What this means is that while I’m leaving Dakar tonight, I won’t be home for another couple of days, which has the combined effect of making me want to get home even more, and making my homecoming such a long way off that I don’t even need to think about it at this point.
But of course, I have to think about it, not the least because last night I saw some friends off to the airport, where they will (hopefully) make it home and have a hot shower (something I’m sure is sorely needed) before I even step on an airplane tonight. Saying goodbye to friends who I will (inchallah) see again got me thinking about this whole semester abroad experience. They tell us we’re supposed to grow, in ways we never thought possible. They say we’re supposed to learn things we never thought we’d learn. We’re supposed to experience things that we could get nowhere else. And as I sat there on the curbside, waving to the van as it carried my friends off to the airport, the question hit me full force: did any of it work?
Perhaps a more precise way to phrase this question would be to ask: what have I learned? In what ways have I grown? What experiences have I um…experienced?
Since this blog is (ostensibly) about my experiences here in Senegal, we won’t cover those in this post, save to say that if you’re so inclined to read them you can click on any one of the links over there ------> which will surely provide you with enough reading material to last you through tomorrow (some even have pictures!).
I wish I could tell you that I’ve grown up in x, y, or z ways, but I never liked graphing much, and even if I did I don’t think I’d be able to tell you where I stand now, much more than where I stood before I came here and started to think about this whole personal growth thing. As far as I can tell, the only growing that I’ve done in Dakar has been up, and that basically means I can now go to bars without the fear of being arrested.
So failing those two options, we’ll settle on the only question that really matters anyways: what did I learn in Dakar?
Since this whole semester was geared towards the holy grail of “cultural assimilation” – we’ll focus on that. You know you have culturally assimilated (which actually sounds kind of messy and unpleasant when you put it that way) when you can successfully throw 15 goats on top of a sept places in under 3 minutes. While the sept place is moving. Down a road full with potholes.
Not that I can throw 15 goats on top of a sept place, but I give you:
Three Easy Steps to Cultural Assimilation (complete with hints!)
Step 1) Getting There: The Long Road – Learn how to take public transportation anywhere.
In Dakar, this means figuring out where your car rapide is going, and if it in fact is going to be rapide (if so, choose another one as a properly named car rapide is probably the most dangerous thing on the road besides the evil hoards of evil goats). Once you figure out where your car is going and whether or not you want to get on, you must (naturally) get on the car to get to your destination. This usually involves some sort of hop, skip, and jump from the curb to the back of the car which may or may not still be moving (either still stopping or just starting). Chances are there’s a goat involved. Chances are it’s evil. Don’t trust it.
If you’re lucky enough to make it to your destination (any one of flat tires, traffic jams, random stops, starts, and goat hoards can stop a car rapide dead in its tracks), you need to express a desire to get off. This usually involves someone (you, the guy behind you, or the guy hanging off the back of the car in some combination) rapping on the window, sheet of metal that passes for a chassis wall, or random metal bar. If the car rapide stops, or slows down to the point where you can descend, congratulations, you’ve passed step one on the road to cultural assimilation. If not, go back to zero. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Step 2) Getting There: The Short Road – Learn how to cross a street
Corallary 1 – learn how to walk in the street.
So you’ve taken your car rapide to the general area where you need to go. Good job. The only problem is that you’re stuck on the wrong side of the street. Cars, trucks, un-rapide car rapides, rapide car rapides, horse-drawn carts, and evil hoards of evil donkeys are whizzing past you in a blur. How can you cross the street like those kids over there weaving in and out of traffic like its some sort of game or dance?
Crossing the street here is daily a life-threatening activity – not the least because there are, in fact, no pedestrian rights. Even if there were rights for people walking, I doubt that anyone would care about them. I mean, if you think its hard crossing the street dodging the evil hoards of evil goats, then you try driving with them without killing anyone or yourself. Crossing the street usually involves some sort of half walk/half run into oncoming traffic during a slight break. It sometimes involves waiting in the middle of the street, with traffic whizzing by on both sides of you, waiting for a break to come the other way. Then it’s a mad dash across the street, a hurdle over the evil goat there just to trip you up, and when you make it into the sand-dunes on the other side, you’re (relatively) safe.
Step 3) Eating – Learn how to get cheap food
Anyone who knows me knows how central food is to my existence. I daresay I wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for food. I’m that kid at the party who instead of socializing is standing in the kitchen by the counter, hovering over the pigs in a blanket while he waits for the dip to come out of the oven. The centrality of food to cultural assimilation should thus come as no surprise.
Not only does this step include eating dishes central to the particular target of assimilation (still sounds unpleasant), ceebujen, yassa, thiackary (to name a few of my Senegalese favorites), but it includes finding foodstuffs that are particularly indicative of something or another. My personal favorites in Africa happen to be bags. They eat almost anything you can think of in a bag here – ice cream, wine, thiackary, water, yogurt, juices of every variety. The man who figures out how to successfully eat a roast beef sandwich out of a plastic baggie wins my prize for man of the century. Not only do bagged foods taste better, there usually cheaper (always a plus) AND usually a little bit sketchier, which only makes you cooler when you eat them among toubabs – ‘you’d really eat that yogurt from a plastic bag? Man you’re hardcore.’
So there you have it, once you complete those three steps to their fullest (meaning, um…completely), it is my expert opinion that you are fully culturally assimilated. Congratulations.
Oh, and I learned about the evil goat plot to take over the world, AND the eviler pelican plot to invade Dakar at some point…but that’s a different story for a different time.
See you in the States.
Love,
Jake
1 comment:
yo! finaly a good answer to the damn question, still you keep insisting on the goats! i guess they did traumatize you... eat one, it'll make you feel like u can overpower the evil goats. stay in touch homeboy, like what i read!!
Post a Comment