and before them the Romans and before them the Phoenicians and before them the Berbers. The folks who were there before the Berbers are no longer relevant to the mix, so the Berbers get default native peoples status. The Berbers are notorious for their “fiercely independent” spirit and the Arabs, Romans and others never could quite control certain parts of the country where the Berbers were able to do their thing. Still, they were disadvantaged in a society dominated by Arabic speaking Berbers. The difference now is mainly cultural and linguistic, although some people say that Berbers are lighter than the Arabs. These are also the same people who will tell you that Berbers are from Europe and that while Europe is the head, Morocco is the roots. This self-hating, negrophobic attempt to distance themselves from Black Africa and claim an elusive whiteness (being Dominican I understand and disapprove of the impulse) is laughable. The fact is, Moroccans—including the Berbers—are a diverse bunch and I was constantly surprised by the number of Moroccans that wouldn’t be perceived as “Arab” in the US i.e. wouldn’t get racially profiled by Department of Homeland Security. Some would get away as white, but many more would be profiled for being black. Gnawa, in fact, is the subculture created by black slaves. Unfortunately, coming into Moroccan society mostly as slaves black folks have kept their low status and now traditional prejudice has mixed with modern racism to make life quite hard for dark-skinned Moroccans. Natasha lamented the racist taunts and jokes, people chasing her asking if she was from Senegal. Again I saw many people as dark as Natasha in Morocco. It’s a damn shame. I wonder why God chose black folks to suffer so. That being said, I think it’s cool that the Berbers are trying to pressure the Moroccan and Algerian governments to teach Berber in the schools as one of the main aims of a rising Berber Pride movement after centuries of repression.

Ils Sont Forts

In Senegalese French at least, to say someone is good at something you say il est fort, or “he is strong,” as in “he is strong in swimming.” Well the French were good at colonizing. As I keep seeing, they were really good at spreading their culture (although I wish they had spread some money instead so cats in Senegal could afford all of the tasty, fancy French cheeses) and their language. French takes you much further in Morocco than English in Egypt. Two Arabic countries (although the language situation in Morocco is more complicated) which strongly emphasized Arabic after “independence” but the French ils sont forts. It’s even worse in Senegal where people are always surprised to learn that French is the only official language. The only language allowed in government is French. Almost everything written is in French. Unlike Anglophone African countries, Francophone Africans have not developed their native languages into literary languages. So that some Yoruba in Nigeria write in Yoruba, while much fewer do so in neighboring Benin. It was really hard to find anything written in Wolof. Moreover, this is the same country where magazines will translate from Wolof to French when interviewees use Wolof proverbs and idioms as if Wolof were not the language of the majority and French the clearly foreign language.

Moroccan wives

Lightheartedly, I would tease Natasha that with all of the cooking she could be mistaken for my Moroccan wife, especially when we reached the point where she had to hang my undies on the clothesline. Ok, this had less to do with me being a terrible feminist than with Morocco having a “peculiar” form of patriarchy. Natasha’s neighbor is a young (21 y.o.) newlywed that isn’t allowed to leave her home. Her husband has forbidden her from leaving the home until she bears him a child, preferably a son. She relies on others, usually children to buy her food and other necessary items. The clothes hang on the roof through her apartment, so I couldn’t go. As a smaller town, Azilal is a relatively more conservative place (though for from the worst in Morocco) than say Rabat, but even in the big cities you would see women in burkas. One of the things I will never forget was seeing a woman in Marrakech covered head to toe in a black burka, with mesh across her eyes. She was wearing gloves so that no part of her skin was visible, even though it was over 90 degrees at the time. What’s more, she couldn’t even see and had to be led through the chaotic streets by another woman not as conservatively dressed. I had Granted not all women wear veils, least of all the burka, and many women who do wear the veils still manage to express themselves through their clothes and try to get cute with it. As I have already said before, the veil means many different things in different places and times and therefore my horror could just reflect Western prejudice. There are women who argue that the veil can be empowering. What is undeniably terrible about gender relations in Morocco is the extreme gender segregation and consequent relegation (many would say condemnation) of women to the home or “private sphere.” There are no women in the public sphere, few in government, business, education, health. And sometimes you don’t even have to see things from that macro-level, I had days when I was traveling when I would go 12 or 14 hours without seeing a single female. But then the truth is that as much as Arab Muslim societies get vilified for their treatment of women (did you know that women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia?!) it is wack to be a woman everywhere. The point is that as a woman you basically pick your poison. But it’s hard to decide which country is worse because every country oppresses women, just differently and it’s hard to decide which basket of evils is worse. In Morocco it’s the burka and extreme segregation and confinement, while in the US it’s eating disorders, porn, BET and date rape, and in Senegal it’s polygamy, and FGM, while in India it’s dowry murder and female infanticide and abortion, and so on. To be blunt, what’s the point of being unveiled when they have cut your clitoris; at least the veil doesn’t stop you from enjoying yourself when you know one of these men never could. And for America what’s the point of having all of this money and “freedom” when women are willing to starve themselves and can’t get their head out of the toilet bowl to enjoy the freedoms bequeathed by modernity. Misogyny has many faces, hard to say which is ugliest. Still I can’t shake off the feeling that I would rather be a woman in the US than in Morocco.

Marrakech

We took a grand taxi to Marrakech, through a less scenic but safer route down from Azilal. Marrakech was a reintroduction to heat, fashion boys, tourists, pollution and too many people on motorcycles. Progressively, there were also many women riding around on motorcycles, although I didn’t see many being as annoying as the men and driving around the narrow, crowded streets. I had seen and been irritated by motorists in the medina in Rabat, but it was much worse in Marrakech. We stayed in a hotel in the narrow alleys behind Djaama El Fna. The area was touristy as fuck—dominated by foreigners—but I still liked it. I enjoyed the orange juice stands, and the food stalls. Still it was annoying to be constantly pestered by all the vendors, after the calm of Azilal and Rabat. In Marrakech, discerning eyes could tell I was a tourist even if their guesses of where I was from were often way off. Although I had heard vendors try to hook you by yelling out a greeting in whatever language they think you speak (hello my friend! Mon ami, c’est pas cher, etc.) but had never encountered so many people that just yelled out the names of countries. Did they seriously think that if they could guess correctly we would reward them by buying their overpriced leather bags? Walking around Natasha we got some outlandish countries, Cameroon, Jamaica (Natasha’s twists elicited lots of Jamaica), Martinique, Belgium, France, and some more sensible ones like Brazil and the US. If one of them had said Dominican Republic I would have let them name the price.