Senegal Part 1

It’s crazy how we construct images in our minds about places we’ve never been, and we’re always surprised at the inaccuracy of our mental depiction when we finally see the imagined place. At least that is the case for me. Sometimes the images even defy logic or your better judgment. This was the case for me when arriving in Senegal. I had been to two bordering countries, Mauritania and Mali, but still was unable to accurately picture what Dakar would look like. This was partly because Dakar is incredibly different from its neighboring capital cities. I know that Senegal is a very dry country. I know it is on the northern edge of the Sahel, not far from the Sahara. I know there are serious problems with access to water in the city. But all this knowledge did not stop my mind from anticipating a lush, green city. As the plane descended into the outskirts of Dakar, it looked like my mind’s creation of what a Middle Eastern city looks like. Boxy concrete buildings, some colorfully painted, many unfinished or decrepit that gave it a war zone-like feel, and brown. Lots and lots of brown. From the sky it was clear that I was heading into a country just this side of desert.

So my mind quickly readjusted what it was expecting of Dakar. That is probably why I was not surprised by the heat, when stepping off the plane, but I was taken aback by the humidity. Dakar is on a peninsula that juts off the coast of West Africa like a little nipple, providing a climate that is a little less dry and hot than the interior of the country.

I was in Senegal because I was lucky enough to be selected to attend an intensive training on malaria prevention. Stomp Out Malaria is a new and innovative Peace Corps initiative to increase malaria programs at Peace Corps posts all over sub-Saharan Africa. There are a few of these trainings every year and most African Peace Corps countries send volunteers and staff to help improve their malaria-prevention programs. Although it is one of Africa’s biggest health problems, until recently it was widely a neglected issue. Since joining Rwanda’s team of volunteers that do malaria programs, I had felt good to have a new side project to work on, especially because I live in one of the most malaria-ridden parts of Rwanda. I was very honored to be selected to attend this training, but most of all I was excited to return to West Africa, perhaps my favorite region in the world. I am growing to like Rwanda, but anyone around me knows that I obnoxiously pine over West Africa on a regular basis. I wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity, so I managed to take a few vacation days and arrive early. Although my flight was paid for, I was told that I would have to pay for the difference in the cost of the flight if I was to change it. I was willing to pay almost anything to have a few extra days to myself in Senegal. The difference came out to a whopping $2.

Uncharacteristically, I planned extensively for my time there. I figured that since my time was limited, it would be well worth it to have plenty of ideas of what to do when I got there. Now, it’s not like I made any reservations or schedules, but I made an effort to find out when concerts were, write down where art galleries were and jot notes about beaches. I had a lot to pack in.

As I exited customs, I was surprised to find a man holding a sign with my name and the Peace Corps logo on it. I figured that since I was arriving before the other volunteers, I was on my own. Instead, a Peace Corps driver named Matar was there to arrange my transport to the Peace Corps Office. It was a nice gesture, but I was kind of looking forward to getting into town on my own. Matar brought me to a hired van that took me directly to the Peace Corps office where they gave me a cell phone for use while in Senegal. I met Jillian, a volunteer who was in her third year and worked closely with the Stomp program. She had invited me to stay at her place nearby, but I felt like I wanted to be on my own during the brief time I could be on full travel mode. She gave me directions to get a bus into the city center.

I was surprised by how quickly I was able to transition to speaking French. In Rwanda, any time I try to speak French it comes out littered with Kinyarwanda words. Within an hour I was feeling pretty comfortable with the language. I got on the battered, but colorful bus and was thrown off by a payment system I’d never seen before. You had to buy a ticket from a person in a booth made of wood and metal at the back of the bus and someone during the ride would check the ticket. My exhilaration as we made our way through the chaotic streets was out of control. I was already feeling like Dakar was everything that Kigali wasn’t. Energetic, chaotic, loud, artistic, dirty, and filled with smells both sensational and gag-worthy. All the things that good cities are made of.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous when we arrived at the bus park close to dusk. I’d always heard negative things about Dakar. That it is a fast-moving, aggressive and dangerous city rife with hustlers and thieves. Almost any urban bus park in Africa can be unnerving, and this was no exception. I didn’t want to linger, but I also didn’t really know where I was going. I knew my skin and large backpack would make me a target to any opportunists in the area. I escaped the bus park chaos in the direction I assumed to be the center of town, but I really didn’t know. After asking a few people along the way, I was finding my way to what I had heard was the cheapest place in the city to stay.

