Bët - Eyes

It’s simple. They come up to you, start talking with you, attempt to distract you, then reach for your wallet while you’re not looking. Tonight, a man tried to do that to me as I walked with my parents down an unlit street in downtown Dakar. At first he came up to us, trying to sell us something. I stepped in between him and my parents, telling him off politely in Wolof. It worked, he drifted off behind us for a while but then reappeared as we crossed through the market area which had closed down for the day on the way to dinner. He was explaining to me that you could buy anything here, and that if I wanted some new shorts—which he said as he pulled slightly on the pocket of my shorts, pretending as if I didn’t understand the word in French, and slipped his hand into my left pocket—he could help me.

At first I didn’t realize what was happening. I’ve gotten so accustomed to people walking alongside me, trying to sell me something or asking for something else, that the only part that alarmed me was that he had touched me. I instantly grabbed his wrist tightly, pulling it out of my pocket after feeling him sift through the keys and ferry time schedule that were in there. I still didn’t completely know what was going on but let go of his hand once I made him show me there was nothing in it and I had checked to see if everything was still there. I only really figured out he had been attempting to mug me by how quickly he disappeared into the shadows after I let his hand go.

Without question, my confidence has been shaken. After almost two months here, I’ve finally begun to feel like a part of the Senegalese community. Albeit as an outsider, but accepted nonetheless. When I speak in Wolof, it always makes people smile as they’re delighted that a ‘toubab’ has taken to learn their language instead them learning the language of the people who colonized their nation centuries ago. When I walk around my neighborhood, the children ask me how I am. On my way home, I sit down underneath the tree to simply talk with my Senegalese friends. While I don’t think that the attempted mugging is going to change my perspective of the Senegalese, it has made me appreciate my neighborhood and how I’ve become a part of the community.