- Oh, and on the nature trip, we saw the confluence of the Niger with the Atlantic on a deserted beach as we chased around crabs. And I almost died of thirst because I didn't bring enough water and we had salty salty sardines for lunch. Yikes!

4/26/02 - Meet me in St. Louis

I spent today exploring St. Louis itself, getting my glasses fixed (broke in Bara's apt), looking for new sandals (lost a teva on the trip from Dakar) and checking out the museum.
The museum was way below average but the city itself is really sah-weet. It's very well kept up and oozes with French colonialist style and riddled with a few mosques (there's a large one right next to my hotel as is apparent by the 5 AM call to prayer I hear if the window's open) and a bit of an Arabic aesthetic. I spent a lot of today talknig to people in the streets, visiting stores and playing with kids. As I've alluded to earlier, the culture differences are significant - much more so than Asia. Simple examples include formally saying 'hello, how are ya?' to every person in a small group when you arrive and complicate when it comes to commerce and gifts. People are constantly talking to me, though usually with the purpose of getting me to come to their shop. Cynicism would cast this in as simply trying to get my money - which some are - but a subtler interperatation sees genuine friendliness and curiosity muddled with a habit or instinct of povery and need. I obviously can't pretend I'm not a tourist (the locals are Black and my tan hasn't come in dark enough yet) and I don't like ignoring people so luckily I've begun to appreciate and sometimes laugh at these interactions: vendors you've spoken to a few times treating you like their best friend, strangers bumming cigarettes, Senegalse tea available at the asking, being invited to meet someone's family after talking to them for ten minutes, children hassling you for change, adults asking for gifts. The psychology of it is complicated to me and judging people proves difficult when you don't really know the rules, but I suspect that on my return, it'll be these interactions that I most remember.
I also spent some time walking around the fishing village on the Atlantic coast where there are supposedly 4,000 pirogues and 15,000 fisherman.

4/27/02 - A taste of Desert

Today I rendez-voused with Omar with whose house I ate lunch yesterday, for a trip into Mauritania. We took a kalash (horse drawn carriage) to the edge of town and then a few miles more to the middle of the Sahel where we got off and started to walk. We headed north with the Niger on our right and the Atlantic on our left. We passed the town of D'jago, the last in Senegal, and a little girl at a well as the Sahel climate and vegitation started turning to desert sand with sparse patches of desert grass. We passed a row of trees signifying the border and the town of Toombach started growing larger in my binoculars.
We reached the town and Omar paid off the gendarmerie with his sunglasses. The people seemed guarded at my presence even though the St Louis tourist office runs tours here all the time. We walked around town, turned around and south again. A kalash loaded with cheap Mauritanian sugar passed us as we headed back to St. Louis. The sun was now at it's hottest, 3 o'clock, and Omar and I sang and drummed on ourselves to make the journey pass. We had further to go as we had to walk all the way back to town this time. We made it back and I had a great meal his mother had made.
At night I went out with Yaya, one of the hotel workers and Housman, his brother. We went to a nightclub till about 4 where they had this interesting performance of drummers and dancers at around 3. It concluded with a booty-off to raise money for the artists.
No one really drinks here (Islamic influence) and their tolerance is really low when they do. 3 beers and they're getting into fights - I saw a taxi driver and some guy arguing and a knife being pulled but not used. At these discos, they seem to have a natural buzz - maybe from the frenetic dancing.

Today was the best day yet.

4/28/02 - African Sundays

These Africans take their Sundays seriously - all is closed and is quiet. It's weird - I don't know where everyone goes, but you walk the street in peace and quiet. Maybe they sleep all day from staying out till 7 AM the rest of the week. (If you can imagine me saying this: it's too much. I feel like a wimp when I start to fade at 4.) So today, I didn't do much - I hope to either drop in on Omar's mothers birthday (to which I contributed 7 bucks for the festivities as tip for the tour he gave me) or see Housman play soccer.

