Where is my space suit?

Sunday I went to downtown Dakar. Now I had been downtown before—the day I went to the markets—but after spending all of the time dodging street vendors, trying to follow my teacher through the maze of market stalls and narrow streets, and looking down to keep from tripping on litter I can’t say I really got to see anything. Therefore, I decided to go on a Sunday when all the markets would be closed. I took the bus down with a friend and was happy to see all the stalls locked up. Except for a few stragglers who shoved paintings, statuettes, perfume, phone cards and watches in my face as I walked, I could actually walk in peace. Even they seemed like they were tired from a week of hustling and weren’t as aggressive as they had been earlier. As we walked calmly through the streets of Medina heading toward the Place de l’Independence, I felt like I was in another country. I couldn’t imagine it: a leisurely walk through downtown Dakar! The impression of being in a different planet was further reinforced when I reached the plaza. I had been expecting a significant difference between the downtown and the rest of the city, but it’s like they are not even in the same country. The downtown looks like the business district of any affluent mid-size city in the US like Stamford, CT or Princeton, NJ with some tall buildings and perfectly manicured lawns, no sand on the streets, no trash, no mbalax blaring from someone’s wedding tent set-up on the street, no one selling pots or car parts or furniture by the roadside, no street vendors, no groups of children playing soccer, nothing like the rest of the city at all. I even saw little, old, white ladies crossing the street in front of the presidential palace (pictured above). It was eerie.

Oh Lord the Market

• Last Saturday I went with my French teacher to the markets downtown to buy a French-Wolof dictionary and a traditional Senegalese outfit, or boo-boo. It was quite the experience. The moment I got off the bus a random toddler (he looked like he was no older than 4 year-old) grabbed my hand and started begging me for money in a language that was clearly not Wolof or French. I only had bills of US$20 and tried telling him that I had no change in my broken French only he continued holding my hand for four blocks through the obstacle course that is downtown Dakar. At some point as we were skipping through the cars, dodging various vendors and hopping over potholes, abandoned tires and corrugated metal bars he let go. I hope he is OK.
• We hit up the book markets first and I was confronted with a familiar scene. Like the used-book sellers in the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo, here in Dakar there are various sellers lined up in neat rows with stacks of the oldest and most random books on the planet. Most of the books are so dusty and yellow that I can’t believe that anyone has moved them at all in the last decade. The sellers apparently won’t get rid of anything so that you can find books like a guide for using Windows ’98; even in Senegal, I think it is safe to throw that one out. They also always carry a random and large selection of crappy romance novels and other cheap paperbacks. So if you have ever wondered where that tell-all book by Princess Diana’s butler that you saw on the rack by the cashiers at Rite-Aid back in 1995 went, know that it is safe and sound here in Dakar. I can bring you a copy if you would like. The vendors never admit to not having a book either. Instead, they will talk to their fellow vendors and try to unearth a copy of the book that you are looking for. Often you get some wacky stuff. Like when I asked for the French-Wolof dictionary and a vendor came back with a book on introductory Portuguese grammar for Brazilian children from the 1980s. Who does he think is ever going to buy that?
• My racial status here is ambiguous. Some people like my young neighbor think it is obvious that I am “Toubab” or whitey, while others admit that they don’t have a place to put me. It’s all good, I am a light-skinned mulatto, and Dominican (meaning I can claim to be “Latino”) therefore I am used to being an object of racial consternation. At the market, however, I am clearly white and therefore have to pay whitey prices. Even though I did my best to get a good price on the dictionary and got to the point where the vendor tried to flatter me by telling me that I had a “Senegalese” heart and tried to teach me some words in Wolof, I still had to pay two to three times for the book what a Senegalese person would have paid.
  For the boo-boo then I told my teacher to pretend that it was for him, and it actually worked; I got it for the local price.
• That was the only easy part of my market experience. I had several vendors and some child beggars tug at my shirt, yell out “whitey,” try to grab at my hands, stand in my way, and shove statuettes, necklaces, and bracelets in my face as I tried to navigate my way out of the market. The funniest part was that every vendor tried to tell me who the trinket was for, so that for the bracelets the vendors yelled “for your girlfriend,” the dresses were for my sisters, the statuettes for my office, etc. Then there are the “buscones” and “tour guides” who don’t sell stuff, but instead follow you around offering their services. They claim that they can find anything you might want, and they emphasize everything.