Viva Cabo Verde!

• Last night my host sisters invited me to another Cape Verdean concert at Saint-Michel an old Catholic school downtown. It was not really a concert; it was more like a community festival for religious reasons with live music. The whole event was reminiscent of the Festas Juninas in Brazil, not least of all because it is June, and we were celebrating the Day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Basically, Dakarois love Cape Verdeans (or at least their music). I too am starting to really love Cape Verdeans mostly because they remind me of Dominicans. They are mixed Iberian and West African also, and therefore look a lot like Dominicans. The first time I went to the Fleet Center (TD Bank North Center, whatever “Big Bank Owns Boston, until the next merger” Center, or whatever they are calling it now) I saw a group of dudes that I could have sworn were Dominican and then they started speaking funny, or funnier than Dominicans usually speak. I found out later those people were from an archipelago off the West Coast of Africa called Cape Verde; ever since then I have been intrigued. Here in Dakar I have gotten as much Cape Verde as I can handle. But it is more than the physical resemblance, Cape Verdeans have some of the same “flair” Dominicans have. For example, the announcer had the same kind of whiny voice many Dominican women have, and although she was overweight she still wore some tight white pants and a glittery tube top with her hair in a pony tail with curls, on a pair of pointy high-heels. I was loving it. Then the main performer, Ivan Paris, also showed up rocking some tight white pants and a turtle-neck even though it was a comfortable 72 F. He also had the world’s sharpest line-up. So Dominican. Then he started singing some cheesy love songs in Cape Verdean kreyol and although they were a minority of the crowd all of the Cape Verdeans started dancing and singing along as loudly as possible. Again it reminded me of that diasporic feeling (the first band was fittingly called “Diapora”) that although we are not at home, and the beer may taste too watery or too dark and all of the signs are in a language we don’t quite understand, but we are going to ignore all of that for a second and just pretend we are not a minority in a far-away land. It reminded me of bachata concerts in NYC. Of course all of the images of a white Jesus and the constant talk of Jesus and the Virgin Mary (did you know she was a virgin? No, well I am going to mention it every time she comes up. She was a virgin. Yup never had sex. Not even once.) made me feel like I was three beers away from Santo Domingo. Next month they are crowing Miss Cabo Verde, I am definitely going to try to make it although I hate beauty pageants.
• This brings me to another problem: the “Paris/New York seal of approval.” Ivan Paris is a big deal because he lives and performs in Paris and of course he emphasizes this by using “Paris” as his last name. Here everything that comes from NYC and Paris is just that much official. It is the colonized mentality that is so funny when it’s not maddening. Half the clothing stores are either “New York” or “Paris Fashion.” Every fancy restaurant claims to have branches in New York, Paris and Dakar. I feel like I get more love cause I am from NYC, like if I was from Philly or Cleveland or some other city no one would care about me. The next time I fly out here, I am going to fly from NYC with a stopover in Paris so that my trip can be that much more official.
• I don’t know if I have mentioned this yet, but Senegalese love salsa and telenovelas. Talk about reminders of home. Right now the Venezuelan soap opera “La Femme de Lorenzo” is all the rage. And it seems like after Cape Verdean music, the second most popular non-French, non-Wolof music is Cuban salsa, especially among the older crowds. You can hear salsa everywhere, in the supermarket, in restaurants, etc. Which is of course, fine by me. The telenovelas though are awful in any language. That is one cultural export that should have stayed home.
• After the Festa Junina we went to a local bar. In the US we would call it a dive bar, but these Third World bars are much, much more than that. After all the nights of living the “jet-set” lifestyle (Thursday night I went with the white girls to Casino de Port, another lounge that simply defines chic. Plush couches. Alternative, artsy shaped cups. The whole nine. Of course, the only Senegalese people were the waiters and other staff. The moment I walked in I could feel my money flying away invisibly from my pocket.) I was glad to be in such an “unassuming” place. The chairs and table were beat-up plastic. The walls looked like they had been peed on, and probably were. The beers cost a dollar and, no, they don’t hand out you a coaster or even open your beer for you. No cute napkin wrap either. We chilled and had shelled peanuts and beers, and as they starting going in rapid-fire Wolof my mind started wandering and I finally resolved a dilemma that had been bothering me since my latest entry. I said hair weaves are a negative legacy of colonialism, but aren’t all legacies of colonialism negative? I could not think of a single positive thing brought by the French that did not serve to further exploit Africans and make them ever more dependent and colonized (like the usual things mentioned by apologists for colonialism, like modern medicine, schools, railroads and other infrastructure). But surely a sophisticated thinker like myself was willing to admit that nothing in life is ever so “black and white;” surely there must be at least ONE positive legacy to French colonialism. Then it hit me: Peanuts! Peanuts were introduced by the French as a mono-cultural cash crop export to further exploit Senegal, like sugar, cacao, cotton and coffee were used in other peripheral countries. Senegal is still enslaved to peanuts, and I am in no way arguing that the reign of “King Peanut” has brought anything but misery to Senegal. Still, I love shelled peanuts. Shelled peanuts remind me of Dominican Christmases and many late nights by Copacabana Beach eating peanuts and drinking Skols. So there, the only concession I will make to the French, peanuts. The rest is all dependency, poverty and bad hair weaves.
