Pikine Story (3/25/2025)
For the next two months I will be studying abroad in Dakar, Senegal. I’m half-Senegalese. My mom is from Kaolack, a smaller city in central Senegal. My mom also made the trip across the Atlantic with me. Her mother and nephew moved from Kaolack and Touba, respectively, to Pikine—a city just outside of Dakar. Before my school program started, I spent a couple days with my family in their neighborhood of Technopole. I hadn’t seen my grandmother Mame Aida, cousin Fallou, and Uncle Djibi in ten years.
Before I had even left America, a friend who had lived in Dakar last year warned me about Pikine—his stolen phone had ended up geo-locating in the neighborhood. He told me this story without realizing my family had lived in the area. But his sense of Pikine isn’t off base: going between my upper middle-class homestay and my real family has been jarring. I catch my host mother’s emphasis as she introduces me to her husband: “Khadim est d’origine Pikine.” She lets the caste/class shibboleth sit on her tongue.
Pikine, Technopole doesn’t have paved roads. The quarter is labyrinthine. My uncle moves his car slowly as he makes his way through. My grandmother takes me to the market, stalls jammed next to each other on the sides of a dusty throughfare. Cars jostle with horse-drawn vehicles. My uncle squeezes by vendors and pedestrians. In Pikine, you’d have no idea the wide-open sea is just a mile away. My grandmother negotiates the price of a sandbag filled up with red onions. She buys fresh eggs. Chickens, lambs, goats, cows, donkeys, and stray cats with wild eyes claim their own space on the street. A gathering of laundry women plunges their hands in and out of soapy buckets. Two surprisingly long jugs jut out behind the goats. I have never seen goat’s balls before. Twin black boys play next to the goats. Toddlers who are still getting used to what their bodies can do. One of the twins finds a bendy stick. He puts it to use terrorizing his brother. The peaceful twin clambers down steps to escape. He kneels slowly, going down backward. He hasn’t unlocked front-stepping yet. In our orientation meeting, WARC staff told us that 43% of Senegal’s population is aged fifteen or under. I see kids and teens selling goods of all sorts. There are young electrician apprentices. Mechanics my age fixing cars. Carpenters’ fine furniture takes up blocks of the road-market. School friends dawdle on their way home.
At my grandmother’s house, we break Iftar. Chocopan spread and butter on bread. Tea and coffee with heaps of sugar. I understand now, why my mom spoons and whips sugar into her coffee, impulsively ruining American baristas’ careful latte art. A lot of things make sense, now. I realize my mother’s quirks are tied to cultural norms. Three or more showers a day isn’t strange here. The thin, quite unpillowy, pillows my mom gives me at home that my visiting girlfriend can’t sleep on—are standard issue here. In Senegal, warm yellow rarely lights up living rooms; I had never got why mom preferred harsh white light bulbs for our home in the US.
I’m also learning about what it means to have a grandmother. Mame Aida grabs my hand. She holds on firmly. On my first day and she knows I’m jet lagged. Like the way little kids hold on tight, she takes me to her shaded room and tells me to lie down in her bed. I like Mom Aida’s hair. She has corn rows that turn into short braids. You can see her protective style through the loose veil she wears.
My cousin Fallou and I stumble through French. He shows me his camera roll: a video of him pasting mortar, brushing a house’s wall with his hands, and an image of his friends on the beach. His crew is intergenerational. The young men have children. I grab my phone. He scrolls through my favorited pictures. This is my girlfriend, this is my friend, this is a painting, this is Florence, this is another friend, another friend, a friend from high school. My favorites folder has 500 photos. He has twenty saved photos, total. I have 6000.
