Rastas

• I went back to Penn’Art with my French teacher for a reggae performance last Thursday. The band was good, the instrumentalists were good, and the singer did a good rendition of Bob Marley. The songs were mostly Bob and Alpha Blondy covers, and although they were well done I would have preferred more original material. In fact, the lead guitarist briefly exchanged roles with the lead singer, and I preferred his singing cause he sang in Wolof. The crowd and audience got even livelier. I also always enjoy seeing the various interpretations of Rastafarianism throughout the world. In Senegal apparently being a Rasta means having locks, swaying and bouncing to reggae music, smoking lots of cigarettes and then getting drunk on Gazelle and hitting on my friend repeatedly.
• The next time we heard music at Penn’Art, however, it was a different crowd. A traditional Pulaar (Peul? Fula? Toukolour? at same point the African Union should get together and decide on the names of the various ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, it can get confusing when the colonizers couldn’t agree on names) group was playing. The group featured a singer with a really nasal voice that he used wail like a Senegalized version of the muezzin calls that wake me up every day at 4:45 am for morning prayers. There was a man playing the xalam, the Pulaar banjo that ethnomusicologists claim is the inspiration for the American banjo, which sounds well, like a banjo. The music was really beautiful, but I just couldn’t get into it. It was just too calm, like something that I would want to listen to over dinner but not on a weekend night, like Senegalese "easy listening" or "elevator music."

The Autobiography

• But the colonizing influence is not just present in Senegalese food, the standards of beauty here have also been thoroughly colonized. I have now seen several men with conks, or relaxed hair. Now clearly someone needs to distribute thousands of copies of the “Autobiography of Malcolm X” because conking is just unacceptable. In the US unless you are one of the 4 Ps (Pimp, Preacher, Performer or Politician, which are the same thing when you think about it, right?) you are not allowed to conk your hair. The only exception is if you do it to be funny and even then you must proceed with extreme caution. Yet dudes are walking around here like they are extras in a Little Richard biopic. It seems perfectly acceptable to conk your hair in West Africa. In fact, one of the most famous West African footballers Didier Drogba conks his hair (pictured above). I am going back to the markets to see how many copies of the Autobiography I can pick up and starting handing out as Ramadan presents.
• Although I am seeing a lot of evidence of self-hatred, the Senegalese are still no where near Dominicans. Some people have taken issue with me unilaterally declaring Dominicans to be the “Most Self-Hating Group of Black People on the Planet.” My oldest sister, Sugeni, argued that I have not been to enough countries to be able to designate who is most self-hating and then she pointed to the example of light-skinned Bollywood actresses and the skin-bleaching creams sold in India. First of all, self-hatred is a legacy of racism worldwide therefore unfortunately there are many contenders for the title. All non-white cultures are self-hating to some degree, but we are looking for the MOST self-hating. Secondly, I am limiting the title to “black people” using the Unitedstatesian definition of blackness i.e. “anyone of visible Sub-Saharan African ancestry.” Therefore, India and other non-African cultures are beyond the scope of “our study.” But more importantly, I just cannot believe that anyone can be worse than Dominicans. I may admit to co-holders of the title like maybe us and black Poles or something like that, but I couldn’t fathom self-hatred getting worse. Like what could be worse? Self-genocide? Only if Dominicans decided to murder each other for being black could we sink any lower.

Bachata!

Over the weekend I had dinner at a restaurant by Ngor beach, La Madrague, with Caitlin and Alex two rising seniors at Harvard in Dakar for the summer doing research. I ordered some wack food ( I though I was buying fried calamari, but instead got some weird fish stick thing, the kind of "food" they hand out as public school lunches), but I loved the place because they were playing bachata. Somehow someone who works at the restaurant (I asked who) bought a bachata mix CD featuring Aventura, Frank Reyes, Luis Vargas and a couple of other famous bachateros, although the selection of songs seemed somewhat random. They played the CD several times, so somebody at the restaurant must be feeling it. I just couldn’t believe bachata in Senegal! How cosmopolitan are the people here? I could never imagine a fancy restaurant in the “Land of the Most Self-Hating Black People on the Planet” playing any music that was self-defined as African (merengue remember is Indian music, the Tainos were playing it when Columbus arrived). Actually I can’t even imagine a fancy Dominican restaurant playing bachata. Hooray for Senegal!

