What Would Jesus Buy?

I thought that in being a Senegal—an overwhelmingly Muslim country—I would be able to avoid Christmas season, only to encounter its uglier twin sister, Tabaski. Eid Ul-Adha or Tabaski as its known in Senegal takes place 70 days after the end of Ramadan. It commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son when God asked. For those of you who slept through that Sunday school lesson, God ends up being like “syke! Just kill a sheep instead.” So to honor the spirit of total devotion embodied in the act, Muslims worldwide are supposed to slaughter and eat a sheep every year. This year Tabaski is nearly coinciding with Christmas. I would tell you the exact date only nobody knows when it will be exactly since it all depends on the moon. Subsequently, it could be December 20, 21 or 22. We won’t know until right before. Regardless of the difference of premises, this amazing holiday that not only venerates absolute devotion and could highlight the links among the world’s three great monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is instead just turned into another superficial excuse to fritter lots of money away in order to impress your neighbors and friends in a spending spree that just leaves everyone broke. Of course, those who can least afford to end up wasting the most money. I mean, what will people say if you aren’t spending like a maniac? Maybe the truth: that you are poor. The sad truth, how horrendous.

The only major difference I can see with how people treat both holidays is that here in Senegal instead of buying tons of random shit that can lift the several whole sectors of the economy people just focus on two things, buying a sheep and a new outfit. Yup, every family tries to buy its own sheep, and no, they are not cheap. From what I have been hearing they can range from $100 to $450 with some costing even more (In a country where the GDP per capita, even when adjusted for purchasing power parity is still less than $2000). As a result the city is overflowing with sheep, many coming from as far away as Mauritania and Mali since Dakar is the wealthiest city in the region. I am not a Muslim theologian but I am sure that spending that much money is probably against the spirit of the holiday. After all, many—probably the vast majority to be honest—of the most devout people of any religion are poor, dirt poor. And I doubt Allah really intended people to prove their devotion by making themselves broke every year to buy a sheep. Considering that Allah was talking to some 8^th century Arab nomads originally he probably just assumed that people had sheep lying around, and that no one was ever so far from one that they would have to buy one. But in modern capitalist Senegal, it means most people are hustling hard to afford that sheep. On top of the sheep, everyone has to go out and spend anywhere from $25 to $325 on a new boubou. But at least the large expense for the sheep has some foundation in the religion, why you would need a new outfit is just pure consumerism and vanity.

Although it’s not quite as omnipresent (I would say suffocating) as Christmas with the media attack of holiday ads, music, and movies, Tabaski clearly changes the pattern of life. Suddenly the cab ride that cost $1.50 two weeks ago, now runs more like $2.50. Gasoline prices I asked? Nope, Tabaski. The waxaale for several products is now more difficult. You get the feeling that everyone is ready for what’s likely to be the biggest production of the year. This to me just further disproves the myth of rationality, one of the axioms of neoclassical microeconomics. Even if the means of purchasing are rationalized (charge toubabs more for everything) the end is of complete folly. Neoclassical microeconomic theory will tell you that it doesn’t matter how people determine how much “utility” to attach to any given good or service, just that they maximize and rationalize and economize and blah blah rationality to achieve that utility. But it’s not important that so much of our economy depends on our willingness to spend foolishly and gorge ourselves once annually with some flimsy religious pretext? Where would the WORLD economy be without Americans splurging every December 25^th? And how many of the herders in West Africa wouldn’t even be in business if it weren’t for Tabaski?

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!

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.

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.

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.

Last In

Before surviving the Sahara I had the even harder challenge of surviving my first Senegalese summer, AKA the rainy season AKA the fucking hot and humid season, when it seems it’s always about to rain but really it only rains like six times. A couple of hours before my flight to Madrid, the rainy season decided to go out with a bang. It poured. The coordinator for my program was supposed to take me to the airport but was late due to the rain (and probably also due to a mild case Senegalitis) and showed up to my host family’s house less than two hours for the flight. He and I had some outstanding business, and I was pissed enough that I didn’t care about missing my flight (and I figured they would have to delay the flight due to the biblical rain) so we started beefing. We argued all the way to the airport in the rain, and in the end I had to run with my bags in the rain through puddles hoping my flight wouldn’t leave without me. Fortunately although my flight was in 55 minutes I made it, barely so, as they closed the flight the moment I stammered in, wet and winded. On the bright side, there was no waiting, I went right through security and directly onto the plane.