4/21/02 - Ile de N'Gor

Today Bara and I took a trip to the island of N'Gor, a small island off the Western tip of Dakar. To get there you leave from a port at the Western-most point in Africa - I was as close to New York as I could be. And port I use loosely. We took a little pirogue (small motorized fishing boat) across the water to a rocky island. (The name Senegal actually dervies from the two words sen and gal both Wolof names for fishig boats.) The day was pleasant and we were given a tour from a French girl who has spent a lot of time on the island the past few years - we had helped her carry the bag of clothes she was going to give out to her place.
The island is a sort of haven for artists with an accompanying vibe. According to our new friend, however, foreign interest is starting to transform the island into a resort, driving out the artists and we saw the beginnings of one hotel. The island is beautiful - on one side, the Atlantic crashed fiercely onto the rocky shore of the isle and on the other a sandy beach offered a view of Dakar.
At night, it was more discoing, more watching of people thriwing their hips around seemingly defying the fact that their pelvises are attached to two legs that are on the ground.
I moved out of my hotel and was now staying at Bara's place.

4/22/02 - Slave trade

Today, I took a completely different trip to a different island. Ile d'Goree is a supposed former debarkation point for many of the 20 million slaves taken out of Africa. Historical evidence reveals otherwise - that in fact very few slaves were ever on the island - but it has become one of the many fortressed former-European islands in this part of Africa that are touchstones and memorials to slavery. The island was very picturesque and retains much of it's former colonial stylings. It is well kept as it's a popular tourist destination; on the boat ride itself which was a large steamer departing from an industrial port, I saw more tourists than I have all trip.
I learned a lot on this day about slavery from a world view - that Brazil was the last country to outlaw it, that France and Englad outlawed it in the 1850s, that the were about 20 million slaves taken in the 200 years of its practice, that about %20 of the Africans died or were killed in transit. I learned of the horrible conditions they suffered through the simple paintings and sculptures that dotted the museum.

4/23/02 - Worst Day Ever

Today, my trust in Bara backfired - or perhaps backfired - I still don't know what to make of the whole situation. I'll leave out the gorey details, but the day was epitomized by me eating some crappy takeout by candlelight in his apartment while he cavorted around with my $20 that was supposed to be for fixing his waterheater that he said I broke. I was tired of Dakar and happy to be leaving.

4/24/02 - Fleeing

Today, I woke up, packed and popped into Bara's room so we could go. I saw a few dollars of what was left of the $20 I gave him lying on the floor, and I thought about taking it. My mind was clouded with the complicated psychological debacle of the past few days and I had lost all perspective on realilty. I snatched the $7 and woke Bara up. We had originally planned to go to St Louis together as it's where his parents are, but I suspected another scam and indeed he said he couldn't leave that day. So I said goodbye, went to the Mali embassy to get my passport and got on the bus to St. Louis.
The bus ride re-affirmed my faith in the benefits of continuing to meet people - I rode next to a bright student who was genuinely interested in getting to know me and asked for nothing - not even for me to visit his uncle's store which I hear over and over again. We talked a lot of gender roles for women in Africa and about what equality meant and about theology.
I got to St. Louis and checked into my hotel - Auberge de Jeunesse. It's a cute little place and I'm much happier here in St. Louis.

4/25/02 - Langue Du Barbarie

St. Louis is geographically very neat. It's a city built where the Niger river flows into the Atlantic. It's at the abutment of the Sahel climate against the Sahara of Mauritania a few miles north and the city itself is spread across the mainland, an island and a penisula that in spots, separates the Atlantic from the Niger by a hundred yards. Today, I went on a nature tour on that peninusula with a few people from the hotel. The guides were great and there were 2 Canadians on the trip so I could finally speak English.
(It actually took me a bit getting used to English again - I believe that I'm actually thinking in French when I speak to people instead of translating. My grammar sucks and my vocab limited especially when it comes to animals and birds, but it's very exciting to not take that extra step when I talk. Linguistically interesting is the fact that I think I am translating in my head when I listen except on simmple phrases.)