Fallou shows me YouTube clips of his favorite Senegalese wrestler, Oumeu Zen. Oumeu Zen wins again and again in bouts where he’s the underdog. I ask Fallou if Oumeu Zen is a crafty fighter. He nods. I ask Fallou about the dance and music ceremony that happens before traditional Senegalese wrestling fights. It’s called a “touss.” Let me show you how Siteu does it, he tells me. Siteu, strapped with grigris and doused with protective waters, performs for ten minutes with his coordinated dance crew. He jumps, kicks, flinging his hands to keep pace to the drum ensemble in front. In the clip Fallou shows me, a coffee vendor from the crowd jumps into the dance. I have to go back to my homestay because school is starting. Fallou comes with me in the car, bringing his phone close to my ear. New Senegalese drill, he wants me to hear. I put him onto JUL. Out the window, it’s 10:00 but the city is full of action. I see little kids on light-up roller blades gripping the back of a delivery bus as it pulls them through the streets. The playground under the highway is busy. It’s not the muezzin, but local religious folks taking to a corner blasting Islamic hymns. My new digital camera is aching to be unleashed from my bag.
Ipad-Kids and Lambs-to-Slaughter (4/1/2025)
Our kindly, connected to his inner child, excellent Wolof teacher chuckles when we tell him we are living in Dakar’s neighborhoods of Mermoz and Sacre Coeur III. “That’s where the bourgeoisie, the intellectuals are. There, they eat with knives and forks. They speak French. They are all on their phones… Come to Parcelles,” he tells us, mimicking his neighbors who turn up their noses at utensils: “Hands are good for me.” Per our Wolof teacher, down home Senegalese people think food tastes better when you eat with your hands. He reminds us, “you know, I could live in Sacre Coeur, I have the money, but I choose to live in Parcelles with the authentic Wolof culture.” I’m starting to see what he means. My trips to Pikine have made clear that my study-abroad accommodations are 100% suburban.
In my homestay, the adult daughter of my host-mom has enlisted me for some child-care. Her striking six-year-old son seems like he’s right out of a Thackeray novel. I communicate with him in French. He’s named after an ex-president. A framed photo, on the stairwell, of the president holding my host brother as a baby takes pride of place. When my Pikine family first descended upon these tony environs, my host brother greeted us with great poise. He was wearing a sweater with a button-down collar underneath. He received my mother and cousin with dignified surprise, lightly offering his hand. I sensed that my cousin Mama who accompanied me was put off by the fancy manor/manners. I remember my host brother’s aristocratic greeting because it contrasts with his global brain-rot dialect. I’m used to him asking me to set up the Squid-Game game on his iPad; or to sing along to “Spider Man, Spider Man” and “Camavinga Cama O” (a meme-song about Real Madrid). I shudder when I see him eating up the adult-produced manipulative content on YouTube kids. I get anxious when I see his dire reaction when his mom forces him to put down his iPad. It’s rare when she insists. Most of the time at dinner, the audio from his 5th generation, more customizable version of Tomb Raider—the one he plays has soft-porn elements—like adjustable women’s clothing (Strip Fifa reminiscent)—is our table music.
The day before Korité, Senegal’s special Eid celebration, my cousin Fallou wants to show me his place of respite. He leads my mom and I to a green reserve, that’s just off the highway. I pull out my camera. I snap Fallou and my mom walking on an orange sand road, flanked by green bush. I check in my small monitor. The pictures seemed to have cropped away Dakar. I feel an urge to see the Senegalese countryside that I’ve just tasted. Fallou shows us a way into the forest. Our big-people steps scare away a troop of adventurous boys. Fallou the explorer isn’t done yet. He wants to get us up close to Technopole’s breezy lake. Along another part of the highway, gardeners and potters show off their work. Fallou dips in and out of each merchant’s area. We turn back from a muddy marsh entrance. Fallou convinces my mom to keep going. She’s wearing her silver-colored sandals, not walking shoes. It’s still Ramadan. She’s too tired to adjust her flimsy, golden watch to the right side up on her wrist. We make our way through a hidden flower shop. Fallou asks the owner if we can stand out on its vista. Under orange flowers my mom was drawn to, Fallou asks my mom and I to pose. I make one of those awkward stances that ends up making my knee look like it’s double-jointed. But my mom looks sweet holding on to those orange buds, making her little smile. I’m happy we have the photo, I know it will make my dad happy. The last photo I sent to him, with my grandma and I, brought home how long it had been since he’d been in Senegal: “Mom Aida is an old woman now?”
