This weekend I made a discovery: I found out where all of the Americans hide out in Dakar. I had heard that there is a sizable Western community in the city, but over the past two months I had only ever seen a few non-Senegalese here and there, and more often than not they had turned out to be tourists rather than permanent residents. I had resigned myself to the idea that Senegal’s population really is as homogeneous as it seems when last Friday night, as a volunteer at the US Embassy’s Family Halloween Party, I all of a sudden found myself in the midst of this elusive community.
Walking into the Club Atlantique on the Rte. Corniche-Ouest was like walking into Little America. After you’ve passed the tennis courts, the beach volleyball pit and the sizable swimming pool you’re confronted with several barbecue grills and a veritable sea of folding chairs and plastic tables. This past weekend the scene was also over-flowing with Halloween decorations, and there was a bean bag toss, soccer and relays set up on the tennis courts under strings of lights, run by a motley crew of CIEE students, Senegalese students and US Marines. The biggest attraction though was the haunted house and I spent much of the night attempting to impose order on the horde of children trying desperately to make it inside. For those few hours Friday night I almost forgot that I was in Senegal. Surrounded by hamburgers, cupcakes and American candy, and talking to native English speakers, it was a shock afterwards to step outside the gates and find myself in Western Africa.
It’s amazing how America can install itself virtually anywhere. Many of the guests in attendance on Friday night live in the same neighborhood, belong to the same clubs, and send their children to the same schools. It’s like a smaller, Western world operating in the heart of Dakar and, having spent most of my time in Senegalese circles, it was my first glimpse into the ex-patriot community here.
I actually went to one of the larger international schools this past Sunday for church. The Dakar Academy is a boarding and day school that mainly houses students whose parents are doing missionary work elsewhere in Western Africa. It’s a beautiful, secluded campus in a quiet area of Dakar and has a small student body of around 260. The congregation was composed entirely of students and their families, and when we went out to lunch afterwards there was not a single Senegalese person in sight. As for the European families that actually live in the city, they mostly live in Les Almadies, a wealthier area that’s a little ways away from the chaos of the city center. I have not yet visited this quarter but it’s rumored to be beautiful and clean, with living expenses far higher than most Senegalese can afford.
I think this is why it took me so long to track down the Western community. I hate to dwell on the monetary issue but I do believe that it is a large part of what separates this smaller international community from the rest of the city (that and the intricate security clearances required to gain access to the Western clubs). The CIEE study abroad program has been focused on giving us the “real” Senegalese experience, and that doesn’t include any of the perks and privileges that I witnessed this weekend because that cultural bubble isn’t indigenous to Senegal and doesn’t include any native Senegalese. I won’t deny that it was somewhat of a relief to find myself back in my comfort zone, surrounded by the familiarity of an American holiday and Western customs, but it was also illuminating to spend the weekend in an environment that was so different from what I live on a daily basis, and it caused me to wonder how that community is perceived from the outside and how much overlap there really is between the Americans, Europeans and Senegalese here in Dakar.
