Michael Jackson

• Forget Youssou Ndour, my host family has a nine-year-old boy named Alphonse (pictured above, and no I couldn't get a nicer picture of him) who just LOVES Michael Jackson. When he saw that my laptop played music he asked me for two artists. First of all, Akon, and after he hummed along to “I Wanna Fuck You” he asked to listen to Michael Sanders. Eventually I figured out he wanted to listen to Michael Jackson. So I played some songs for him and then he started describing music videos he has seen and asking me to play the song where Michael reaches out his hand and then yelps. Of course that is every Michael Jackson song, so I played him every Michael song in my collection. Next, he surprised me by coming back with a copy of the “The Essential Michael Jackson” a two-disc set of his greatest hits. Then he pulled out the CD booklet with song information and pictures and started pointing to various snapshots of Michael form his most famous music videos and demanding that I play “that” song. I, of course, would have preferred song titles rather than random gesticulations and him pointing insistently to the pictures hoping I would know what song that was.


• Then when I woke up last Saturday and walked into the living room for my daily bread, butter and tea, and it all made perfect sense. The TV was on and the whole family was watching a showing of all of Michael Jackson’s most famous music videos, “Thriller,” “Bad,” “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Black or White,” “Do You Remember the Time,” etc. They just sat there for an hour (no commercial interruptions) and watched Michael Jackson. Could this happen with any other artist? Does any other human being on the planet have the kind of global reach Michael Jackson has? Michael Jordan? Bob Marley? Tupac? 50 Cent? I just wonder what would have happened if Michael hadn’t started fondling little boys and had instead continued churning out hits for the last decade. Would he have been crowned King of the World by now?


• Alphonse also asks me all kinds of random "little boy" questions. Today he asked me if where I was from we had trees and taxis. I had to assure him that we certainly did. He then reenacts movie scenes for me—complete with saliva-spewing sound effects—and asks me if I have seen the movie. Only once had I actually seen the film. The conversation went something like this:
  Alphonse: Do you know who the first president of Senegal was?
  Me: Of course, Leopold Sedhar Senghor.
  A: Why did they kill him?
  M: Senghor wasn’t killed. He died of natural causes in France like all the other sell-out African political leaders. (Ok, I don’t really speak enough French to say, “sell-out political leaders” but I did say that he died in France.)
  A: But I saw them kill him. Then they burned him.
  M: Are you sure it was Senghor?
  A: Yes, he had glasses like yours.
  M: They burned him right? Did they chop him up first?
  A: Yes.
  M: That was Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo. (I was hoping it was the film biography of Lumumba. I would feel happier knowing that between the crazy music videos and Latin American soap operas they actually show some educational content on Senegalese television.)
  A: Why did they do that?
  M: Uhhh…It was a coup d’etat. It is when they change the president violently because they don’t like him.
  A: Why didn’t they like him?
  M: Umm…where’s your ball?
  I felt bad for ducking the question, but how do I explain the CIA and imperialism to a nine-year-old African child in French? Any suggestions? Chimaobi?

Youssou Ndour

Youssou Ndour is basically the king of the Senegalese music scene. The tabloids are filled with news about his divorce, and even the divorces of his brothers (yes the man is so famous that even his brothers get shine). Everything he touches turns to gold. People here claim that even if he just shouts you out on a record you are going platinum. He released an album recently and not a day goes past that I don’t hear at least one of his songs. I think this is the song. Of course if I weren’t on a computer that was “built for Windows ‘98” I might be able to hear the song and let you know if this was really it. But it looks right. The other big craze down here is this song called “Bolokas” which is the Wolof-ized version “blocage.” It is accompanied by its own dance which you can hopefully see here.

Toubabs are not ugly either

• Although it is doesn’t seem quite as bad as the Dominican Republic (most self-hating group of black people on the planet remember?) it is obvious that white folks here get lots of love too. Last weekend I went back to Just 4 U to hear a Senegalese band, Ceddo (the Wolof word for the “traditional animist” religion that existed pre-Islam). They were really excellent, and I had a good time, but I felt bad because I was the only non-white dude without a white girl. There were around a dozen young white women all with what is essentially the same dude. If you have been to a beach in a tropical country with black people, you have met the dude. He is tall, lean, cut, has locks and is a musician and/or dancer. You have met the white girl too, she got her hair braided recently, she wears sandals, and is doing a documentary or volunteering at an orphanage or writing her thesis on rap music or maybe all three. Ok, I will stop stereotyping now. But seriously it was a segregationist’s nightmare there that night.
• I have also been asked four times now if Soizic, the Belgian volunteer, is my sister, and then they ask if she is my girlfriend and if they can hit on her.

