2005-03-13 - 11:15 a.m.

Excerpts from a journal entry dated Feb 21st, 2005:

Dakar is not the Africa I came to know.
With its abundant colors, boisterous noises, busy streets, rich markets and tourist attractions, it almost feels like a mix between Europe and the Caribbean. Only when you take the time and courage to explore the “inner city” and walk where no tourists generally set foot, eat where no “toubab” ever swallows a bite…. Only then you can be reminded of Dakar’s link to Africa.
I’m sitting on the steps of the city’s Cathedral next to a table vendor who is selling Christian paraphernalia. With a touch of disbelief I remind myself that I am currently in the country where Muslims and Christians peacefully coexist, where the “black” Muslim president Ablay Wade is married to a “white” Christian woman (widely respected and beloved by the local population), where there are so many diplomats and expatriates lacing the city, that it really does feel, like many have called it before: the Paris of Africa!

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While walking and driving around Dakar, observing the multitude of street vendors with their colorful array of diverse and often random merchandise (ranging from popcorn, fruit, artifacts, perfume replicas, and water heaters to remote controls and fluorescent lamps!) I felt pleasure in my new realization.

Quite relieved, I realized that the many Senegalese street vendors found in Northern Italy (where my family lives and where I grew up) are not “losing their dignity” or “being forced into the streets” by the local “ruthless closed-minded anti-integration” society. It wasn’t a result of “our” lack of warm welcoming but rather a direct import of their native commercial techniques. Street vending is what they know, what they are used to, and what they have managed to continue to do across borders. Quite eye-opening and amusing,, and yet another example of “differing perspectives on the basis of cultural pre-conceptions”!

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It was difficult to be a tourist in an African country after living in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. In Mauritania I learnt to speak the native language, to successfully bargain in the market, to make jokes and ease cultural gaps, to be closer to the African people than any regular tourist would normally be. It was hard to be thrown back into the role of an “outsider” again, not belonging to the Senegalese community and culture, but yet not fitting into the typical “tourist” profile either… “lost in translation” if you will, floating in a space of undetermined and loose identity, experiencing “culture shock” all over again, and eternally feeling “cheated” by those damn vendors!!!! :-p

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“Because life is nothing but a series of doors: it’s up to us to choose which ones to walk through, which ones to open, and which to shut…”

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