Fallou is at ease in Pikine. We stroll to the market after our nature time. Fallou notices I’m paying attention to the kids on the street. One boy tears into a mango with one hand. He stops to pick up a little girl and put her on his back. There are other boys recreating La Lutte. One young one has turned a tape roller into a coveted toy. Another kid has strapped cardboard rolls to his arms, becoming the chaser, a scary transformer. In the indoor market, Fallou leads the way. I’ve told him I’m searching for sturdy sandals, like the ones he has that have a stable back piece. At the stalls, though, I’m drawn to style over utility. Fallou bends down to fit sandals onto my foot, before I have time to be aghast at such over-politeness. We have enough time to make it to the port of Pikine. The face of a young man—sensitive, melancholy—peers back from the market rush.
My mom isn’t spritely in the market. Its narrowness is unfamiliar. A younger boy bumps into her. She reprimands him, taking quickly to her tata (auntie) role. Yet her American manners are off-putting for one vendor, who responds sharply “malekum salam,” to my mom’s brisk greeting nyata (how much)? When I’m with my mom she’s loose with her money. She buys pastries for me and my cousin. She gives more gift money than she should to my host family. She’s generous with the marabout. Our planned, pricey trip to green Casamance seems less likely.
We get back to Mom Aida’s with our haul. My Aunt Awa and my cousin Mama welcome us. (Mama’s name is Fatou. She’s named after her maternal grandmother. But in Senegal it’s considered respectful to use Mama, Granny, instead of a grandmother’s proper name, i.e. Fatou.) Awa got me a pretty tan shirt with a palm tree pattern. Awa and Mama’s second gift for me is freshly rolled, filled, and fried nem. These bite size fish/veggie wraps belong to a whole ‘nother world than the nem I’ve had stateside. Charred dough protects a soft interior of Chinese noodles whose neutral flavor is lit alight by a carrots/spices/fish mix. My mom says a couple nem is enough, everyone else is fasting. When she disappears into her room, Awa and Mama beckon me back into the kitchen to feed me more nem, fresh out the pan of boiling oil. We wait for dinner. Fallou calls out my name in intervals, Khadimmmm. I’ll respond Fallouuuu. He says Numanala. (I miss/will miss you.) I say it back. My conversations with Awa are similarly short, but full of feeling. Fallou wants to watch videos with me. First, Tom and Jerry clips. Then he pulls up a CGI opus, King Kong vs T-rex fight from a 2005 movie. Fallou is enrapt at Kong’s acrobatics as he saves a human friend from injury, while battling T-Rex. My grandma sits on the floor with her legs stretched out. She looks like she’s doing yoga. Her wiry, strong limbs peek out from her billowy, one piece. Her vibrant patterned textiles almost seem to swamp her small self. Sitting by her feels good. When my mom takes photos, Mom Aida nonchalantly rests her hand on my thigh.
Our Dibi lamb dinner is a feat. Awa has managed with Mama, Sokhna, and Mame Busso, to make a meal for nine people. But I’m stuck on our dessert, beignets. I’m used to flour ones, but these are millet. Like the nem, these beignets are crispy on the outside but get slowly softer and sweet to the core. My mom calls up my dad and passes the phone around. It’s surreal hearing my dad’s repetitions of Numanala, Numanala, and exclamation Niep (a lot) on speaker. I’m so used to the scene in my living room back home in New York, where I wait as my dad sets his energetic precedent for American/Wolof dialogue. In Senegal, my aunt and cousins laugh to each other. My dad’s distinctive move charms the fam.
After dinner, the young people take a walk, meaning me, Mama, and Fallou. Sokhna is our age, too, but unspoken rules complicate our relations. Sokhna, who works for Mom Aida, has long dreads. Straightened hair and braids are more common for women in Dakar. Sokhna has strong arms and self-possession. The night before Korité, my mom seemed to reprimand Mama. A mirror, part of a pre-made gift bag, my mother had given to Mama had ended up in Sokhna’s possession. My mother assured me I misunderstood her conversation in Wolof, but I was pretty sure my mother was warning Mama about Sokhna. When I ask about Sokhna, I get thin-lipped answers—something about her father not being reputable.