The trip was really nice. We saw pelicans, land tortoises, gazelles, oryx and a few monkees all on foot or in a pirogue. We were a motley crew, though, to say the least. The was an enormous guy from Strassbourg who couldn't walk and I think was attracted to me, 2 Parisians of Swiss origin that were artists that came across as caricatures of French artists and the two Canadian guys who worked for the UN in Sierre Leone. They were a couple, they would later tell me, after the younger of the two (by 25 years) told me he was married. I guess they're used to some pretty hostile attitudes working for the UN despite its image as an liberal organization.
Afterwards, I met the Canadians, Del and Hal, (cute, no?) for dinner and some Senegalese wrestling. It was a lot of fun and had some of the theatrical elements in the WWF, all within the confines of a back alley and all run by an enormous Iddi-Amin look-a-like who would run around the exterior of the "ring" (a net hanging on rope)_pretending to whip all the kids. Again, there were few tourists here and this was true Senegalese entertainment.

4/19/02 - Party till the break of Dawn

I've been here two days but it feels like two weeks. Perhaps it is because my vacationing state was preserved from my last trip, suspended in my mind and not yet disolved, when I touched down and has simply taken me over again instead of having to start from scratch. Or perhaps it's the frenetic almost NY-like feel of Dakar and the busy-ness of the two days that makes me feel this.
I can't pinpoint the exact time of day, but the event that triggered 2 days of whirlwind activity was when I met Moustaffe on one of the main drags of Dakar. Lest you think my ability to meet people have anything to do with me, I should tell you that Senegalese are extraordinarily friendly. There are subtleties to the culture here which is represented in the fine line and mingling of commerce and friendship that I have yet to understand, but there have been several scenarios very remeniscient of my time in Egypt.

Moustaffe and I went on a marathon walk around all the main markets of the city which were filled with all the typical African curios that you'd expect. I wish I could distinguish between good and not-so-good stuff. Ebony statues, colorful dashikis, djembes, fish, fruit, masks in the style of different African countries - we saw it all. We saw a few touristy type buildings, but Dakar is not that kind of a city - there isn't much to "see" (the main plaza, Place d'Independance, is just a razed spot with construction going on), but rather a lot to experience. After our walk, we got a Gazelle beer at a neat open-air bar. That first day, walking around, was a lot of fun. The novelty of everyone being black is jsut beginning to wear off and about half the people wear these extraordinarily colorful robes and headdresses, like the woman next to me on the plane.

After that, I was tired and so I napped. Afterwards, I went downstairs where I met Bara. We chatted as happens all over town if you're alone, and it turns out he lived in Cannes, a French city I know well. I had nothing to do and didn't know the scene while he was Senegalese and seemed to know everyone.
We went out to a bunch of discos and I saw my first African dancing. It's a ton of fun to watch and not that hard to do as it ranges from just rocking back and forth to the most dominant of the polyrhythms in the music throwing your arms around all the way to wild intricate gesticulations to the more suble ryhthms, throwing any and all body parts around in a very aesthetic way. I even already have a favorite song. The group was started by one of Yousou N'dor's drummers and the song has this part where he shouts "bing" and the band comes back with a one-note hit. The he says "bing bing bing", then the band does a three note thing. It keeps going till it it's breaks down into a fast African beat. (Dancing to this involves shaking your pelvis at someone each "bing"). I could go on about the dancing that I'd see all weekend - people circling up and someone throwing their booty around in the middle, pulling and yanking at one's clothes, the seeming sexual connotations of everythin - but I'll stop here.
Eventually Bara and I met up with his pal Paco (Paco 1 - another Paco is coming later). After a bit we left the bar for another one in Paco's white BMW, listening to Tu-Pac. So, here's me, suburban American kid, son of immigrants, great-grand-child of people who never left their Eastern European shtetls and I'm pimpin' in a Beamer down the street of a city on the "dark continent" rockin' out to Tu-Pac.
I ended up paying for most of the drinks that night - even for BMW-owning Paco. Maybe that's why he drives BMW's and I drive Ford LTD's. The night was a lot of fun, and I appreciated the free rides and Bara getting me into all the bars, but mingled with the great fun is this minor frustration of not wanting to be taken advantage of. Same as in Cairo.
I went to bed around 5:30.


