mon ami

kayes, mali

money is a stronger barrier than the berlin wall. if you didn't know the economic hierarchy of the global order, you would learn fast upon arrival to africa. seems like everyone wants to be your friend, help you out, or just be in your presence in the hopes that you'll make it rain. this results in the ultimate big-man-on-campus feeling, which can be annoying if not downright aggravating if you're having one of those wrong-side-of-the-bed days.

perhaps that's why my experience in toubab dialao got extended from 2 to 5 days. i seem to have found a kindred spirit in the form of an illiterate djembe drummer from the congo (brazzaville) by the name of samba. i couldn't explain it or do it justice, but we somehow found a way to connect through more than our broken french conversations. maybe it was because we were both away from home or maybe because neither of us ressembled the caricature of what a traveler or local should be like. basically, while toubab dialao is a tranquil fishing village, it also caters to certain types of foreigners. let's just say that i saw enough mulletted, paunchy french men with massive surgical scars paired off with beautiful senegalese women, and the same with female tourists, to be able to put two and two together. so maybe it's as simple as that ageless bond between two people: laughing at sex tourists.

for whatever reason we became friends, it never ceased to amaze me how much samba went out of his way to help me, even when not necessary. he made two trips (2 hours each way) to negotiate fares for my trip east and help me manage the bustle of the hideous gare-routière. he took me on a sweat-inducing four hour walk to a nearby village where he said there was the best view, even if he could have avoided the soleil on the veranda. he scolded the small children who called me toubab (means white person, but is not perjorative) and told them to call me john (i think it's funny and kinda enjoy it). he even took the cell phone number of the passenger next to me and called hours after i left, just to make sure that i arrived safely.

for all this, he never asked anything of me, except for a little money when we departed in dakar so that he could make it back to the village. i gave him the biggest bill, not so much as a payment for services rendered or some payment to get out of my space (which many people do), but just a gift to a friend who can now either visit the dentist (had some molar issues over the weekend) or start buying djembes to markup for sale to tourists.

this is why i travel. for everything i wrote earlier about how massive the world is, there are those opportunities where you form bon connaissance that transcend borders, cultures, and poorly spoken languages. so while there is certainly still the great monetary divider that keeps me seul in many legs of this trip, i did learn that you find the warmest of hearts in some of the poorest of places.