Awa’s daughter Mama is learning Spanish. She speaks Wolof and French fluently, and bits of English, too. The first couple sentences of Spanish feel quick on my tongue. I know they’d slow down pretty quickly. Mama makes fun of Fallou’s broken French. The joke never really occurs to me—I feel comfortable speaking with him as we piece together our incomplete vocabularies. Mama translates for me and Fallou when we hit an impasse. Fallou wants to go to the “Place Publique.” Walking together, I can grasp Fallou and Mama’s sibling banter—hints of Fallou’s clever, jokester, Wolof side which is hidden from me. His charming loud laugh and good-looking face opened up our dinner. Even even-keeled Mame Busso can’t resist. Mom Aida makes Fallou take a taser with him in case of trouble. He ends up using it to play with the kid neighbors on the corner. They run up to Fallou, tempting him. He flashes the taser, emitting its white light, brrzzz. He keeps it a safe distance so the giggling kids can be daring without getting shocked. The “Place Publique” is a square by the main road. Workout equipment sits next to a ramshackle playground. A vendor sells late night treats off to the side. In the daytime, “Place Publique” might have seemed like a disappointing label. In the breezy night, where only a few cars are passing by, the label is felicitous. We walk through more Technopole streets. Sand and little pebbles sneak under my toes. My ankles are turning ashen. We walk past a canvas of a Cheikh Amadou Bamba, propped up on four tires. A poster of General Pikine, a Lutte fighter, is on the next street.
A couple days ago, I made an audio recording of my lamb neighbors in Sacre Coeur III. Dakar is a city full of sounds. In the mornings, ambulatory vendor’s pre-recorded spiels play through loudspeakers. Bay Fall singers’ street concerts welcome in the night. I assumed the lamb symphony was just one day’s eccentricity. But the lambs are all part of a city-wide batch of Korité sacrifices. Going to bed in Technopole, I wonder if the moutons’—Fallou calls them, then corrects to Wolof—the harrs’ braying is different this night, if they know it is their last. I go to sleep in a bed shared with mom and Mama.
I wake up. Fallou and his stepdad Isa want to show me how the killing is done. They drag out the scraggly mouton my mom bought. Isa is wearing a ceremonial toga that leaves his breast bare. They’ve already dug a hole. Fallou holds down the mouton. Isa slices the lamb’s throat. Blood spurting out, Isa whispers incantations in Arabic. The lamb stops convulsing, its blood pooling in the sand in front of our house. Fallou takes the mouton to the roof. He tells me to come. Before I head upstairs a little girl dressed up in a pink, purple boubou walks onto our front steps. My mother gushes over how cute our visitor is. My mom looks in her wallet to give the girl cash. On Korité, little ones are entitled to cash-gifts from elders. The little girl who came to our home makes a polite curtsy, but she doesn’t suck up or smile. She knows she’s cute and what she’s due.
Upstairs with Fallou, I’m trying to take a picture, but it's all coming out too much like a newspaper photo. I’m new to my narrower focused, 50 mm lens. Fatou skins the lamb. He cuts apart the organs. He takes off his shirt. He looks strong with the blood and guts on his hands. A man’s activity. I wander away. I haven’t seen liver or intestines like that before. I look up and see crows, with their professional bow ties, that patch of white skin under their mouths, flying to-and-fro. Not all the moutons have been killed. A fat one brays on the roof across from us. A little boy peers out at the mass culling in action/to come from a perch high above our roof. Mama comes up stairs to bring down the lamb meat stuffed into big bowls.
