Day two

Warning: very long.
Note: having trouble uploading photos at the moment. Will update with photos later and notify on Twitter.

Today's brilliant business idea: open a consulting firm and staff it completely with Senegalese. 

Senegalese are the best networkers I have ever seen. They are super friendly and they can and will talk about anything in order to get you into their shop. The reason they are more impressive than even your slimiest DC networker is that every slimy DC networker has something in common with you that they can relate with you about. You like football? I like football! You live in DC? I live in DC! How about that thing that person said recently in the news? Crazy!

Senegalese don't have that handicap. They can only relate to you because you're a person and they're a person and you're both in the same spot at the same time. (That's not much to work with. Even with the slimiest DC networker, that would result in at least one awkward silence. The Senegalese seller doesn't believe in awkward moments.) Occasionally you might be in that spot because you're shopping, in which case there's a chance you'd actually be interested in what their selling, but oftentimes not. But they will still try to get you into their shop, "not to buy but just to look."

Hey, hey, my friend, where are you from? Canada? US? Welcome, bienvenue. Do you like things? Come look at my shop. No, no, of course not to buy, just to look. Your first time in Senegal? I have many things, tres jolies. Ah, gardes les voitures, be careful mon ami. Do you like Dakar? It's vraiment chaud, non? C'est ta soeur? Does she like things? Look at that guy selling watches. He's my cousin. Do you like watches? I can get you a good price, moin chere. I've never been to les Etats-Unis, tu les aimes? You have a watch? Get another one as a cadeau. Get deux watches. Best price for you my friend. When is your birthday? When's your cousin's birthday? How about a tablecloth? My sister sells those. I have a sister like you! Is that your maman? Does she need new shoes? Aimes-tu les oranges? Where did you eat lunch? My friend has a café...

And the entire time he will have a huge smile on his face. And why wouldn't he? It's a game and he's playing with you. You can't help but smile back and answer his inane questions.

I'm from the US. No, I don't like things. I'm not achete anything today. No, I've deja been to Senegal. Yes I am sure your things are jolies. Ah, merci mon ami. Yes j'aime Dakar. It's not too hot mais oui c'est ma soeur. I like les Etats-Unis, it's where I bought my watch, see? No one I know needs a watch. Mon anniversaire? I don't buy cadeaux for mes cousins. I don't have a table but that is my maman, oui. She already has shoes. J'aime les oranges bien sur but I already ate lunch...

That's a good trick that sometimes works even though they know you're probably lying, telling them you already have what they're selling. I already have a keychain. Yes, even one shaped like an elephant. And another shaped like a tree. Yes, what are the odds? I already have a set of seven masks representing the days of the week. I already have a cell phone charger. I already have batteries, a comb, a peeled orange, a child's plaything. I already have sandals, an ashtray, a hat, and toilet paper...

They don't care who they're selling what product to. My trick of telling them I already own whatever they're selling can get a little dicey. Yes, I already have a bottle opener, yes I have a drum, yes I have a pretty necklace...er...yes, I have a hair bow of the Senegalese flag...yes, I, uh, I already have a nice pair of women's pants...no, okay, I don't have that...no, I don't have any female relatives or friends who would want that...okay, yes I do...I'll take seven. Argh.

Anyway, we each have about four new best friends. It's hard not to when they're so friendly and chatty. And helpful. When Mom and I were walking around yesterday I left her alone for about ten seconds so I could cross the street to look at a street sign. When I got back she was in the middle of a conversation with a guy who had simply appeared from the ether like a genie from a lamp. His name was Diallo (pronounced "Jallo") and he had a shop. Not today, not today. Maybe tomorrow? Sure.

Well I'll be darned if, since our first meeting, Diallo hasn't stopped us four or five separate times in the street. Okay, so it's not like we blend in to the crowd real well, I realize this. It's still impressive given how busy that particular street is. We ended today being herded by Diallo into the depths of Sandaga market...but let me back up.

After a lunch of tasty but undersized chawarmas we headed towards Marché Kermel. While sidestepping a moving car by about 3 inches, a hand clapped me on the shoulder.

"Mon ami!" said the smiling African in the strikingly colorful outfit.

"Errr, bonjour!" said the confused white guy.

"You remember me from the hotel!"

"I do?"

"Oui, you walked by my store ce matin and I said bonjour!"

Mon frère, do you have any idea how many of you shopkeepers say bonjour to me on an hourly basis? Scratch that, on a minute-by-minute basis?

"Ah, bien sur! L'hotel, I remember now!" I lied.

So we started chatting in the middle of traffic. He asked where we were going, and I told him. He nodded approvingly. Ah, le marché, le shopping. Tres bien.