Eating Colonialism

So clearly there are a couple of things I always complain about like relaxed and fake hair, food, TV, music videos, etc. and I will always blame them on capitalism, racism, patriarchy and colonialism. It’s time to complain about food again. The eating patterns here were thoroughly colonized by the French. I have already complained a lot about the bread, butter, cheese, Nescafe, chocolate spread and powdered milk for breakfast. It is just too French for me (although it is low-budget French). I would prefer an American breakfast, eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, waffles, cereal, fruit, etc. or some platanos sancocha’os o mangu con queso frito o salami. Although, I knew that rice was also introduced by French I was happy eating it until one day I stopped to observe the grains before putting them in my mouth. I realized that they were much shorter than the rice we eat in the US. I figured that rice wasn’t the same everywhere until I remembered something Oke mentioned a long time ago. They eat broken rice here. Broken rice is basically the waste produced from preparing and packaging white rice for market. Some brief online research (and you know you can always believe what you seen online) revealed that in the US broken rice was mostly used for brewing beer and is now used for pet food. We’re eating dog food. It’s all imported from Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries and it’s advertised as 100% quality broken rice. Why do they eat it then? Because it’s cheap. According to the website it’s low in nutrients and fiber, but high in “energy” content, i.e. it’s empty carbs meant to fill the tummy as quickly as possible.

What I have to do more research on, is why they don’t eat more Senegalese couscous which is already the most feeling substance I have already put in my mouth. Made from ground millet, a little bit of Senegalese couscous (it’s brown rather than yellow like Moroccan couscous which they also eat here) with some stewed fish or beef is guaranteed to put you to bed and make you forget any thought of hunger for several days. Millet is the traditional grain that was the main staple (they would have it with real milk for breakfast, I have no idea how they got through their days eating this stuff more than once daily) before the French introduced them to rice and bread. The imported rice is cheaper than the native produced millet although I get the feeling that there is also a social status aspect to it in that people associate millet with villagers and rice as more urban and therefore prefer rice.

But the French really did a good job overall here. Their influence is all over the cuisine. For example, people here love everything here super-sweet even though sugar is also something they didn’t know before the French. I can go on, they love mustard, mayonnaise, and gruyere. Could anything be more stereotypically French than mayonnaise, mustard and gruyere? Could the French colonial policy to “educate” and assimilate West Africans in order to create “black Frenchmen” have worked any better?

Gaïnde

The lion is the national symbol of Senegal. The national football team is called The Lions of Teranga. In fact all of the national teams are the lions of something. Lions are used to advertise everything from butter to politicians to TV channels. The latest hit song from Youssou Ndour encourages people to be tenacious like a hungry lion when they encounter life’s obstacles. I have even heard stories of Presidents’ parading lions through the streets of Dakar for major state holidays. In other words if you are like me and think Americans have an infantile obsession with the bald eagle you should know that the Senegalese obsession with lions proves that the fixation with “national animals” can get much worse. In the US it’s ironic that the bald eagle would be the national symbol given that until recently it was endangered and can be found in Canada and Mexcio also. Then again what could be more American than destroying the environment and causing the extinction of species? But at least I am sure that the US has most of the world’s bald eagles, while I always clown the Senegalese because there have to be at least 20 countries in Africa (and yes there are that many African countries) that have more lions than Senegal. Shit there might be more lions in US zoos than in all of Senegal. Therefore I think it’s funny that they took an animal that many more countries have more “valid” claims to and have turned it into this central national symbol.

I am torn as to how to interpret it. On the one hand, it seems an admirable attempt on behalf of an impoverished group of people to venerate what little they have rather than focusing on how others have much more (i.e. Senegal may not have as much money or lions as other countries but it insists on being positive and focusing on what little it has rather than what it hasn’t). Analogous to the country seeing the glass as ¼ full rather than ¾ empty like it really is. On the other hand, it could be similar to the national obsession with fake hair and it’s like the exaggerated attempt to take what you would like but is denied to you because of your low status in the world system, a system that is rigged against you because the standards for success are arbitrarily set by those in power to meet their needs (in this analogy white people see lions and long, straight hair as cool and the Senegalese then want long, straight hair and lions even though their hair is short and nappy and they have few lions).

