Dakar, Senegal- Mama Africa!

I arrive in Dakar, Senegal after 16 hours of travel. The thick humid air smacks me as I step off of the plane. It's intense for 7:00 am but it feels good after 8 hours of stale airconditioned plane air. We board a bus that takes us from the tarmac to the airport. I look around as everyone gathers their family children and tries to keep them together as they board the bus. Drowsy and disoriented, I look around to find my people and realize I am alone. I'm interested in everyone's colorful clothes and the way the women wear their hair. I try not to stare long enough to get caught. 
We get to the airport and everyone races off, I follow unsure of the reason for the rush. They all push to one area, I still cannot see what it is they're after. Confused, I'm frustrated that I dont know the words in French ask anyone. I just dive in with everyone else. Oh, customs papers. I get in line as I fill it out.
I get to the baggage terminal and it starts. I am a peice of sandwhich thrown to the hords of seagulls. The airport attendents flock to me offering carts and help and friendship and anything else they can think of. I just walk and wave them off "no gracias"...wait that's espanol. I'm tired. I stand next to the baggage carousel and wait, and wait. Not seeing my bags. An attendent comes up to me. "No, I'm ok" I quickly say, "Well I'm ok too!" he responds in perfect english. I feel soothed by the familiar words so I let him help me. We chat as the bags pass by. Eventually he begins checking the tags and dossnt see my name. "They're lost, probably to Johannasburg. Here, come to the office with me." I'm annoyed by his complacent tone and I'm not sure if he's scamming me somehow. Although no one else is at the carousel anymore so.. I follow him. There are about 5 other locals standing in the lost baggage line- ok looks like this does happen all the time. We wait. It's hot. I'm wearing a turtle neck, long yoga pants and sneakers with double socks. Fuck. So this is how it's going to be...well it wouldnt be the first time I've been in a strange, hot place in the wrong clothes. As I wait in line I ponder this and remember Australia and Sayulita. Two of my best trips began like this, so I decide this is a good omen for what's to come.
I finally get into the crumbling concrete office. The officer asks me for my phone number. "I dont have one here" he asks for the number of the people I'm staying with. I realize it's on a peice of paper folded up in my luggage. "Um I dont know". My attendent says "You dont know their number? So what if you get outside and they are not there, then what?" A shiver washes over me at the thought. Now I'm set on getting outside as soon as possible to prove him wrong. I leave the office, and tip the boy with money of which I have no idea the value-but whatever it is it is not enough. I dont believe him. I thank him and walk away. I make my way to the exit and feel sick with the tought the attendant implanted in my head.
 The moment I step outside I see my name on a sign-spelled comepletely wrong. Ah, here is my new family. Abdoulaye stands with a tranquil, pearly smile and I run to him. "Hi! I'm Christine". "I know" he says and points to my name on his sign. He speaks English! "I Abdoulaye. Come, give me your five" I realize he means hand and we cross the busy street to a taxi. I apologize for the delay. My plane was 2 hours late. He says "Is ok. I here since 5:00"  He has been waiting outside for 3 hours. I dont even know what to say. "I'm so sorry." He laughs and says "it no problem."

The taxi ride into the city from the airport was sort of like a feel-good movie scene of when someone gets into a foreign place. wind whipping, cows passing, an uptempo africa beat singing from the speakers . I'm mezmerized. Sheep, colors, shacks and tons of people everywhere. I've heard Dakar is the Paris of West Africa. Well I've never been to Paris but...Wow this is not what I expected. If this is the biggest, most international city in West Africa than what do the slums look like? I wonder. "Take breakfast?" Abdoulaye asks. "YES!" I am starving but paralyzed by the unfarmiliar and already came to the conclusion that I would starve before trying to figure out how to obtain food-and what that food might be. He has the taxi driver stop at a broucherie- a very French looking bakery. I get out and look at the rows of different croissants and other breaded things that I dont recognize. "I uhh dont eat meat" I apologetically and reluctantly say. Abdoulaye looks at me with wide eyes. "You no eat meat?!" I shake my head. He furrows his brow as if to figure this out. "Poisson?" I shake my head yes, although I dont eat fish, its better than trying to have him accomodate me, which may be impossible. We get a fish quiche and croissant. I can choke this down. walking to the taxi several children run to me with out streched hands, Abdoualye swats them away like flies and opens the taxi door for me. I get this strange, removed feeling like I'm princess Di visiting an impovershed villiage. And I dont like it.
We fly between cars and horses and I thank God for my life when we get to Abdoulaye's mom's house.

