Meet Me in St. Louis, Senegal

So, much to my chagrin I'm back in Dakar after spending 5 or so lovely days in St. Louis.

St. Louis was the first capital of Senegal and is located farther to the north, close to Mauritania. It's an island that the Europeans developed as a place of commerce during the 17th century. It's now a UNESCO world heritage site and most of the original buildings are still there (though in real need of renovation). It's also the birthplace of ceebujen.

And we got to stay in the beautiful Hotel Sindone with wifi and ac!

I spent most of my time there researching for a presentation on the Signares. Signares were the metisse daughters from marriages between European men and Senegalese women. They were very wealthy and held a lot of political and economic power. Unfortunately, it was a bit difficult for us to find out any real information (at least considering our constraints). But we did get an interview with the former mayor of St. Louis, who had been a good friend of Leopold Sedar Senghor (the first president of Senegal). He also met Jaques Chirac, Franco, DeGaulle...yea. We spent most of the interview just looking at his many photographs and incredible collection of West African Art.

The other interesting thing for me about St. Louis was how closely it's still tied to Europe, at least more so than Dakar. Some people there still believe they're french citizens, depsite Independence and all. But most people will greet you with "Bonjour, ca va?" instead of "asalaam maalekum, nanga def?" I mean, there are a lot of French tourists there...which was also kind of strange. I've noticed that I'm not used to seeing lots of white people (toubabs) around. So it was a bit shocking in St. Louis where we frequently ate at restaurants with other toubabs, or that people seemed less fazed by our whiteness. It was actually a little refreshing. Guess I'm finally getting to know what it's actually like to be a minority and not phyiscally fit in.