Downstairs, the women are transforming Fallou’s work into food. I keep thinking of Mame Busso’s hands, her thick, long fingers. I have skinny hands. A girl I liked once made a big deal of my veiny hands (not me, so much). My hands are used to typing. I overused their nimble muscles while writing my thesis. Busso’s hands cut onions (without a board) and wash our big communal plates. With her hands, she cracks the fresh eggs that turn into her Maggi suffused omelets. The night after Korité, Busso came back with me to SCIII. She put on a purple and white boubou and head wrap, to everyone’s oohs and ahhs. On our ride into the city, she was glued to the world outside her car window. We pulled up on my street. Young people on the block hang out late in front of my house, just below my own window. The youthful chatter is universal, the Wolof isn’t. It’s easier to resist moping, when I remember Busso taking in the city lights—I wonder what her Friday nights are like.
My host family is kind to me. When we eat dinner together, my host mother picks out the best bites and eases them onto my section of our big bowl. My host family calls their maid with a screech. This high-pitched, vocal whip tells me they are not my people. I tend to ask about the preparation and origin of the Senegalese dishes we eat. My host mother and sister provide that information, “we do this, we make it like that.” But it’s their maid’s labor, in her small kitchen on the first floor, that fashions the heaps of food we eat every day. I enter her domain one evening. Roach daughters and sons peek out of the front door’s frame and hinges. I open one cabinet, massive parent roaches slowly crawl away from the light. I leave quickly.
The maid is exhausted during Korité week. National/religious holidays are extra-work days for her. When she left for her day of rest a couple days after Korité I wondered about her family. She told me a bit about Fati, the Serer town she’s from. She’s going to her friend’s wedding soon. She shows me videos of women’s dances at Serer wedding ceremonies. Soon she’ll have videos of herself in the traditional blue dress. She is kind to me. But I’m surely fatiguing. When I see her on her phone in the pitch-dark living room next door to the kitchen, I let her be, even when I wish to tell her her fish meatballs surprised me and her green tuna salad is so fresh. My little gesture tends to be washing down the table after dinner. She makes a fuss if I try to help out in any other way. Often, there’s leftovers. One night my little host brother, when pressed to finish his food, entertains, “Je vais le donner aux pauvres.” A group of Taalabes—young Quranic school students who are made to beg as part of their religious training—regularly ask my group of American students for alms while we make our morning trip to West African Research Center. The Taalabe system seems horrible. Rural families who can’t afford the costs of school send their children to marabout in bigger cities. The kids spend all school time memorizing scripture in a foreign language that has little utility in day-to-day or professional life. After school, Taalabes live on the streets. Since there’s little oversight, abusive marabout can easily steal their students’ collections. My Wolof teacher tells us a story of one marabout in Medina who would mash up all the various plates of food his Taalabes received. In one more particularly cruel lesson, the kids would be forced to eat out of a revolting mix, instead of savoring the perfectly fine meals they had scavenged.
It has been ten years since my last time in Senegal. That trip prompted one of my first pieces of self-reflective writing. My fellow pre-teen cousins and extended family were yet to have any type of small handheld device with games or music—and they had a deep interest in my iPod Touch. Coming home, I began thinking through my desire for a prestigious iPhone. Senegal had put my striving in perspective. Everybody has phones, now, in Dakar. Mama sends me selfies with snap-chat filters, my host brother challenges me to a game on PES soccer. His iPad is a distillation of his high-status.
When I hear my host brother beg the maid to let him come with her while she takes out the trash—to let him out into the world—I’m so sure he’d trade his PES game for the crazy 15 v 15 soccer bouts that take place just outside my grandmother’s window in Pikine. These loud games drive Mom Aida crazy. The goalies defend the width of a street. The teams are a mess. There’s no outs. Kicks, slides, everything is allowed. The two teams scramble for the ball on neighbors’ elevated thresholds. The goal sets off screams; Mom Aida grimaces. One kid strips off his pants and shirt during his group goal-celebrations. Free from parental supervision, I catch my host brother getting up to the same kinds of antics. But his kid-sense dies down in his big, lonesome courtyard. No kid should have to go through what the Taalabe are made to endure. But no kid should be stuck on an iPad all day, either.
Toubab* in Touba (4/30/2025)
*Wolof term for white person, but it may also refer to foreigners more generally. For instance, I jokingly got called “toubab” by kids in St. Louis, a city in northern Senegal.
