Senegal Impressions

Okay, it's weird to write this with a kid in the internet cafe looking over my shoulder... but I guess it's no different from journaling on trains in India with whole crowds of curious women gathered around me?

That segues neatly into one of my more general thoughts: That even over a week into the trip, I still catch myself almost thinking I could be in Thailand or India, instead of in Senegal. I guess I somehow expected Africa to look more different than everything I already knew. And it is different, but the first visual impression was one of baffling sameness: same building materials (concrete, concrete and more concrete), same product materials (cheap plastic), some general landscape (palm trees &co.)

In truth, of course, the culture is very different from anything I knew: there's the deeply felt hospitality ("But you can't leave! You should stay at least a month!"); the extensive culture of greeting (sometimes you're still muttering, "How are you? Fine, thanks. How are you? Good, good," as the other person's voice fades into the distance down the road) and so much shaking of hands, both when you arrive and when you leave (even tiny kids know they're supposed to do it!); and the slow pace of things, where you're lucky to get one major errand done a day, but also you actually get more done when you're willing to slow down and drink some tea, or just put in that sitting-around time that people here value so much, and which then opens the doors to finding out whatever it is you need to find out.

Then, of course, there's the omnipresent mbalax music, a sort of blending of traditional drums and modern instruments, that pulses from every taxi and every street-side stall and just makes you want to dance all the time. And the stately, massive baobab trees once you leave town. And the boys playing soccer absolutely everywhere on the beaches and in the dusty streets. And the horse-drawn carts... Clearly, I could go on.

One more thing that's strikingly different: Except for the very most downtown part of Dakar, the cities don't feel like cities. Even the largest of them are pretty much sprawling collections of village-style streets, with two-story buildings and wide, dusty lanes. It's nice, very un-hectic. Oh, but so much dust!