When I ask them where I might go as an American tourist to see lions in Senegal so that I can therefore better understand the national psyche, they all stammer and reluctantly concede that Senegal has few lions. At this point, if they are clever they point to the fact that Senegal is also shaped like a lion’s head, and hence the symbolism. This factoid aggravates me on many levels. First of all, it reinforces just how childish the obsession with lions is. Are we nine-year-olds giggling about why Montana has a face and why it’s staring at Idaho, or whether Florida is the US’ boot or its penis? Secondly, I think Senegal looks more like a fish (which to me makes more sense considering that they eat so much fish here) than a lion’s head (which I guess is like penis or boot, I say boot by the way). Third, Senegal’s shape has nothing to do with the “national” anything; its borders were drawn up by a French bureaucrat to meet the needs of the French colonial administration. Jokes aside, I am talking of how much more absurd nationalism and the idea of the “nation” seems in the younger nations of “post-colonial” Africa.

Senegal makes no sense as a country. To varying extents that is true of all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa (I would even push it to say that “nations” everywhere are a myth and we should have no national borders, kumbaya yall). The borders were drawn arbitrarily by colonial administrators and the results of intra-European rivalries in the 1880s and 90s. For example, the mouth of the Senegalese Lion (or Fish) is The Gambia. The Gambia (and yes, it’s always “The”) was a former British colony that basically just encompasses the Gambia River. It is tiny country, with less than 2 million inhabitants and being something ridiculous like only two miles wide at some points. Gambians are the same as the surrounding people in Senegal, except that instead of French the highest sectors of society are English speaking. There was a failed attempt at a Senegambian union several years ago, but I guess the idea just makes too much sense for politicians to make it happen. I would think that the weak argument of behalf of Senegalese nationhood—the fact that no notion of Senegal even existed before the French created it less than 120 years ago—would make it easier to merge countries like Senegal and the Gambia into Senegambia or (if God were just) all of sub-Saharan Africa into a United States of Africa. Instead it just means that the politicians have to exaggerate even more and pull out more of the usual tricks to convince people that “Senegal” actually exists. We end up with a national obsession with lions and notebooks for schoolchildren emblazoned with patriotic messages.

And like I said the case for nationhood truly is weak. There are several languages spoken, and even though Wolof is dominant it is still not spoken by all Senegalese (many of the villagers where I was for example spoke only Sereer). There are many ethnic groups so that contrary to say Somalia that is 90% ethnic Somali, no ethnic group has a majority. At least there is a unifying religion. But there wasn’t even an independence war around which to build a national mythology. It’s telling that the memorial at Independence Plaza while a tribute to fallen soldiers (always the military-nation connection, another reason to despise nationalism, kumbaya yall) is homage to martyrs who died for France. Imagine if the Washington Memorial was a memorial for American soldiers who died for England. The Senegalese are not as annoyingly or frighteningly jingoistic as Americans, nor do they insist on putting their flag everywhere from sidewalks to scandalous swimsuits like Brazilians, in fact they are no more patriotic than “average.” I just hoped that people would tone it down since it is an even more obviously fake country than all of the other already obviously fake countries. It’s like how you will often see black women in the US and wonder if they are wearing a weave, but you don’t want to say it because although it’s clearly fake it could be her hair. Here if you see a woman with hair below her chin it is definitely not hers.

Man ak Mom

Sunday afternoons here only mean one thing, ridiculous music videos. After lunch I decided to watch TV as my stomach digested the greasy rice and pork I had had. First it was all concert footage of French “adult contemporary” artist (think Celine Dion) and it was like watching the French VH-1. That at least seemed more “authentic” than the blatant imitations I saw on the French BET that came on afterward. So after seeing Cherish “Do it do it” and Young Jeezy spew his latest nonsense about cars, hos, clubs and jewelry, I saw the French imitations. The first video “Ma soeur” (my sister) by Vitaa is about the French Cherish finding out that her friend was sleeping with her boyfriend (and after she bought her that great bag for her birthday!) I shouldn’t have to explain how this is a ludicrous. The second is Kenza Farah’s "Je me bats." Maybe it’s just cause she’s not white, but I think she does a better job imitating American R&B. (The third clip is some of that VH-1 French pop nonsense.) Then just when I had forgotten that it could get worse the Senegalese imitation of American hip hop and R&B came on. Gaston featuring Titi in “Man ak Mom.” It’s Wolof for “Me and Him/Her” but it’s clear that it’s “her.” This clown had the audacity to wear a fur coat while shooting a video in Dakar. It’s hot as fuck. Motherfucker are you crazy? Do you seriously fantasize yourself as a flossin’, ballin’ American rapper so much (already a fantasy none of those clowns live either) that you lost your mind? A fur coat in Dakar! A fur coat! An animal died so this fool can wear a fur coat in 90 degree weather. Gente pero es verdad, en este mundo se ve todo.

