St. Louis and Other Happenings

This past weekend, I went to St. Louis with 50 of my favorite toubabs. St. Louis is the former capital of French West Africa, and it’s a beautiful French colonial town that supposedly looks the same now as it did a century ago. The streets are full of colorful old buildings with balconies and large windows looking out from every floor- a lot of people on the trip were saying it looks a lot like New Orleans, not that I know what New Orleans is like. Anyway, it’s actually a lot prettier and calmer than Dakar, but I’ve grown to love the madness of Dakar so much that that’s not something that bothers me.

We went to a national bird park in St. Louis, which was lots of fun. A flock of pelicans followed us on our pirogue tour which was very cool. We then had a picnic in a park, and some free time to visit the city. We went out dancing in a St. Louis club that my siblings told me beforehand is “much better than Dakar clubs”—it was actually pretty great. We didn’t get back to the hotel until morning, as per habit, but there wasn’t much of a difference with Dakar clubs except that maybe there were more white people in St. Louis. Still, we didn’t have to pay the entrance fee because we were foreigners. As most of us were functioning on about 3 hours of sleep, Sunday was kind of brutal. Of all the things we could have done in St. Louis, our professors made us go visit museums and historical sites, but we survived and got back to Dakar that evening completely exhausted and in time for lox (sp?), the milk and millet meal that most Senegalese families, including my own, eat every Sunday night without fail. Considering that I can’t remember a time when I actually liked milk, this one’s a real treat for me.

Also, I haven’t really been paying for fruit for the past month- my friend Mohammed who works at the fruit stand has just been giving my friend and I a couple of pieces of fruit on our way to school every morning. He’d been really nice to us since we got here in August, and hadn’t even asked us to marry him or to give him a present of anything. We thought he was one of the few genuinely nice Senegalese men we’d met here, but once he started giving us free fruit, I suspected that he might want something from us. And indeed, last week he asked my friend to write a letter to the American embassy to get him a visa (there’s a lot of myths floating around here about how one immigrates to the U.S). She told him she couldn’t do that, and he’s still giving us free fruit, but it’s kind of awkward now and I’m disappointed but also feel really sad for him. Three months into this trip, I’m still amazed at how everyone here wants to leave Senegal to go to the U.S; I don’t think the idea is thought through at all, I think the general assumption is just that things are a lot better in America, that everyone there is ridiculously wealthy, and that American life is one big long rap music video… On the other hand, knowing all of this really makes me admire the fact that all my Senegalese siblings have a lot of Senegalese pride and want to stay in Senegal if they can find jobs here.

Everything is sill going well at home. I haven’t seen my host dad in about a month, but I assume that he’s still just chilling on the third floor, since my mom brings a tray of food up there during meal times. My maid left to go back to her village, which was very sad, and the house is kind of falling apart—we actually have to cook and clean for ourselves now, which would explain why we’ve had pasta with ketchup for dinner for 2 nights in a row.

That’s all that’s new with my life- I’m just trying to make the most of the short time I have left here. We kind of live for the weekends here and there’s only 3 of those left, which is very strange to think about… I guess I will be seeing you all soon though!

Advertisement