Uncle Djibi drives me and my mom West. Leaving Dakar we pass by the sprawling Chinese-funded industrial complex of Diamniadio. The Abdoulaye Wade Stadium takes up acres next door. The national soccer team plays here, far from the dense capital. A Yaas hotel chain location is mid-construction. New residential buildings are going up, too. (Could this desolation and luxury be what Dubai feels like?) My mom considers stopping to look at her property. She promises me that her house is not like what it was ten years ago. Then, the couple bricks marking her plot were the only landmark for miles. Her contractors had been dilly-dallying. They were supposed to have built two floors. She tells me, now, about the progress of her house and the new neighbors everywhere. But I’m not dreaming of future vacations in the Dakar sprawl.
Thies, a city just before the country fully takes over, comes across our path. In Thies, barbershops’ painted logos aim for different customers. One sign depicts a professional with a short cut. Another one has a young man repping a burst fade. I’m amused by the milk shops slogan Neex Sow and warped drawings of cows. Thies has lots of 3D cows, too. We pass by animal markets with these peaceable beasts. I see a lamb get strapped to the back of a motorcycle. Soon we’re truly in the plains. Donkeys unmoving under their preferred tree’s slim shade. Traditional Senegalese villages with fence walls and straw roofs. At the rest stops, women knock on the window. They press packets of sideme/jujube fruit up to my nose. You suck on these small, sweet ones. Other women sitting down in their shops, display wide hats that look like the ones rice farmers wear. I’m eyeing weaved baskets with colorful patterns. I’m fading out in the back seat.
When I wake up, it’s 105 degrees. We’re in central Senegal, Touba territory. Opening the window, for a breeze, only pushes hot air into the car. I’m regretting leaving Dakar’s temperate coast. My mom gets out to get water. Djibi is drenched in sweat. My mom comes back with icy bottles. In the alien heat, fridges seem like a miracle, tech from another galaxy. We make it to my auntie Awa’s house. My cousin Mama walks us by their lamb pen and up to their second-floor apartment. My mom has brought a bag of fresh, ground millet from Dakar. I’m hoping Awa can make her special beignet, again. Awa encourages my mom and I to rest on the mattresses she has set up for us. She turns on the fan. The apartment is split by a wall. Grates separate the open-air kitchen space from a long living room/hall. The bathroom on the second floor has a makeshift door that isn’t attached to any hinges. I have to carry the door over to the threshold before I get flexible for the squat toilet. My mom scolds me for not following the elaborate slipper change policy. A different pair of slides for each part of the apartment. Mama cooks us lunch. I pull out the Sembène book I’m reading. Awa, almost hinting, hey I’ve got something better, hands me a laminated booklet. A portrait of an older whiskered white man on the front page. Awa tells me this is Mama’s work. I read the first page. Mama has written an essay on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Her paper is well organized with clear headings, introduction, résumé, personages, style, themes principaux. I’m impressed by the selected topics: Le Réalisme et La Critique du Romantisme, La condition Féminine et l’Ennui, La Critique de La Bourgeois, L’Illusion et La Réalité. Her essay offers concise overviews of the literary tropes. I’d dread this assignment. I have struggled with formal writing in French. Mama brings out her copy of Madame Bovary. She cradles the book affectionately. It’s a group project, but Mama has taken charge. She tells me she will do the introduction and conclusion during her group’s in-class presentation. Mama paid for the laminated copies, so her team could all prep well. One enigmatic line in the conclusion strikes me—a reference to Madame Bovary’s destiny that strays from the sharp/analytic prose of the rest of the project. My mom joins the conversation on Flaubert. She recalls her own literature class assignments, how she had to memorize Camara Laye’s L’Enfant Noir. She recites the first lines dramatically, breaking herself and Mama up into giggles. Mama searches through a notebook of her own writings for a loose paper. She hands me a “sujet de tendance.” Mama blushes as she reads her imagined heroine’s love letter.