We are received by at least 8 children that run up and want to shake my hand, the girls do a little curtsey when our hands meet. I look around and try not to judge the ambiance. Bare concrete walls crumble and the floors are covered in dust. It's Africa, what I wanted- remember?  He leads me upstairs and I meet his mom, she is dressed in a beautifully bright colored dress with a matching head wrap. Her eyes are black with a bluish-gray ring around the iris. She kisses me on both cheeks and speaks in Wolof (the native language before French) very quickly as if we were old freinds and she had so much to tell me. I smile and shrug my shoulders. Ablaye explains that I'm not getting it. I meet his dad who is reading the Quoran in Arabic. I meet the 5 other siblings and their 8 children. Then they lead me to a bedroom and tell me to sleep. I think there's no way I can sleep now. children are screaming and many little feet and slapping against the floor but I soon drift off for I dont know how long. When I awake they ask if I'd like a shower. The sibling Maymuna that speaks the best English, explains the protocol. It's just a tile room with a spicket and a toilet (no plastic seat or paper might I add). There isnt a shower head so you basically dump water from a bucket onto yourself with a smaller cup. I'm skeeved by the proximity of the sketchy toilet to my bare feet but I tell myself "I need to be braver than this" (in the words of Michelle).
Afterwards I sit on the balcony- the only place I can get some relief from the heat, the house is open air and there is a balcony right off of the living area. Abdoulaye's neices The 2 little girls Yassil who is just learning to walk and her sister Fahadima who is maybe 4 play with me like a new toy. They are the cutest and its easy to communicate with them, we dont need words. I'm sure the 4 yr old thinks I am slow, she keeps speaking to me and I still havnet learned the words for "no habla frances" in french. The girls take a nap and I sit at the balcony and stare at the people in the red sandy street for hours, maybe 3. I flip through my french dictionary at times but mostly just focus on the colors and sights of the beautiful, elegent, tall women in their fitted hand made gowns of the most beautiful African fabric with bright colors and strange shapes and patterns. some are dressed like westerners, some wear traditional muslim head scarfs. I dont think I've sat this long doing nothing in the last two years. Ably's Mama comes out to sit with me. she brings her prayer rug and indicates that she has a bad kneee so she does them from her chair. At the same time I can see store workers come out on the streets and kneel over in prayer. When she is done we try to speak but everything is met with that blank stare and shrug from the recipient. Every time we try to say something she calls to one of the kids from downstairs who has to come up and translate, after the 3rd trip upstairs we both give up and just sit together in silence. We laugh together at Yassil bouncing off the walls. Brightly colored birds fly back and forth in front of us, occasionally landing on the balcony. I gasp and point at them but realize this is nothing special to her. I watch the sun completely set. I cant remember the last time I did this. It's beautiful but makes things appear even more confused and strange to me as there are no street lights. Mama sends one of the young boys out to pick us up some fire roasted peanuts which are sold on the streets everywhere and wrapped in newspaper. We share them in silence. A nice silence.
Abdoulaye comes from the market with a bag for me. In it is a bright indigo tie dyed tank top, a hot orange tie died sarong and flip flops. I'm so happy I could cry. I get out of my sticky wet New York clothes and into my new senegalese duds and think about how crazy it is that I dont need to speak a word of French or Wolof to ask for what I need because every possible need has been attended to without being expressed.
Dinner time is a trip. The food is served on one big round silver plate and we all share from it. You make a ball of the food with your fist and put it in your mouth. But only the right hand, the left is dirty (butt wiping I suppose? I never asked) I have to sit on my left hand in order to remember not to use it. And so far (4 days into the trip) its been fish, fish fish and baguettes served 3 times a day. no napkins either. They arent needed though if you can do it correctly..when I eat they give me a bib. They push the biggest peices of fish toward me and pick out the vegetable and push them towad me. Its a nice way to eat, sharing with everyone. I'm nauseated by the fish. It's a full on fish- head, tail, bones and all. I take small bites and spit out bits of spinous processes and vertebrae, meanwhile the iridecent silver eye on the fish head stares me down. Michelle's voice comes in- I have to be braver than this. They all demand "cRIIIStine Mange mange!!" as they push more bagguete and poisson toward me. After much effort to be brave on my part and everyone else's attempt to feed me like a pig being fattened for slaughter, the white flag is raised and we call a truce with desert. For Desert: they ask me what my favorite soda is- I respond water, they say "Noo! Fanta?" and go downstairs to buy a bottle- which in this house is orange gold. Then they bring out a plate of sliced orange and apple and we sip fanta. I ask Maymuna how to say "It was very good" in Wolof- "nechk na", when this comes out of my mouth they all keel over in loud echoing laughter, and then ask me to say it again. Little did I realize then, this will be the basis of most all jokes which are made-"cRIIStine say Jholejof" "ok, Jolly Joff" and contageous hysterical laughter ensues. Before we walk into a room of people, "cRIIStine when we go in say Nagadjef"- it has yet to get old.

After dinner we walk to Ably's house. This is where I'll be staying while I'm here, so I'm anxious to see it. To get there though we have to walk through the downtown Dakar market place, times square of West Africa, if you will. This means a cluster fuck of sheep, humans, garbage, smog and devastating poverty. It was...a lot of things, terrifying being one of them, but all of my senses were so excited by all the strange stimulants that I didnt mind. All the while Ably is sheilding me from the many close calls of buses and crowds coming at us and keeps saying "geeeve me you five" and he takes my hand through the chaos.
The scenery changes as we walk on. Paved roads turn into red dust covered paths, market booths turn into half constructed homes. It quiets down, trees appear and Ably tells me "This is Ann, home" (or Hann as it's written, but pronounce the H and no one will stop laughing). We weave around piles of cement and rocks from the never ending construction on the red sandy ground. Paradise it is compared to the market. It's still and we can see the stars. We get into Ably and his wife Ami's house. Ami greets us at the door. She is soft spoken, tall, thin and beautiful. "Bonsoir cRIIStine" she almost whispers. And as I have been instructed by Abdoulaye on the walk home I respond "Nagadjef Ami" and she lets out a huge wail of long laughter and almost falls over catching her breath. Gets 'em every time.