I was happy that after that the shows shifted to the less enraging, more laughable absurdity of mbalax music videos. I love them. They too imitate American music videos in always trying to have the singer perform surrounded by luxury, except that they don’t have big houses and nice cars so the videos always looked like they are filmed in some rich Senegalese person’s living room. The rest of the scenes will be in front of a nice car (just one) that while genuinely a nice car like a Ford Explorer is something I could own if I ever get a regular job. No Bentleys. But at leas they are trying and the acrobatic, lively dancing is much more endearing than trying to look cool in your fur coat when you live in a poor, hot African country.

The Humid Season

Senegal’s rainy season runs from June to October. It has rained about a dozen times in four months, and only four times has the rain been harder than an intermittent drizzle. Really it’s the hot and humid season, to be hopefully followed by a cool and dry season. Or what they call “winter.” It’s so hot that I don’t even go out during the day unless I have a good reason to. I feel bad because rain here means that some people can’t sleep in their homes that are regularly flooded by even the tiniest amounts of rain during the humid season (I refuse to call it the rainy season anymore) but the only times it isn’t ridiculously muggy is when it rains so I find myself hoping for rain often. Most of the time it is like 90˚ F and 90% humidity and it feels like it’s about to rain until it doesn’t.

The Village

Two weeks ago I went with my host family to their village. Palmarin is a collection of 5 villages in Senegal’s Petite Cote where most Sereer come from. The region is also has a large numbers of Catholic and is famous for its beaches and for Joal, the hometown of the famous French language poet and first president of Senegal, Leopold Senghor. I only had to hear that little factoid about a dozen times from everyone I met before memorizing it. I went with my host mom and Alphonse (who at this point should require no introduction). We got up early and took a station wagon shared taxi to Mbour, the resort town at the entrance to the region. There we switched to a “car rapide,” which was fine until we ran out of paved highway. The rest of the ride was a hot, bumpy, cramped, dusty, slow jaunt along the coast. I learned that my host mom can be as bossy with random strangers as she is at home when she smacked some teenage boy upside the head while we were stopping to pick up yet another passenger by the side of the road when there was already no space in the bus.

Palmarin-Gundamane reminded me of Moca. Like in all of my previous “village” experience (Moca has become mon village in Senegal, and “The Most Self-Hating Group of Black People on the Planet” mon ethnie) I spent all of my time reading on the porch, chilling with a bunch of old women who congregate every day at the same place to alternate gossiping and staring at each other in silence, eating too much, smacking at mosquitoes and failing, and sleeping too much. Time just seems to drag in villages. After I had finished my book and taken a nap and had gone to the beach I just had no idea what to do. But villages solve that problem quickly too. I was handed several beers and then had three or four neighbors bring me dinner. I was hoping my stomach wouldn’t burst as I tried to eat enough from the fourth plate to satisfy the cook that I really did like her plate of greasy rice, pork and sauce as much as everyone else’s greasy rice, pork and sauce but really I was just that stuffed.

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting started two weeks ago. Palmarin is a mostly Catholic village and the small Catholic minority in Senegal seems like they want to shove it in the Muslims’ faces that yes they drink, and eat pork and insist on doing so more during Ramadan when the Muslims fast. I have never eaten here as much pork as I did that weekend.

After I got my nose out of the plates I realized that it was pitch-black around me. Palmarin just recently got electricity (still waiting on running water, for now they get all of their water from the well) but all of the houses I went to only had one or two dim blue light-bulbs that allowed you to see that there were other people in the room but not much more than that. Once out of the houses we were walking by moonlight. When I got back to where we were staying (there were also the obligatory “village visits” to ancient aunts and crazy uncles) I found out that there were no electrical outlets meaning no fan and nowhere to charge my phone. That night I sweat myself to sleep, with the fatigue from all that pork and beer eventually overcoming the heat and my fear of sleeping without a mosquito net in a West African village with several pools of standing water.

