Dakar Senegal

“I have a story,” says Mbaye Babacar Sambe, “and one day I’m gone write it, but I don’t find the time. I’m just so busy all across town. Go to this office, make the papers, visit the customs, introduce them the papers. My office call me, go here, go there. So so busy, looking for the opportunity, looking for solutions. But I would like to write the story of the boy. It is my story.”

We are waiting outside the office of the Director of Customs, Department of Commerce. “I’m sure he will be the one to help us. He will give us the opportunity to introduce the customs papers in this difficult case,” Babacar tells me. With his shaven head, glasses, jacket and tie, he looks the part of the smart energetic young business man. He revels in the challenge my complex situation brings; an opportunity to learn, to make contacts and find new solutions. As a foreigner who wants to temporarily import a vehicle but didn’t have the sense to bring an ATA Carnet, I rely on his knowledge and positivity.  “It would be very easy if you had a Carnet,” he tells me whenever some official refuses our request.

“The story is about a boy,” Babacar starts the tale again. “In Senegal they want us to be like French. The school teach us French, they teach us to think like French, they want us to be French. But we are African. The boy is brought up in the traditions of his people. To dress like an African, to learn the culture and ceremonies, and learn about African life. The people learnt from their family before the French came with their schools.” He pauses. His gaze takes in the garden, the parked Mercedes and the plush air conditioned offices. Then he continues, “I learn from my Grandpa. I learnt how to eat from a shared bowl, sitting on the floor. Take only the food from your part of the bowl, never reach across and take food that is in front of your brother. My grandfather would break up the meat or fish and share it across the bowl. Everyone will get their portion. Eat the food in front of you, then stop and move away. That is culture. Each person has their place, but so does every other person. You must make sure that other people get their portion as well as getting your own. It is African culture.”

The Director is a good man. He says it is his duty to find solutions to the problem. He gives us the letter of authorisation we need. We leave the office into the heat and noise of the street. I climb on the back of Babacar’s motorbike and we head across town to the Transit Office. Now we can apply for the Declaration. Pulling out into the wrong side of the road, we speed away, weaving through the oncoming traffic. A subtle nod to the rider of another bike avoids the collision and negotiates our passage onto the other carriageway. Braking sharply behind a taxi, then accelerating into the gap between a lorry and a bus belching out a cloud of black fumes. The gap between bus and truck slowly closes, the bike and my knee graze the side of the bus, we wobble, then we are free. Escaping at the last minute, like Indiana Jones from some ancient trap.

We approach a huge building, with soldiers at guard along the street. Babacar turns to me and shouts above the noise of the traffic, whilst confidently swerving across the street to avoid a pothole. “ That’s the President’s palace. A very big house. The worst president in the whole world. He does nothing for the people. Like the king of Senegal”

We soon divert down a narrow lane. The cardamom scent of Café Touba as we carefully avoid the coffee vendors, then the delicious smell of frying fatayas and we squeeze past a slow moving donkey and cart. We emerge through a car park with the stench of sewage and cross a busy street, crammed with hooting taxis. A bus suddenly stops, leaving a gap. We slip through, bump up onto the pavement and come to a rest in front of the Transit Office. 

We enter a scruffy building bustling with activity. Settling into the manager’s office, we wait for him to return from lunch. “The boy is not happy. The other boys do not like him. They laugh at his traditional clothes. He is lonely and has no friends,” Babacar picks up his tale again, but then seems unsure how to continue. “I have the pieces of the story, but I don’t know how it goes together. The boy doesn’t know if it is possible to live a traditional life but still to be successful. How to get to the top, to have a good job, a house, a car and money. How to be African and French, traditional and modern.”

The manager arrives late, and tells us there is a problem with the Declaration. We need a PPM, an identity number we don’t have. And it is too late for today, the offices are about to close.

The following day we meet at our usual spot in the garden of the Place d’Independence to discuss our strategy and talk about life. The hawkers pass by, offering to clip our toenails or sell us fake iphones, leather belts or sweet tea.

“You know, don’t you,” comments Babacar, “ that I look like this for my job. The neat clothes, the short hair and the smart boubou for the mosque on Friday. It is how I must be to get respect. But inside I am Rastafarian. I am a secret Rasta,” he laughs. “Reggae is the greatest music in the world. It is for all the people, black and white, French or African. Bob Marley, Haile Selassie, they are my guides. In my lunch break everyday I take two beers and sit in a quiet spot on the beach. And I meditate. I think about how I can find solutions and opportunities in my work. If something is wrong I meditate, so I can find how to make it right.”

I listen to my friend trying to describe who he really is.  And I realise, from the fragments of the story he has offered, the reason he can’t write his story. He doesn’t have all the pieces. He doesn’t know the ending. The story isn’t over yet.