• What separates this “dive” bar from any other I have been to in peripheral countries (Brazil is technically semi-peripheral but I don’t want to get into the intricacies of Dependency Theory quite yet) is that it’s in a Muslim country which makes it extra special. Muslims aren’t supposed to drink alcohol or eat pork. The Islam here is not very Orthodox (a topic for a later date) and many people drink and eat pork, but you can only do either at a bar. That’s right, you have to go to a bar if you want a pork chop. So last night they were all eating what I interpret as chitlin soup. I miss swine, but not enough to have had any of that stuff. My rule of thumb is, if you can’t identify what part of the animal then you probably shouldn’t eat it. I was content with my peanuts.
• Finally, adding to the list of people who should not come to Dakar (no contact lense-wearers remember?), no one who likes peace and quiet. If you think lower Manhattan during rush hour is insufferable then steer well clear of Dakar. This place takes hustle-and-bustle to the next level. Although sadly I have seen worse (Cairo is the worse I have ever witnessed) walking through Dakar is still like a blitzkrieg attack on the senses. Everything comes at you super fast, there is simply no respite. The sidewalks are filled with vendors and hustlers selling everything, batteries, fruits, shoes, T-shirts, weaves, etc. You have to dart, duck, and jump around them, running away from calls of “monsieur, c’est pas cher.” And that is just the human obstacle course, there are also the actual physical obstacles, the random pieces of corrugated metal (is that a really old bumper?), the potholes, the litter, etc. Basically, there is no such thing as taking a stroll through town.
• Food, once more. Dinner is also wack. Breakfast is always French bread, tea, and cheese, Lunch is always amazing and dinner is just a wild card. On good days, it is simply lunch reheated, but on bad days it is some Franco-Senegalese fusion or just random carbs piled together. For instance, last week I had peas and bread, then spaghetti lightly sprinkled with olive oil and fried eggs, then macaroni lightly sprinkled with olive oil and fried eggs, and finally spaghetti, bread and French fries. Yikes! It is like they have not eaten dinner traditionally and are just at a loss as to what to eat before going to bed.

Poor, but not Cheap

• OK, so scratch that, apparently US$4 doesn’t get you a coke in Dakar either. This city may be poor but it ain’t cheap. I went out on Friday to Club Alexandra in downtown Dakar, and saw a very good live Cape Verdean band play. I played myself while I was in Boston, I had no idea that Cape Verde—as small as the archipelago is—has such a rich and diverse musical heritage, I should have gone out and heard more Cape Verdean music while I was there. The lounge was crazy expensive though. A cup of coke was more than $4. I don’t want to say how much I spent cause it’s embarrassing, but let’s just say that I have gone out and had a good time in NYC for less dough.
• But it’s not just the club, everything else here is super-expensive compared to other peripheral countries. I am starting to wonder just how the poor majority of Dakarois are able to survive. Shit, if tourists feel the pinch I can only imagine how desperate the people who are actually struggling must feel. After all if I can’t afford to buy as much street food and beer as I planned it isn’t the end of the world, if you can’t pay your rent or afford dinner then you really are fucked.
• Saturday night I went to another bourgeois club, The Casino de Cap-Vert. The cover alone was US$12. It’s near the airport in the richest part of Dakar, so I figured I was partying with the elite. I thought I may even run into the president’s daughter, only to find out that there are even bougier clubs. Shit it’s not bad enough that I was spending someone’s monthly salary in a night, apparently I am not spending real dough until I am spending someone’s yearly salary on cover and drinks. Count me out, though, after this weekend I am done seeing how the rich party. My curiosity is satisfied.
