Peter Forberg

We must regroup. We’re in the thick of it; now, for a second, we pull our heads out from underwater. Let me explain where, why, and how we are here.

We are in Dakar for the next 9 weeks. Dakar is the largest city in Senegal, a West African nation of 16 million. 4 million live in Dakar. It is a Muslim nation, a former French colony, and known as one of the most hospitable places in the world. It is renowned for its markets, poets, and beautiful coastline. Most people speak Wolof, an indigenous language, but many people also speak French. We will be learning Wolof here, and we will also be taking courses on African civilization. C’est tout.

We came here for a lot of reasons. Namely, our school has a requirement to study civilizations. We decided to do it on-site, where we would not expect to go at any other point in our lives. C’est tout.

How are we here? We are here as the newly adopted children of a host family. Our mother, Maman, is a seamstress and a woman of infinite kindness. At every meal, sitting around the bowl of food from which we all eat with fork or spoon or piece of bread, she asks about our well-being, she quizzes us on our Wolof, and she demands to know our reviews of her food. She makes beautiful dresses, flashes of colorful beads on long, bright robes that flow with the dusty wind, and the care with which she sits at that sewing machine is replicated in her attention to the details of our impermanent residence. Thread by thread, she adds, renews, and redesigns her home to accommodate our needs, and as she gets to know us, the home does too. More than anyone else, she is our bridge into Dakar. Papa is a quiet man, incredibly polite and intelligent, speaking casually about his international success in journalism and labor organization. On his bookshelf rests towering works of philosophy, history, and linguistics, and yet he has the gall to doubt his near perfect English. Were I lost in Dakar, I’d call him first.

Our home rests in Sacre-Coeur, a small residential neighborhood outside of the city center. Everyday we take a taxi to the coast to go to our research center where we take classes. The streets are filled with sand, cows roam through marketplaces, and small boutiques pop up at the bottom of apartment buildings. Everywhere you go, a man is wandering around, arms full of SIM cards or bracelets or woven baskets trying to pawn off goods. The air tastes of sand. The showers are cold. The sunsets are short. The days are long. The food is to die for and might very make a Westerner feel like they are dying. C’est tout.