Mom joined us and suggested we get out of the middle of traffic. Moms! Sheesh. He said bonjour to her and she asked him which market is the best. He said definitely the other one, Sandaga. It's bigger and has more stuff, more jolies choses. It has everything in fact. Oh and do you know what else it has? Friends! Friends with good prices! Hooray! Allons-y!

So we turned around and headed towards Sandaga instead.

It might sound silly to you reading this, but I'm telling you these guys are friendly. Some of them, like our newest best friend Zal, are electric. I've had people who I would otherwise consider intelligent and self-aware and just the right amount of cynical and skeptical of charming folks describe to me how they have essentially melted into puddles when meeting especially effective politicians. Bill Clinton is one of them. I have heard from multiple independent sources that when you meet the man and shake his hand you feel like you could be his new best friend. I am telling you: some of these guys could compete with Clinton if they had the chance.

First stop at Sandaga was a store with art and whatnot. By store I mean two small rooms carved into a wall, behind a garage door. This was clearly the Toubab Store. (For the uninitiated: a toubab, pronounced "two-bob", is a foreigner, probably white, probably shopping, probably vulnerable to the charms of West African salesmen. In other words: us.) They had to turn the lights on for us. Hey! Hey the toubabs are here! We'll be able to afford the electric bill for the next six months after this, turn the lights on! And come watch!

The ladies (Mom, Jennifer, and Jennifer's colleague Anne) were not terribly interested in the art and whatnot. Pas de probleme, pas de probleme. Venez ici...look! Cloth! And bags made of cloth! And other things!  Jolies, jolies! Pretty!

Well that got 'em. All it took was two casts and the catch of the day was on the line. Immediately a dozen guys showed up out of nowhere, possibly thin air, and fabric began flying everywhere. I busied myself by taking pictures and insisting that I was the photographer and not interested in buying anything. No, not even looking, non merci. Yes, we are amis, oui.

After I had shooed off two or three guys I looked over at the girls. Anne was holding at least four or five bags, Jennifer was peering at a couple yards of cloth being paraded in front of her, and Mom had transformed into a Mom-sized mound of walking, talking fabric. It was clear we were going to be a while, so I walked over to the door to find a comfortable spot to lean.

Naturally, a friend-to-be appeared by my side in a puff of spontaneous genesis.

"Hello, my friend."

"Bonjour. I'm not buying anything."

"Vraiment?" Really? You sure?

"Yes, vraiment." I am sure.

"C'est bon. I don't even work here."

So I had to laugh. Well what are you doing in here, then? Oh, I work just outside. Where? Under the tree across the street. Oh, yes, the tree, I saw it before, when I was outside. That's my tree, I sell masks, some of them are old, they're antiques, they're plus chère que the new ones because they're older and stronger. Ah, tres bien, plus fort, tres bien. Oui.

And I thought that was it. An attempted sale, a rejection, still friends. Would have been the hundredth time today. But no, he wasn't done.

In fact, he hadn't even started.

I can't tell you how this next part began because it happened so quickly that I don't remember. After the briefest of pauses he was suddenly off to the races, philosophizing and telling me his life story all at once. Later in the day we toubabs sat a café to catch our breath and I scribbled down everything I could remember. Here's what he told me, intentionally left in one block paragraph to give you an idea of exactly how it was told to me minus the occasional question I managed to slip in. Imagine it in about 60% French and 40% English, going back and forth from one to the other often in the middle of sentences, a storm of fabric flying around us:

My name is Mwaz. I'm not a rich man but I am happy. How could I not be? I have work and I have my health. Good health. I work hard during the day and I sleep well at night. That's how a man sleeps well at night, you know, it's hard work. Hard work and good sleep, that's what makes you happy. And you need to work hard five or six days a week so you have time to spend with your family and in your garden when you're not working. Those are what makes you happy. Without time for those things a man can't be happy. It doesn't matter how much money you make. You can make a lot of money and be rich but never have time for your family or your heart or your head and you will never be happy. You need to relax. And if you have the time you also need to travel. I know you are a traveler because you are in Dakar so I know I can tell you this and you will understand. A man who doesn't travel wouldn't understand. Travel helps you spread ideas and helps you learn ideas from the places you go. Ideas. Ideas are important. Ideas help you understand yourself and other people, even if you never see them again. A man who doesn't travel and is born and raised in one place and never leaves might think he has a fulfilling life but he will only think that because he doesn't know any better. He won't have any ideas. I was once visited by a man, an Australian man. He spoke only a little French and I didn't speak English. He taught me English. He taught me English because he was in Senegal and had no money and couldn't go anywhere and I helped him. He stayed in my house until he found a job. This was a long time ago, a long long time ago. He came from a family of musicians, he was traveling playing music when he was left alone with no money. He taught me English and I helped him with his French and he got a job playing piano in a jazz band at a hotel downtown. Just down the street there. He played jazz piano on the weekends and regular piano during the week. There was an American band that was  playing hotels in West Africa and they came to Dakar to play in the Australian's hotel. The band had a pianist who didn't like Africa and wanted to get out of his contract and go home to America. The Australian took his spot in the band and left Dakar with them and never came back. The Australian wrote me three or four letters but then never again. That was it. I helped him like that and three or four letters and then I never heard from him again. That's fine. I am happy I could help him. My grandfather told me I did the right thing. Even though my grandfather was not happy at first that I brought this man home to help him, in the end he told me I did the right thing. My grandfather was a great man. He was in the army. He used to write me letters when he was traveling in the army. His letters gave me advice on life. He is the one who told me to travel. In his letters he told me about all the places he went and how the army made him realize what is important in life. I still have all his letters. If I had children I wouldn't even tell them anything about anything, I would just give them his letters and tell them to read them. That's what I did myself. I didn't listen to my parents, only to the letters. My parents weren't good people. Children shouldn't always listen to their parents. They should only listen to their parents if their parents if their parents are good, wise people, like my grandfather. If a father strikes his son, the son will then strike his son. My parents tried to teach me bad ways but I didn't listen, I listened to my grandfather and his letters. I still have the letters, I still read them. I took them with me when I was in the army. When I was in the army I was in a war.  War is terrible. I saw entire villages bombed by planes in the air. They just exploded in fire and everybody died, just like that. If there were no planes, people were killed by other people. Women and children raped and murdered, men had their legs chopped or shot off so all that was left of them was their chest and up, before they were dead. There's no sense in that. It's not human. The men who did that had no sense. War...it's terrible. And it's caused by people not listening to each other. That's it. That's it. That's all.

The fabric-shoppers were done and heading out the door. I told Mwaz I had to go with them but thanked him for sharing his story with me and that I appreciated his advice. He fuzzily snapped out of his storytelling and asked if I would come to his tree to look at his masks. I said of course. Bien sur. Mom, we have to go look at this guy's masks. I'll tell you why later.

We looked but didn't buy. I told him we'll come back on Wednesday. I really am planning on it. Right here, by the tree? Got it. See you then.

After one more stop and the café break where I jotted my notes, we had to go see Diallo, the man who materialized next to Mom earlier. Mom had said she would go see him and weary as she was, she wanted to keep her word. Bon. Allons-y.

We left the café and Diallo dropped out of the sky to guide us to his shop. Earlier he had said if we wanted to find him we just had to walk down that way, turn left at le pharmacie, turn à gauche encore une fois, and voilà, you will find Diallo. 

Not so. In what turned into a fifteen minute walk through a labyrinth of stalls and cars and people on narrow strips of dirt and pavement that weren't quite roads or even sidewalks, we were lead to a large, dark shop. The shop was a large hole in the side of a concrete building. It was at least 40 feet deep into the building but I can't even estimate the exact distance because there were no lights. There were men sewing away on pedal-churned sewing machines amongst piles and piles of fabric and clothes and bags and hats and tablecloths. Some were sitting by the outside, close enough to guide their machines by the sunlight. Others were so deep in the shop that they were in darkness, but they were working away, tapping the pedals, sewing, sewing.

Diallo and his co-salesman were trying to get the female toubabs to venture into the dark depths of the shop but Mama Toubab made it clear that she was not shopping in darkness. There was some negotiating in a slightly better-lit hallway and an agreement was made to come back later, maybe another day, we were all tired. Sure, sure. 

Diallo navigated us out of the maze. His buddy followed for a little while, bargaining all the while. He finally decided that he had reached an impasse with Mom and gave up. Diallo was not done, however. His final offer was that he could get Mom the price she was asking if she gave up half in cash today and paid the rest on delivery. Diallo would even bring it to the hotel personally! Tomorrow! We had a quick telepathic Toubab Huddle in the form of shifty glancing and decided that ten bucks was worth the risk, and was at the very least the price of admission for the entertainment if nothing else, if he doesn't come back.

Diallo also offered to take me out tomorrow. Do you like Senegalese music? Sure. Tomorrow I will take you out, you can dance to the Senegalese music, dance with gazelles. Gazelles, did you say gazelles? Yes, gazelles! That sounds mighty fine but I think tomorrow ne marche pas for me. Okay, maybe next time. Yes, peut-etre. See you tomorrow, I will bring the bags! Oui, bien. A demain! A demain, Diallo, a demain.

So that will be tomorrow.