• What did I learn? Like bourgeois people all over the Third World, Senegalese love them some damn European culture. I was forced to endure a set of techno by a French DJ to start off the night. After we were done with our, “Let’s pretend to be in Paris, Milan or Brussels” part of the evening, we moved on to the real shit. The DJ hit up that coupe decale, that mbalax, followed by Cape Verdean funana and zouk, more coupe decale and ended with a set of remixes of the biggest club hits in reggaeton and hip hop of the last two years. So I learned that 5o Cent is truly ubiquitous, and that they will never stop playing Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.” In addition, I am astonished by the cosmopolitan and worldly nature of the club culture here. In the course of one evening we heard several genres from several diverse parts of the world in different languages. How often do you get that in a club in NYC, ostensibly a world-class cultural center?
• And yes, they really do love themselves here. I saw more people dancing in front of the mirrors again on Saturday. It hasn’t stopped being funny.
  Cats here really know how to party. They go out mad late. Friday night when I asked at what time we were going out, my host sister replied that not until after midnight. She was serious; we left the house at 1 AM, and didn’t get back until 5 AM. I can’t hang. I spent too many years in Cambridge where by 2 AM you are already walking home after a night out, where you shower at 9:30 PM to make sure you can be at the bar/club/lounge by 11 pm. I was still getting used to NYC time when you start getting ready at 11 pm. Here they told me to take a nap until midnight and then get ready to go. Saturday we didn’t leave the house until 1:30 AM, to return at 6 AM. The club doesn’t even open until midnight. The craziest shit was that as we were leaving the club at 5:30 AM there were people walking in!
• I think my host sisters have set a new record for how long it takes a group of women to get ready to go out. I thought no one could beat my actual sisters, but they have raised the art of “getting ready” to another level. I was completely expecting them to come out as transformed human beings, and was disappointed when they just looked like themselves in make-up and heels. It was cool though, cause while waiting for them I watched a bunch of music videos on Senegalese TV. First there were a bunch of low-budget mbalax music videos, which are just hilarious. They look like they are made with someone’s camcorder in their living room and backyard, but the dancing in so ridiculous that they are great in a kitschy way. They remind me of merengue music videos. Then I watched “Made in USA” which is basically BET’s 106 & Park. They play the latest hits in hip hop and R&B, so that I was able to see the video for the new Rihanna song, the new Mya song, the latest Akon song, etc. Here I thought that I would not be able to hear 50 Cent’s latest remix of “In da Club” but no, you can all rest easy in knowing that I will be kept abreast of all of the latest developments in 50’s career, and that I can see R. Kelly every night tell me how he’s a flirt. Felt just like home. Then the worse part was when they started playing French hip hop videos and I could see how hip hop has spread ignorance world-wide. I saw a video where some French 50 clone, was doing some drug deal and then goes to Rio de Janeiro and has a party with a bunch of women and crystal and then gets arrested by the police (the Feds? Interpol? The French? James Bond? Whose jurisdiction?) sent to jail where he writes his girlfriend a letter. I was horrified.

Cuban Culture

OK, so I learned that unlike my nerdy ass other people go to Cuba for reasons other than politics, they go for the “culture” (how you can separate the culture from the politics is some mental gymnastics I am incapable of). But you can skip the lengthy political discussion below and just read my more inane thoughts.
· It is very contradictory but although Cuba is completely different from every other place in the world and can be very isolated (see below on communication) it is still just like many of its neighbors. For example, Cuban men can’t quite compete with Dominican men in their battle for who can wear the tightest pants and the pointiest shoes, they still try. Their low-budget attempt to do so is hilarious. Cuban women, on the other hand, insist on owning the most ghetto-fabulous club attire imaginable even though they usually can’t afford to go to the club and don’t own nearly as many clothes. I just can’t believe they were fishnet stockings to work.
· Talking about work clothes, I was amazed at the “official” miniskirts. All the women in state enterprises and even the schoolgirls wear the tiniest of skirts. I asked if the Cuban state simply didn’t have enough money to afford all the cloth necessary for full length skirts, and people replied with some good ol’ machismo. They like their women (and girls) like that.
· Cuban Spanish is unintelligible. I thought that since I already spoke Caribbean Spanish I would be able to understand Cubans; after all I can decipher the most garbled of Dominican mumbling, being able to understand phrases that would leave other Spanish dialect speakers dumbfounded. But Cuban take the cake. It’s like Fidel charges them per syllable therefore they try to get as much across in as few sounds as possible. The cabdrivers were especially bad. They made it seem like they were doing me a favor, and treat their customers with absolutely disdain, barking orders at them in the fastest, most mumbled Spanish imaginable. Motherfucker, I am paying you, the least you can do is act like I am not bothering you when I decide to ride in your car.