We get to talking about dating. Mama says she wants to focus on school. She says she gets attention from boys but worries they are too capricious—always onto the next girl. Mama tells me that she wants to be an independent woman—that’s the only way a man would respect her. Mama is gunning for valedictorian. The best students at her school can get a scholarship to study abroad for university. Mama has a shot. She’s a serious student. My mom and I have come this Friday, specifically, because it's Mama’s only day off during the week. Her rigorous private school has classes on Saturdays and Sundays. Mama pulls out a Spanish test from her folder of graded assignments. She aced the sections on subjunctive and past tenses.
I’m lit up imagining my worldly cousin on my continent. But Mama isn’t racing to get away. She gets done up in a gold dress and black head wrap for our pilgrimage to the Grand Mosque of Touba. When we met in Dakar, earlier in my trip, she and my cousin Fallou affirmed their appreciation for Touba’s pious vibe. My mom borrows a blue shawl from Awa.
We turn onto one of the city’s main avenues. The Grand Mosque’s central tower beckons in the distance. Mules struggle to pull tight wooden carts carrying people with their legs dangling off. I see the features of one boy driver’s face wind up tightly. His body tenses up and then releases, as his whip comes crashing down on the burning back of his dusty mule. At the mosque gates we take off our shoes. The courtyard is all clean marble. Djibi and my mom want to get to the tomb of my namesake, Cheikh Amadou Bamba (Khadim Rassoul is his Arabic name), before it closes. Mama and my mom go around to the back entrance for women. Djibi leads me to the men’s side. Amadou Bamba is buried in a mini-kaba, surrounded by glass. Islamic patterns dance on the walls and upholstery. Other men are praying and meditating. I feel my inflexible ankles as I kneel. I mutter gibberish, eyeing Djibi. He puts his face in his hands and makes a spitting motion with his lips but lets out air. He pats the sides of his face and chest. He instructs me to do the same blessing. Outside, we go to the pavilions for the other grand marabout descendants of Bamba. I repeat Djibi’s movements. But I’m looking up at the colors and distinct patterns of each sanctuary. Djibi confides to me that he prayed for my good grades and job search. I’m sheepish. I had forgotten to ask for good wishes for family or myself. Mom and Mama finish up their tour at Sëriñ Fallou’s mausoleum. Young Taalabes ask us for change. The beggar boys end up swarming us when my mom gives francs to one helpful guide. We change course for the Mosque archives. My mom and Djibi finagle a private tour of the special collections. An archivist leads us to a gallery with the supposedly real artefacts that Cheikh Amadou Bamba took with him during his exile. My mom and Djibi are grateful to be before these hallowed objects.
Touba citizens nap in the Mosque’s shady portico. Blind men sell Korans. I want to hop in the line for fresh Cafe Touba; my mom warns me it’s too strong—I’ll be up all night. The community has certainly made the Mosque their own. But I’m also put off by the Mourides’ luxurious enclave. The expensive material and fine craftsmanship that decorates the columns and arches of the interior almost seem gaudy. My mom buys a paper with the official Mouride lineage chart. The collective power and funds of the Brotherhood rest in the hands of a leader defined by blood, not popular, legitimacy.
When we get back from the Mosque, Awa is making us Thieboudienne. I watch and try to help out. It’s getting dark. Awa puts her phone on an uneven wall ledge, peering over the brick I can see the courtyard. The phone’s white flashlight illuminates a bubbling pot. Orange shades stream and swirl amidst this soup of Magi, peppers, carrots, eggplant, and fish. She scoops the fish sauce into rice, turning it red and spicy. Awa carries out a master plate of Thieboudienne: grilled fish accompanied with burned rice bits (xooñ); Bissapp leaves; and Chou (Cabbage) that could show up Eastern European’s staple style. I dive into a small side that Awa whipped up, bits of mango and tamarind in a fish sauce—the sweet and chili makes me feel like I’m eating Mexican food. My mom reminds me Awa makes a living cooking for kids at Mama’s school. During dinner, Awa and my mom make fun of Djibi for tapping out early. He only eats cheb (rice), Awa complains. Fallou calls. He starts playfully making fun of Mama, asking me if I liked the cat she cooked up for lunch. My mom and I assure Mama that her chicken was delicious. Awa rushes back to the kitchen. She sits dutifully by the gas burner, plopping millet dough into oil. My mom keeps asking Awa to rest. We’ve made enough beignet she says. But Awa wants me to go back to Dakar with a hefty bag.