Without too much hassle, I arrived at Ali Baba a Middle Eastern fast food joint that is an icon in Dakar. Above it is a somewhat sketchy guesthouse. At about $20 for a room, it was indeed cheap for this remarkably expensive city, and I was not able to bargain for a cheaper room at all.

My first impression of downtown Dakar was how much it reminded me of the African neighborhoods in Paris. Everything about the streets and the buildings reminded me more of Paris than Bamako, Mali or Nouakchott Mauritania. The French influence would continue to be apparent during my stay.

After checking into my room and unsuccessfully trying to greet the Indian man cooking in a lungi in the communal kitchen, I headed out the door into central Dakar. I was hoping to go to a concert that was happening at a place called “Biscuterie la Medina”. Assuming that it was in a nearby neighborhood called Medina, I walked the twenty or so minutes it took to get there. I knew it was a big venue, but I mostly got blank stares or incorrect directions when I asked where it was. Eventually one person knew where it was, but said it was far too far to walk to. I would later find out that the venue is not in the neighborhood I had assumed it was in. Not even close. The man showed me which shared taxi to get into, and I piled in. Whisked into the neon and blackness of Dakar’s outskirts, I was both nervous about making it to the concert at all, and invigorated by my the sparse amount of control I had over my situation. I was now at the mercy of the driver, and had stepped firmly away from the vague orientation I had clung to so I had a chance of an easy return home.

When the driver told me it was my stop, I fumbled for a modestly valued bill. I only had the largest denomination. I almost never make that mistake and I felt like an amateur and the irritating foreigner I never want to be. The driver didn’t have change and just told me to not worry about it. I apologized, but he seemed not to mind much and peeled back into the traffic.

It took some wandering and asking, but I made it to the venue. It was a large, outdoor space, with a huge stage, a small set of bleachers, a VIP section and a serious light setup. I feel like I’m just describing a fairly normal concert venue, but that is because it was that. The nicest I’d seen in Africa and better than the average venue in Seattle.

Both of my first two nights in Senegal, I ended up at this same venue, since there was a three-night series of concerts. Thus, I will describe them together.

Most of the music I know from this region of Africa leans towards the traditional. This night, however, was almost exclusively hip-hop, R and B, and poetry. Most of the acts were Senegalese, however, since the even was sponsored by the French Cultural Center, there were also a healthy dose of French acts, such as Grand Corps Malade (Big Sick Body), a spoken word poet, and Sniper, a rap group. I felt that French groups unfairly took the headlining spots, even though they are pretty well-known. Of course I was unable to understand much of the poetry of Grand Corps Malade, but it didn’t fit into the atmosphere of fun and dance that was happening just before. Sniper was a little too much about gold, guns and braggadocio for my taste.

There was only one local act that I was familiar with, but plenty of the others were fantastic. The styles were varied, and some artists were more polished than others. Mostly I was impressed to see hip-hop being done with higher quality and sophistication than I’d seen elsewhere in Africa (and, of course in mainstream America). Daara J Family performed exceedingly late the night I saw them. They are a group that I first heard on KEXP in Seattle about three years prior, and had loved them immediately. Their show did not disappoint. It was the most excited I had been at a concert in years, although I am sure no small part of it was the almost complete absences of live music in Rwanda.

Dakar made me happy. It was quickly showing me it had everything I wanted in a city. A vibrant arts and music scene, incredible food, interesting and friendly people, exciting public transportation, beaches and a little bit of edge.