Soleil, sable, singes et un lac rose (Sun, sand, monkeys and a pink lake)

Sorry it's been a while since the last post. I feel like I'm getting more used to everyday life in Dakar, although the days can still get pretty tiring. Even something as simple as taking public transportation can be confusing, hectic and difficult. You never really know what's going to happen. I have full days of classes twice a week, but the other days I either have one class or none at all, so there's a lot of space for exploring and filling up my time with various things.

Last week a few of us discovered the beach in Ouakam. It's beautiful, a small beach with tall cliffs on one side and a rocky hill on the other. When the sun is just starting to go down and we sit on some rocks eating oranges and baguettes with chocolate, watching the waves crash against the rocks and listening to the drum circle that's playing halfway up the hill, it's just perfect. Sometimes I can't get over the fact that I'm actually here.

But at other times, like when a woman carrying a baby on her back knocks on the door and asks me for food and I have none to give her, or when street sellers follow us, pester us and guilt us into buying something, or get angry when we don't, I am sometimes plagued by a sense of guilt or powerlessness that is hard to shake off.

Last weekend a group of us took a day trip to Lac Rose, a lake that's actually pink because of the salt deposits. It was a strange and beautiful sight. We didn't go swimming, but apparently you float because of the amount of salt in the water. We spent our time roaming the beach, dealing with the ever-aggressive vendors, and eating ceebu jen, Senegal's national dish of rice, fish, vegetables and spices. The real adventure started on the return trip. We had hired the bush taxi or whatever that is in the picture, into which we crammed 11 toubabs plus the two Senegalese drivers. It was glorious to be sitting on the benches in the back, out in the open air, being jolted by the bumpy, occasionally paved road and watching the landscape and busy towns pass by. About 15 minutes into our trip, on a deserted stretch of the road, the car slowed to a stop. We had run out of gas. One of the drivers jumped out and started running down the road, but we weren't sure where he was going to be able to find gas. We eventually piled out to stretch our legs, and some of the group started trying to flag cars down to siphon gas, once the driver had tried for a while without any luck. It is a lot easier for a toubab to hail a car here than anyone else. If we're walking down the street in Dakar, taxis don't even wait for us to hail them. They hail us. If they spot a toubab, they'll slow down, honk, and yell out thewindow until they get our attention. If they pass by and then catch sight of us a little late, some will screech to a halt and back up 100 feet or more on a busy road to see if the toubabs need a ride. It's ridiculous, and annoying to have to shake our heads every time we see a taxi to let le taximan know that actually, these toubabs don't mind walking. But I have to put things like that in perspective and remind myself that taxi drivers, like pretty much everyone else here, are in desperate need of cash, and that foreigners are extremely visible and always perceived as wealthy, which, relatively at least, is true.

Anyway, on the road somewhere between Lac Rose and Dakar, we managed to flag down a little truck of Lebanese dirt bikers who were kind enough to siphon some gas from one of their motorbikes into our bush taxi. Pictured left is the crucial hand-off. We were all laughing about our crazy situation; the two Senegalese drivers, the Lebanese guys decked out in their biking gear, and the American students enjoying the adventure of the day. It was a great moment for everyone. The Lebanese guys spoke English, and we exchanged names and joked around. There is actually a pretty large Lebanese community in Dakar, and a few members of the group were 3rd generation Lebanese in Senegal who had never even been to Lebanon. "It's strange," one of them said. "We've lived in Senegal our entire lives, but we're still called Lebanese." My friends and I thought that was pretty hilarious when we remembered if afterwards, but it really does make sense when you think about it. There are just far fewer foreigners, or people who look like foreigners, here in Senegal than in a country like the US, so I don't think the Lebanese guy is ever going to make it to being called Senegalese.

After that incident, the trip was pretty smooth. (Figuratively speaking. It was actually the bumpiest ride I've ever had in my life. Sometimes I think I was probably airborne. There was also a lot of swerving to avoid the giant potholes wherever the road was paved, but sometimes they came up too fast, and there would be a crash-jolt that made me wince and hope the car wasn't about to fall into pieces. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens at some point during my four months here; almost every vehicle you step into looks like it's about to fall apart). When the traffic got too bad, the driver would pull off the road and drive along the dirt shoulder for a while. At one point when we were stopped in traffic, the 2nd driver jumped off and bought us some Café Touba, the spicy Senegalese coffee, from a stand at the side of the road, as a little extra he had promised when we were negotiating the price of the trip.

And, when we were almost back in Dakar, we passed the Lebanese guys again. It was an exciting moment for everyone. We waved and yelled across a couple lanes of traffic and created quite a scene; that is, even more of a scene that a crowd of 11 toubabs in the back of an open truck on a congested road in Senegal were causing in the first place.

