Senegal

Senegal is a country where, in the opposite of its neighbor, Mauritania, none of its locals want to leave and go start a new life somewhere else. At least, nobody with whom I have talked to.

The culture is strong. Every local love the rice and the cous-cous, the bread with meat and onions and the onion sauce. Do not forgetting about the Fatai. Every local love to dance and start to dance as soon the music starts. Their unique way of dancing. What I unfortunately could notice by watching some local video clips, is that the culture of the country is suffering the same as Brazil: it is all about semi naked women shaking their butts, cars and money. Ostentation. Such a shame…

I am not sure about the countryside but in the capital, Dakar, the sexual tension is strong and you can feel everywhere, with everyone. It looks like that the only important thing in life is to find someone to date, so everyone should date. Of course you can imagine how weird I sound here. Some girls from the University had four or even ten boyfriends. I do not know how serious they take that but it was what they told me. When men see you on the streets, they just say “I will call you”. Taxi drivers, normal people and even the police officers. Some girls just give a wrong number and I bet some of them give the right one.

The beauty around the female is something extremely important. You see, there is something about the Senegalese women that is curious: a lot of them do not have long hair. For some reason that I do not know, probably biology, their hair simply just not grow up more than a few centimetres. Most of them braide that little hair, so they can use wigs over it. which they have in some different styles and colors. I was so surprise when I figure out how important this is for them.

So now you can imagine how contradictory is my situation in here: when I think I finally find a place where most of the woman shave their heads, or have really small hair and then I will be just another one, they actually do not understand why someone who could have a natural long hair, decide to have a shaved head.

Even though most of then love to live in here, it is a safe country compared with the other African ones, I wonder if the youth, the new generation are aware of the world out there. When I see the situation of the streets, the places crowded with people all the time, the buses conditions, the pollution everywhere, the expensive cost of life (for a healthier diet, at least), it surprises me that there are not so many young people who would like to try something different somewhere else.

Is hard for me get to a conclusion: I am judging the country based exactly in everything I saw and lived, or am I being influenced by the bad things that happened to me since the beginning? My watch got stolen, my backpack broken and all the not so nice people I have met… would that be the reason? Maybe in the future, after talk with more people who have being here, I can figure that out.