4/20/02 - More walkin' and some bar brawlin'

The next day, I met Bara in the AM, moved hotels, then went for a marathon walk by myself. Luckily it was in a quiet part of town so people weren't always coming up to me asking me to buy from them. I went to the National museum which had some interesting African art and an exhibit on African/Arabic women. (West Africa is %90 Muslim). Then, I walked to the southern tip of the town which is nice cape and saw the lighthouse. The walk back took me through the rich part of town. Embassies and homes of UN and French diplomats, a soccer field for their kids, beautiful beachfront houses and empty streets.

This all reminded me of something that gets to me when traveling - the self righeousness of other countries about the US's policies. Not to say I support what we do, but for other countries to act as if it we're the greatest evil the world's seen is unfair. The French attrocities of slavery shown in the museum, the UN-financed gated communities they've set up in Dakar keeping the poor out of sight, the fact that independence was granted only 40 years ago - I suspect more due to a crumbling empire than of noble intentions - should all make the French pause before throwing such vindictive language around at the US and Israel. (I've seen one incident of anti-semitism so far - a spray-painted wall reading "Nique le juifes". I don't know what "nique" means, but I assume it's bad.)

On my way back, I saw Moustaffe again at his store and met some of his friends: Popo, a rasta; Oundo a Wolof that couldn't speak French; and a few others. Incidentally, I've been speaking French exclusively for 2 straight days - it's the 2nd language here and I'll glad I know it. I'm even having trouble speaking in English, now as I think all the basic social phrases in French. Though I do spend a lot of time saying the French equivalent of: "Yeah", "Oh yeah?", "Yeah, yeah" and "What?"

Okay, I'm running out of time here and I'm gonna skip to tersen up a bit.
- We saw fireworks
- Turns out Mustaffe and Bara actually know each other. Dakar seems small.
- I have 4 or 5 people to see already in my next destination - St. Louis
- The party I went to tonight was a lot of fun - tons of dancing. And fights kept breaking out. Luckily I wasn't injured, so, everything was fun and not scary.

Okay, I'm okt of time folks - I wish I could right more.

Till next time.

4/16/02 - France

The French love putting things on their shoulders or around their necks. Why else would they cling to the 80's style of holding their sweaters over their shoulders, knotted below their neck.

Meeting my cousin for lunch in Paris on my way to Dakar is not as glamorous as it sounds. No. Wait. Yeah, it is. I was smelly and tired from the flight, but I met my Mom's first cousin at around 11 after taking the bus from the airport to Porte Maillot, 40 yards from the Champs Elysee. We drove around and saw the Eiffel tower, the Opera, the Touillerie gardens and the Bastille before parking in front of a couscous restaurant in my Mom's old neighborhood. We ate, then I went back to the airport.

I spend the entirety of what remained of my 7 hour lay over with my nerves on edge. The waiting area is black and what isn't black is French. And the French seem to be looked on favourably by the Senegalese. Curious... the formerly colonized being fully welcoming of the former colonizer. Do Indians look upon the British the same way? Congolese the Belgians? Syrians on the French? The Cambodians didn't seem to have a positive attitude on the French so there must be something different going on. West Africa, for some reason, clings tightly to it's former tie.

The boarding line forms, I smoke a cigarette and wait till it's nearly passed through the gate. I queue up and then that new autoamtic ticket registering machine doesn't like what I have to offer it. Wrong flight? Wrong day? When I'm nervous, I start forgetting things, which makes me more nervous about having forgetten something important. Was I supposed to have checked in again?
I hold my hand out flat, in front of me, to see it shaking is perceptible. The attendant starts pecking at the keyboard as a step out of the line. E-T-T. E-T-T-L-I-N. E-T-T-L-I-N-G-E-R. She hands my my seating stub, manually torn from the ticket she keeps as I ask:
"Il y a un problem?". My tongue, tired from 2 hours of French talk with my cousin, is having trouble negotiating the French-trilled "r".
"Non. Bon voyage."