Could have Used Pork and Beer

• Last Sunday I went to a wedding here. In general I think it is condescending and trivializing when tourists try to “go native” and buy “traditional attire” cause they think it is cute or quaint, but I had to buy the boo-boo in order to attend the wedding. The picture is above.
  I ain’t trying to hate, especially cause I think that whole “Clash of Civilizations” ideology and the “War on Terror” are utterly racist and imperialistic nonsense, but Catholic weddings are much better than Muslim weddings. First of all, there is no ceremony. Say what you want about Catholicism—and I have my criticisms—but we know how to do rituals. Meanwhile for Muslim weddings the ritual is a very matter-of-fact legal proceeding at the mosque between the men of both of the families. That’s right; the bride isn’t even there for it. She is represented by her father or brother, no romantic and weepy “I do’s” before the priest. I don’t think you could film 90% of romantic comedies in Muslim countries, where would they climax? I guess her true love can kidnap her while her husband-to-be and father are at the mosque.


• The other problem is that there is no alcohol. Again I don’t defend drinking of alcohol, but a dry wedding? Are they serious? No one danced. In fact, no one did anything. The party was at the groom’s family home and the proceedings were the following: the couple did a formal entrance, we had lunch, the men left for the mosque as the bride changed, when the men returned the couple took pictures and then we all went home. All of that took approximately 10 hours, in the meantime we sat around and waited while hearing the latest in coupe decale, mbalax, zouk and Akon (he is his own genre here, I have come to realize) and then the same big hit singles in reggaeton and hip hop from 2005 and 2006.


• Afterward, I definitely needed a drink so we went to a cool bar nearby. The bar is located at the top of a hostel, Keppaar, owned by a Senegalese man who teaches African history at Howard. He suggested that the quickest way to learn Wolof was to get a dictionary to sleep with. Talk about objectification.

Negotiating Privilege

• The day at the market and other recent experiences with my host family have brought up what in my opinion is the most difficult aspect of traveling (yes worse than the insects, weather, infections, homesickness, etc.) which is negotiating privilege. I don’t want to sound like I am sitting here complaining about why these “darkies” must be here being so damn poor and interrupting my extended “Spring Break” in Senegal. I realize that the Senegalese are poor because we in the United States are rich. The “developed” nations have “developed” at the expense of the “developing” or “underdeveloped” nations. In simple terms, we are rich cause we stole their shit. I realize that I pay the whitey price of getting “harassed” by beggars and vendors in order to get the whitey benefits of having enough money to be able to come all the way over here and chill. Still even with that theoretical understand it is still no easier to negotiate the reality. For example, I knew that it was only a matter of time before people I met starting asking me to lend them money. I think it is hard to have a consistent policy to always lend the money or to never lend the money; I take a case-by-case approach to it. So when my French teacher asked me for US$60 I had to tell give him a flat no (shit, even in New York, I really got to love you before I lend you $60) but when my host mother came to me for $6 for cooking oil I gave it to her (shit I was hungry). But it is never easy. Last week, one of my host sister asked for $10 (in general I try to think of any loan as a gift, and don’t expect repayment, so I only give away amounts that won’t “hurt” me) and I gave it to her, but then two hours later the other one came asking for the same amount and I had to tell her no (shit, tampoco abusen).
• The other problem is that not all whiteys are created equal. While I do have more money than the vast majority of Senegalese I don’t have the same amount of money as many other tourists who come to Senegal. That in itself is not a problem except that many folks here—and to their credit, in many other poor countries also—don’t understand that not all whiteys are the same. For example, my French teacher—probably in an attempt to get me to follow the example—told me how a English volunteer paid $50 a day to live downtown and invited him to live with him during his stay in Senegal, and later sent him a used laptop and money for a new scooter. Now this guy also owns condos in New York and London while I own what? my laptop? Yeah. I remember reading than in colonial Haiti there was a distinction between the “grand blancs” or Great Whites and the “petit blancs” or Small Whites, I think I am going to have to create my own racial category here as a “tres petit blanc.”

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.

Pork and Beer

• Every Wednesday here Odette’s boyfriend and his friend come over and we all go over to a local bar, La Fontaine, for pork and beer. It is still a combination I am getting used to, especially since like I said before the bar also doubles as a butcher. It is still weird to enter a bar and immediately see and hear a butcher hacking at huge chunks of meat. We eat the pork grilled over firewood and seasoned with onions, mustard, pepper and lemon.


• Another peculiar food custom here is that unless you ask the server not to do it any sandwich you buy in Dakar will come with french fries in it.