Bread Riot

• Through history peasant populations have revolted whenever whatever basic starchy staple gets expensive. In European history this phenomenon was always manifested in the form of bread riots (the problem is still with us, read about the recent “tortilla riots” that took place in Mexico City recently). I intend to organize my own bread riot, not because there is enough but because there is too much. Annoyed, I snapped at my host family last week that I will no long accept bread for lunch or dinner. I just don’t understand the Senegalese obsession with bread. It is cheap and filling, but the Senegalese have had millet (and the couscous made from it) to fulfill that function for centuries now. And they seriously just eat bread as an accompaniment for everything. Once last week dinner was macaroni, onions, and fries and then they handed me bread! I see now how the French have done a marvelous job mentally colonizing the Senegalese. People here love bread, love smoking everywhere, love coffee and love mayonnaise.

• The last example is particularly egregious (although coming home smelling like an ashtray whenever I got out anywhere gets annoying too). It just shows the silliness of stereotypes. In the US, mayonnaise is associated with whiteness (it’s so whitebread) to the point where in the film “Undercover Brother,” “The Man” sent a white woman to give the black male superhero mayonnaise as a kind of black “kryptonite.” The stereotype seemed true when I remembered that my brother-in-law Jashaun, one of the blackest people I know, is fatally allergic to mayonnaise. Sorry to disappoint people, but the Senegalese LOVE mayonnaise. Almost every restaurant I have been to here has put out baskets of bread and mayonnaise as an appetizer. I will hold on to the stereotype and blame mayonnaise (and the watery, sugary, diabetes-inducing tomato puree they call ketchup here) on the French and their ways, rather than admit that black folks could legitimately like to eat a substance like mayonnaise.

Platanos

• Tired of dealing with the Windows 98 computers at the internet place by my house I decided to venture out to one of the handful of places that the Lonely Planet guide claimed had wireless. My professor and I went to Penn Art, a jazz club and restaurant in Point E a wealthy neighborhood here. Things started off poorly. The bus was detoured because of a student demonstration (there were truckloads—literally—of police in the area), and dropped us off far from the restaurant. We then had to walk to through the streets in the late afternoon sun and by the time we got there were soaked in sweat and thirsty, only to find that there was no electricity meaning we couldn’t go online. I figured I may as well have a beer as I wait. I was disappointed because the beer was only mild. I have many criticisms of the “Land of the Most Self-Hating Black People on the Planet” but no matter how awful the blackouts become there you can always get a freezing cold beer. The government can’t guarantee you a job, a home, health care or education, but anyone with 50 pesos has the right to a beer so cold it will make your teeth chatter. Senegal, however, has been unable to deliver on cold beers; the beer is never as cold as it should be. It has also dropped the ball on plantains. I thought I was going to be eating plantains often here, instead I get teased every time I walk through the market and see mounds of platanos only to find out that Senegalese never eat them. Platanos, they say, are for the ñaks. We met some cool people and had dinner with them. It turned out to be my lucky night. I didn’t know but the restaurant serves platanos. After ordering we got into a discussion about platanos here, and one of my new friends was gracious enough to give me the platanos he ordered in return for my sandwich. The platanos made such sweet love to my stomach. I need to make tostones soon.
• After dinner we went next door, to the jazz club section and heard Suleymane Faye perform. He is an eccentric Senegalese folk/blues musician known for his storytelling ability. The jazz club is great, a much more intimate place than the others I have been to in Dakar. The music was awesome, although I wish I could understand the lyrics. Faye would periodically stop and set-up the story or tell jokes and the small crowd would chuckle at his witticisms. I was glad the day ended better than it started.

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.

Gringozada

In Brazil a “gringozada” is any event with too many foreigners or gringos attending. Friday night was a gringozada. I went with one of my host sisters to the bar where one of their friends works, expecting to find a regular Dakarois club. Instead, I found myself in the kind of bar where all of the clients are foreign white men and the only locals are the service staff, i.e. exactly where I don’t want to be on a Friday night. The music was awful, mostly class rock (sorry to you classic rock lovers but I didn’t come all the way to Senegal to hear covers of “Jailhouse Rock”) although it did get better when the DJ went through a more typical Dakar set of hip hop, coupe decale, reggaeton and techno before going back to classic rock. I spent the night sitting in the corner, nursing my (expensive) beer and wondering why tourists would go so far to go to then try as much as possible to recreate home. I can understand it on an intellectual level, but sitting there in this bar that could have been anywhere in Europe except for the service staff (and even in much of Europe now, I am sure they would be people of color) it just seemed silly. If you wanted to eat the same fries with mayonnaise and drink a Stella, why not just stay in Brussels?