I attempt to hand in my passenger manifest form, causing more confusion.
"Only for American voiles ." I'm told, taking a few seconds to translate the last word.
Voiles... voiles... Flights! my brain clicks just as a attendant repeats the whole phrase, this time in English.
My cover's been blown for sure. I thought maybe my hiking boots had already given it away - I had decided that when I scanned the dress shoes and sparking white sneakereveryone else was wearing on line. My tucket shirt, gone to waste.I thought now, for sure, everyone knew where I was from.
I pass through the gate and meander to the plane doors with everyone else. People start passing by me. Am I holding things up, yet again? I'm keeping up with the guy in front of me - what else can I do? - until someone starts to wedge in front of me. Have I been aggravating the person behind mew/ my lack of line aggressiveness? I keep moving along and everyone's addressing my in French. Maybe I'm maintaining my anonymous illusion of not being the only American on the flightor maybe they just assume I must know French, American or not, if I'm flying Paris-Dakar. I mentally give myself props for inciting a quizical look from a steward I asked for a disembarkation card when we arrived at Charles-De-Gaule. "Vous zvez une passport Americaine?"

I head towards seat 27C, looking at the colored flowing clothes of the Africans, mingled with French styles. I see a large woman in a flowing light-purple robe and lavender Badu-esque head-dress. She's in the middle seat and engulfs half of the two adjacent seats. Her air-line blue seatbelt comically encircles her waist - rather, middle - like a ring of Saturn.
Hm... turns out she's in row 27.
I take my seat next to her after waiting to let her move her robage. She leaves it there, so I sit on it.

Next ensues a number of exchanges about the overhead bin, the empty seat next to us, etc. all in French. I deal okay, but am self-conscious of the 1 second delay that precedes all my actions and responses. Throughout, my tongue hopes I won't need any "r"s.
Some Africans are wearing colorful traditional garb, others are colorful, Africanized Western dress clothes. Even others are wearing urban-American outfits. The girl next to me has red Addidas, stone wash blue jeans, a sleeveless red tshirt and tight braided hair. Another guy is wearing a doo-rag.

Even before we take off, the lavender-clad jabba, her hands clasped in her lap, starts slouching towards my shoulder as a small snore buzzes through her nose.

The next few images are jumbled in my mind due to a sleep induced haze as my body tried to recoup some of the 6 hours of my night that was stolen in last night's flight which was neatly, 6 hours long as the plane ran opposite the sun's westerly path. It was 6 hours I'd get back in 7 weeks - like a deposit in a bank.

Image 1: Instead of slouching towards my shoulder, my neighbor was now stretched out over 2 seats with her bare feet pressed against the side of my thigh. I think it was them that was smelling, but it had a certain familiarity that made me think it was my boots.Maybe my feet smell like African woman feet.
Image 2: A tall goofy guy bumping ingto the steward causing him to sppill coke on my arm, shirt and pants.This is a genetic trait as my mother gets spilled on during flights, especially when she's wearing white.
Image 3: I started coming to while I tried sponging out the coke with Schweppes as I lazily stared at the 6'3" guy standing 6'0" feet away from m, waiting for the bathroom, wearing a perfectly clean white suit. I bet he's glad he didn't get coke spilled on him.
The woman next to me sat up and started shifting around inside her light purple robe,. making it billow as though several midgets were wrestling inside. She pulled out a passport eventually, but not before almost falling out of the robe.

The flight was moving in slow motion, but the level of intersting experiential detail kept my minds off of the question of whether I should brave the bus into town, or if not, how much I should try to bargain with a taxi driver.

I made it to my hotel which is expensive, but has hot water.

4/18/02 - Dakar

I don't have a handle on the city yet, but it is overflowing with the color of the African clothing. Vibrant is a good word to describe it. You certainly know you're not anywhere in America.