For the ride back we waited by in the hardware store across the dirt road for a bus to come. It took a good two hours to come, but fortunately it was relatively empty and the return trip was somewhat more comfortable. It took about four hours to get back to Dakar after stopping something like 50 times to pick people and drop them off at random spots along the road. When we arrived at Mbour we saw that it had rained, but it looked like only drizzle. I was happy cause rain meant that it was cooler and that the dirt would settle as hard mud than as dust on my backpack and my t-shirt. Then when we got off by the highway near my house and started walking home, it starting pouring. I felt bad for my host mom cause she was carrying a large sac full of Senegalese couscous on her head (to resell), but seconds after seeing the drops fall softly on my glasses the rain was so heavy that I couldn’t even see her behind me.

Miss Oscar Des Vacances 2007

Senegal is 95% Muslim. Every other girl I meet tells me she is a model. The Islam here is funny. Whereas throughout the Islamic world whether women should wear the veil is often a source of intense debate (usually billed as secular modernists versus religious fundamentalists) here you are more likely to see topless women than women wearing the veil. It almost frees the women here to try to be just as superficial and consumeristic as women in the West are taught to be (they can’t do it because they don’t have the same cash).

All this to say I thought the modeling obsession here was a bit incongruent with the country’s Muslim beliefs and have been clowning the mannequin cousin who comes by frequently. But I now I feel somewhat foolish that I didn’t take her seriously because two weeks she won Miss Oscar des Vacances 2007, a somewhat impressive beauty contest. Oscar des Vacances is a dumb variety show that comes on here every summer (since the 80s they swear) on Sunday afternoons. The few times I saw it, I just remember an over-excited audience, long speeches by random government ministers, an over-animated host, wack skits, tacky costumes and crappy mbalax acts. Dominicanos imaginen Sabado de Corporan, especially cause the show seems to go on for like eight hours but with an even lower budget and happier-to-be-hosting host. The lowlight was when I saw a toddler in a du-rag rapping about something that just couldn’t have been good. The show takes pride in giving the youth of Dakar a healthy form of entertainment them on Sunday afternoons when they might otherwise be idle and be tempted to become juvenile delinquents and deviants, yall know, getting into crime, having sex, smoking weed, being poor. I think this is one of the cases where cure might be worse than the disease. On the show’s finale they crown the winner of the summer long beauty pageant. I wasn’t aware that the cousin, Mami, had made it as a finalist. I didn’t even hear it when she won, actually I couldn’t hear it because my host sisters were screaming so loudly. After Mami won the cameras showed a bunch of hysterical young women who were carried about by security personnel for having violent seizures and I had to wonder if all of these women knew the participants personally (friends and extended family?) or if this is just something Senegalese TV loves to do. It reminded me of how after the big wrestling matches they show someone’s entire neighborhood or town crying as if there had just been a major natural disaster leading to real suffering rather than it just being some random local celebrity in an irrelevant competition the result of which has no bearing on people’s real lives. The other finalists who did lost out on something tangible were carried out in ambulances crying uncontrollably. Mami’s prize includes $1,000+, a round trip ticket to Paris and several sponsorships.

Unexpectedly, Mami announced she was retiring from the modeling. An interview with her was published recently in one of the major dailies here. In it she said that she was quitting modeling because of how fucked up it could be and that instead she was going to apply to join the army. She said that too many models feel obligated to sleep with photographers and agents to advance their careers and that many women use modeling as a guise for prostitution (prostitution is legal in Senegal, but it’s still condemned). Now anyone who isn’t a naïve knows that that is how modeling works, but all of the people in my host family thought she should have said it, even if they conceded that it was true. When I asked why it was wrong to say, they all replied that there was no reason to say it. It’s only the truth.