Aside from special trips (more of those are in the works), I'm just trying to adjust to daily life as a foreigner in Dakar. I'm definitely getting more used to certain aspects of life here, but a lot of things that might be normal in the US are much more difficult and confusing here. Sometimes it feels like everything is a struggle, and I'm still often exhausted by the end of the day. I also have a lot of "What??"moments, when someone does something that seems completely insane, but everyone around is acting like it's totally normal. Even walking down the street is a challenge; you have to deal with reckless cars, buses and motorcycles, the wind blowing sand in your face, and all the people everywhere—people trying to sell you things, little kids asking for money or running up to stare and point at the toubab, and people everywhere you go that try to meet you and engage in conversation. Sometimes a random person on the street in Ouakam yells out my name, and I'm completely shocked for a second until I realize I must have met him at some point and just can't remember when or where. I feel kind of bad when that happens, but I have to remind myself that everyone I meet here is new, and that I probably stand out just a little bit more than they do to me. But it's still a little disconcerting. I've had to do quite a bit of faking when I don't remember who people are where it was that I met them.

One thing I'm encountering daily that I still have not gotten used to is that, since white = wealth, and marriage to a foreigner means an easy escape from poverty, many Senegalese men really like white women. They're not too subtle about it, either. A typical conversation that a random person on the street will initiate if I'm not walking quickly and purposefully, and sometimes even if I am, goes something like this: "Hello. What is your name? I am Babacar." (Everyone here is named Babacar. Especially the ones I have this kind of conversation with.) Then it's on to, "Do you have a husband?" If I were to say yes, I have a husband back in the States, it's almost as useless as saying, "I'm single." Our Wolof teacher just taught us how to say, "I have a Senegalese boyfriend and I'm pregnant." According to him, that should dissuade them pretty quickly. But sometimes they skip this question and go straight to: "I would like to have an American friend. What is your phone number? I would like to continue this relationship."When I say, I don't have a phone number (lie), he says, "You don't? Why not? I will give you mine and you can call me." He gets out apiece of paper, writes down "Babacar" and his phone number, and hands it to me."You will call me, yes?" (I say, oui. Of course.) "When? Tonight? Tomorrow? You promise?"

I'm really not exaggerating. Sometimes it's worse than that and one or two Babacars will accompany a group of us down the street until we manage to shake them off. At least a short exchange like that happens to me or a friend I'm with once a day, sometimes multiple times. It gets annoying and tiring and makes me not want to talk to anyone, but again, I have to remember that they're doing it because they have nothing to lose, and they're desperate to get to the US or Europe where they think all their problems will be solved, and they know that marrying an American woman will be a sure ticket out. But my friends and I sometimes wonder if they'll ever learn that a little subtlety might get them at least a little further in a conversation, if nothing else.

But of course not every encounter I've had on the street is negative. Most people are extremely friendly, some without the ulterior motives, and I've actually spent some time with another girl in the program sitting on a bench with some fruit vendors and a couple of their friends who gather in the late afternoon to talk and drink ataaya, the delicious Senegalese tea, which they're brewing over hot coals.There's actually not a whole lot of conversation happening between me and the fruit vendors, because they barely speak French and not even much Wolof—they're Pulaar, a different ethnic group with a different language. But it doesn't matter. After they walk me through the customary greetings in Wolof, a language that none of us, but especially me, has a real grasp on, it's fine to just sit and drink tea and converse with the people that speak our own language. Now, whenever I pass that fruit stand, I'll at least wave at my new friends before going on my way.

The other night when I was out with some friends in the program and we were taking a cab back home, the driver tried to get us to speak Wolof with him the whole way, which is a pretty common occurrence. The second half of the drive consisted of everyone, including the taximan(who may have been slightly insane, I'm not really sure) laughing over some Wolof phrases we had learned. "Ndank ndank, mooy japp golo ci ñaay," which translates roughly to "Little by little, catch a monkey in the forest." And that's exactly what I'm doing here. Little by little, I'm figuring out how to integrate myself into a new life. I'm working on finding my way in the overwhelming explosion of color, noise, animals, cars and people that Dakar can be. It's taken some time, too, to adjust to living with a new family with a very different culture and schedule than I'm used to. But I know that will get easier as time passes; I can already see that happening. If I forgive myself for my inevitable cultural mistakes and keep trying, continuing to put myself out there, take things in and reflect on what I'm seeing, I think I will have caught the "monkey." Even with the fading of some of my initial excitement of being in Senegal and the realization that living in a different culture is a lot tougher than I thought, I'm still so grateful for my chance to be here, soaking up the sun—and if I simultaneously get some gritty sand blown in my face, so be it—c'est la vie.