· Cubans also take baseball to the next level. Like the plaza where men gather to discuss baseball every afternoon. The guidebook gushed all about it, and I thought it was more guidebook crap, they always exaggerate. But it’s true, if you go any afternoon you really will see old men screaming at each other and questioning each other’s manhood over debates about baseball games that took place in the 1960s. Cause every real man knows that player X was really out as he slid home for the winning run of Game 3 of the 1972 National Series. It was high-larious and kind of scary watching them debate for hours. There are also Cuban men who can give you up-to-the-minute stats for American baseball players. I was cut off from the world I had no idea the Yankees were losing seven straight games at the time, but a nice man told me the scores of each of the seven games, the opponents, and A-Rod’s complete stat line for the season. Who needs ESPN.com when you are in Cuba?
· I was lucky enough to be there when Santiago de Cuba defeated Los Industriales de la Habana (who everyone compared to the Yankees, Industriales fans proudly, Santiaguero fans sounding like Mets and Red Sox fan) in six games in the National Series. The whole country shut down for the games, and everyone was glued to their televisions. It reminded me of being in Cairo when Egypt when the African Cup for soccer in 2006. Everyone was at home watching the games. My thoughts as a Dominican male who has baseball sown into his testicles? Cubans play very fundamentally sound baseball. Their defenses are always set perfectly, but damn their players are mad skinny! No steroid problem in Cuban baseball that’s for sure. The no. 4 hitter for Industriales, their power hitter, looked slightly more built than me. Sammy Sosa could probably eat one of these guys and still have room for his platanos.
· The nightlife in Havana is wack! It’s geared toward tourists and is therefore expensive. All the clubs and bars are in dolares, meaning no Cubans. I went to Club Turf one night and after hearing 50 Cent (he has become an unescapable force of nature like the wind at this point, seriously I was in Cuba, and they play 50 Cent!) and too much techno and 80s American music, I was done with the club scene. I went to La Casa de la Musica de Marianao and waited until 2 AM to see NG La Banda perform. I figured, Cuba is one of the greatest places on Earth for music, surely I could see some amazing live music? Wrong! The performance was expensive, and after having to stay awake through two wack reggaeton groups, the band performed and all I can say is that the bandleader is an egomaniac and that he has some of the most beautiful women in the world as his back-up singers. I was falling in love with one of them until she started singing “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston. What is with people and that song, just let it go!
· Talking about reggaeton, I knew Cuba had failed to create a socialist culture when I heard all of the reggaeton in the streets (sorry for the politics, I can’t help myself). That and all of the American movies and shows on TV are just not good for building socialist values. It’s American media so the vast majority of it implicitly promotes hyper-individualism, crass materialism and consumerism. The Cuban government dropped the ball by exposing their population to so much crap. They also show many Mexican soap operas, which are just awfully sexist, racist, homophobic and classist, and plain bad! Although to be honest the rest of the time most of the TV shows you can watch are educational, basically documentaries which force you to learn. They steal a lot of Discovery channel programs, and they also have their own Cuban produced soap opera which was a lot better than the other Latin American soap operas, i.e. they showed real-looking people in real-world situations, although as a novela en fin, it was ridiculously melodramatic. But oh, the reggaeton. My friend kept trying to convince me how since the government banned reggaeton it was really a form of youth rebellion and expression. But did they have to choose reggaeton? It just drove me crazy to hear Cuban reggaetoneros talk about their women and wealth. I know I sound like an old man, but I don’t see how silly party songs are supposed to be rebellious? What the Cuban state doesn’t let you shake your booty?
· Actually since it’s Cuba, the government does provide some fun for the population. Since it has to reserve the weekend nights for foreigners, the government opens the clubs for Cubans (i.e. it charges pesos, the government does that a lot, use foreigners’ money to subsidize services for Cubans, so that often foreigners will 25 times what a Cuban pays for something e.g. I pay US$3 or 75 pesos for Copelia ice cream and a Cuban pays 3 pesos) for matinees. Therefore you will see crowds of drunk young people roaming the streets of downtown Havana at like 8 pm.
· But mostly from what I could gather Cubans spend most of their leisure time hanging out either in their friends homes or the malecon. The malecon or sea wall was a popular spot. I went there basically every night while I was there. It’s one of the huge hanging out spots on weekends, when it fills with people drinking rum and chilling. It is a very nice alternative to the club in my opinion, although one of my friends definitely complained that Havana was boring and the options limited.