Chatting with Alphonse

Someone once told me that whenever you are somewhere you don’t speak the language for a long time the children will become your best friends. Some shit about how children are free of prejudice. She was talking about her experiences in some indigenous village somewhere in Latin America. I was skeptical of the generalization. I remember being a child, and children are cruel, mean creatures that are often the MOST prejudiced members of any society. Yet she was right. After three months here my best friend is a shy, passive, skinny nine year old boy, Alphonse. We play hide-and-seek, and soccer and wrestle. In addition to being a physical work out, hanging out with him also makes me have to think too. He makes me bust out the English-French dictionary when he asks me random questions like “Why do the Arabs make war on America?” and “Can I keep a star? What would happen if I tried putting one in my pocket? Would I lose it?” And of course there are lots of questions about Michael Jackson, like this one earlier today:

Did Michael Jackson ever come to Dakar?

I don’t know. I doubt it.

But I saw him. When I was a child.

Alphonse you are still a child.

When I was like 3 or 4 y.o.

And you remember that?

Yeah, he had his hair like this (arching his arms over his head in the shape of an afro).

Michael Jackson stopped being black before you were born.

Are you sure there are not two Michael Jacksons?

Yes.

Cape Verde Encore

Sunday night I went with my host and their “cousins” to Cape Verdean night at “Le Mandingo” the club for the Hotel Sofitel Teranga right by the Place de l’independence downtown. (when I asked my host sister how she was related to them, she replied that they were from the same group of villages and had the same last name, therefore they were cousins). One of the cousins, Mami (her name, I kid you not) is a “mannequin.” Mannequin is the French word for model, which in my opinion is a more honest term for it than the English word. Model connotes exemplary, and what are models exemplary of? A good eating disorder? Mannequins on the other hand are objects designed to display clothing. Ultimately her occupation makes no difference, she took no longer than my host sisters in doing her make-up, was just as broke when it came to pay for the cab and danced pretentiously in front of the mirror at the club like everyone else. Since it was Sunday we left the house at 1:30 AM or slightly earlier than usual. Once at the club the Cape Verdean zouk live band performance I was promised got reduced to a dweeby looking dude in white jeans lip-synching three songs in the middle of the dance floor. I don’t speak Cape Verdean Creole but I understand enough of the Portuguese influence in it to know that the songs are not about anything, the choruses always prominently feature words like “sentimento,” “coracao,” “amor,” and “quero.” Other than that it was “Cape Verdean” night because they played more zouk and funana than usual, but they still went through the typical Dakar club mix so I filled my Lil’ Jon, 50 cent, Mimz, Daddy Yankee and Don Omar quotas for the week. I was just glad that men here don’t have to dress up to go out. I thought I was casually dressed in my uniform of dark blue jeans, high-top Chucks and a short-sleeve T-shirt, but there was some dude there in a giveaway T-shirt, navy blue wind-breakers and running shoes. He beat me. He looked like he was going to go jogging after leaving the club at 5 AM. The women of course were super-made and dressed up.

Cheikh Lo

Friday I went to see one of the only two Senegalese musicians I had heard of before coming to Senegal, Cheikh Lo (the other being the ubiquitous Youssou Ndour). Cheikh Lo makes a much more toned down mbalax—i.e. more true to its roots in son and other Afro-Cuban rhythms of the 1950s and 60s—and adds some samba and flamenco for flavor. In other words, the man is an artist. He is a member of the Baye Fall a subset of the biggest Muslim brotherhood here, that (and I will explain it all when I understand it better) I can only describe as Muslim rastas. They wear locks and really colorful boubous, ignore all the fundamental rules of Islam—they don’t fast for Ramadan, don’t pray five times a day and drink lots of alcohol—and devote their lives to the marabouts—the magical/mystical/saintly clerical aristocrats that run the brotherhoods. They are supposed to work their marabouts’ field for free and you often see them begging for money and food at gas stations. Many of Cheikh’s songs are about being Baye Fall and his latest album is named after the founder of the order “Lamp Fall.” Point being I was excited to see the dude. I was disappointed, however. The music was good but for a mystic (Cheikh himself is rail-thin, wore a simple blue tunic, some typical “Muslim” amulets with inscriptions of the Koran and pictures of famous marabouts, and fewer than a dozen locks that ran down to his knees) he has some serious ego issues. Originally a percussionist he now focuses on the guitar and insisted on doing most of the solos, not letting any of the members of the band get any shine. The problem is that he approaches the guitar like a drummer would, and his percussive style gets jarring quickly. Still he has a beautiful voice, soft and inspiring—unlike the whiny, nasal falsetto people here seem to prefer in their male vocalists—so he’s definitely worth checking out.