Dakar is the Paris of Africa. I’m not kidding. People are dressed to the 9’s, very fashionable. Skinny jeans and tight shiny tshirts that cling to only one shoulder. Designer bags and sunglasses add to the shine. It doesn’t matter that most of the stuff is knock off – it still has those shining double CCs or GA or Gucci plastered on it. Name brands, that’s all people really care about. The buildings are tall and constructed primarily out of cement, not mud. The roads are all paved and clean – the city actually hires people to sweep. The sewers are covered and there’s no chance of accidentally falling in. The ocean sits adjacent to the city offering a splendid breeze to take away the sting of the hot Senegalese sun. There are over and underpasses. There is a 4 lane highway. Simply put, there is money. Things cost the same price, if not more, in Dakar than they do in America (at least the last time I was there). A kilo of bananas, the equivalent of $1.25. 2 lbs of bananas in the States, last time I bought them, was about $1. But that’s just one example. We were told by the people we stayed with, friends of Baba’s, that a normal apartment in Dakar costs 600,000 CFA per month – that’s about $1,200! That’s ridiculous. Seeing that a nice apartment in Bamako is between 100 and 200,000 CFA, 600 is just outrageous to me. There are so few motorcycles in Dakar – everyone drives a car. I’m not talking about the cars from 1957 that have been rebuilt 39 times in Mali. I’m talking about brand spanking new SUVs, BMWs and Mercedes. I saw an Infiniti dealer in Dakar for God’s sake. Really?
But my main question is, where does all this money come from? It was Baba’s first time going to Dakar and he was blown away. I mean blown away. He kept saying how the only thing lacking in Dakar are stop lights and a metro and as soon as it has those two things, it’ll be on par with Paris. He kept saying how Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal, really knows how to work and that our own president, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT), is zero a la base, meaning that he doesn’t do anything. Baba went so far to say that if a bunch of Malians went to Dakar and saw how developed and how built up it was, they would revolt against ATT. It was pretty amazing to hear him talking about it. But, on the other hand, those are his political views. If you look at Senegal as a whole, it’s in a pretty sad state. Even 15 km outside of Dakar, the roads are unpaved and there’s no development. Every penny that President Wade found has gone into the development of Dakar. Last year, when I was in Dakar, there had just been this big conference called ODI. Basically, this group of Islamic countries got together for a conference and Senegal took tons of loans – I don’t know the amounts, but in the millions and possibly billions – and interest free to help the development of Senegal. But as I said, it’s all gone to Dakar, not to the rest of the country that could really use it. It’s disappointing for me.
All of this is to create a background for an entry I want to write about the visa process and immigrating to the US. The two days that Baba and I were at the Embassy were very interesting and odd. I’ll write more about this soon.