Before we sleep, Mama takes my mom and I on a walk through the neighborhood. Heaps of sand slow our pace. A breeze sweeps through the wide, quiet streets. Other neighbors are out, too, in the night relief. Mama and mom are chatting away. I’m walking with them but focusing more on the surround: a couple men are sleeping in the courtyard of a local mosque. We walk by a group of four boys, two hold each other’s hands. I find the gesture touching. They stare back at me, over their shoulders. It’s common for men to hold hands in Senegal. For the little friends their intimacy must not seem striking. I watch the boys disappear slowly, away from the mosque’s lights. There’s a kids soccer game going late. At another corner, other kids are playing a mix of tag and rugby. Mama is proud to show us her school. Its three green and white floors make it a distinctive presence in the area. On our way back, we clamber over a mound of rocks and soil to reach the door to Awa’s house. My mom tells me this is a makeshift dam. When Touba floods during the rainy season the first floors of most buildings become uninhabitable.
In the morning, we go to Awa’s shop. She serves up yummy sandwiches with eggs, beans, and noodles. At lunch time, students troop over to her stand. Awa greets her regulars. She takes a flurry of orders carefully, not rushing her preparation. I can see her station is popular as I look out on the other vendors. Mama gets out of class and introduces me to her friends. She helps out passing sandwiches and fetching ingredients for Awa. I wonder if Mama feels out-of-place at the private school. I’m surprised by Mama’s peers. They look a lot sharper than their American counterparts. I can’t see a lick of acne. The boys and girls intermingle less than I expect. Yet, these teens aren’t completely foreign. I sense one girl might be popular. She evokes that infelicitous designation for charisma. This girl orders confidently and draws her peers into conversation. Her strong, handsome features hint that she’s quick-witted.
We have to go now. Most of the students have all headed back in. Mom, Mama, and Awa are crying. Tears are coming up from my chest. I’m processing. My aunt and cousin are so sweet. They seem so sweet together. The Wolof goodbye is moving too quickly for me to understand. Mom, Mama, and Awa are all hugging each other. Djibi is crying in the car. Awa and Mama hug me, too, but their group hug with my mom carries a particularly deep resonance. My mom opens up on our drive, as I’m ploughing through Awa’s extra-crispy beignets. My mom tells me she was crying because Awa and Mama kept thanking her. My mom shares that she has been helping support Mama’s school expenses and has always provided a little for Awa on the side. I remember, as a kid, regular trips to the Harlem Western Union office. But I’ve never really known what remittances my mom sent home amounted to. When I hear the cost of Mama’s tuition, I’m moved to help out, to make decent use of savings. I’ve never before considered the money I’ve set aside as powerful enough to do anything important.
Mama’s success in school is the result of her drive, her mom’s entrepreneurial efforts, and her aunt’s labor overseas. On our ride back to Dakar, my mom relates that collective spirit behind Mama to a tradition of independent women stretching back to my mom’s grandmother, who left her home village for Kaolack and raised her children as a single mother. My mom’s mother, Mom Aida ran her own fabric business for years. I remember her compound in Kaolack as a familial and local community hub—she provided food and a home for her neighbors and relatives. There are men in this story, too. In Dakar, Fallou, trained to be a carpenter, has had to pick up masonry. He returns tired to his room without light—the in-construction second floor hasn’t been fitted with electricity yet. Awa’s husband Idrissa spends the work-week away from home driving commercial trucks. My dad is writing and working in Manhattan. I’m here, in Senegal, watching, learning, and hoping my trip isn’t the embers but the spark for familial connections.
Benjamin Khadim DeMott, Class of 2025, participated in the Spring 2025 Colonizations program in Dakar, Senegal.