… We are sorry for all the disadvancements suffered.”
That’s certainly an interesting text to receive (via Google Translate) while lounging on a couch in Dakar.
It’s not like I didn’t have a bit of a heads up. We knew that an election was coming: 25 February, a few days after we’re scheduled to leave for our next destination. We met up with B, an old friend from grad school, for dinner Friday at Jet Café Beach on Cor des Almadies. The patio was dressed up in Senegalese colors – I’m assuming for hosting viewings of the African Cup of Nations tournament – and our table overlooked the lighthouse and Marmelles, surrounded by the inky blackness of the Atlantic.
After catching up on all the things that’s happened since grad school – and lamenting exactly how long that’s been – we started to dig into what’s been happening in Senegal politically and culturally. The president previously stated he wasn’t running for reelection and the conversation can best be summed up as “politics be crazy.” But after the Trump presidency and everything since (and before for that matter), I feel like the American at the table can’t judge. He also mentioned, while dropping us off at our place in Ngor, that the neighborhood was a hotbed of local protest. The decision to build the gendarmerie, Senegal’s militarized police force, a new HQ in the neighborhood set off protests that eventually led to the death of a teenage boy. The government pledged to build a new school and the gendarmerie continued with their building. Politics be crazy.
The next day, I received an email from the US Embassy alerting me that the president postponed the presidential election without specifying a new date. Protests were expected, and to exercise caution.
(Apparently Past Shannon registered for the State Department travel alerts and then promptly forgot about it. She so smart.)
I didn’t see it at first. I was taking a break during my cooking class – more about that later – when I noticed that I had a number of messages from C, an old colleague and friend from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), who’d been sending tips and suggestions for our Senegalese travels, alerting me of the news and advising me to be cautious with warnings of what’s happened during previous moments of unrest. We listened for sounds of any protests but I think we just got the singing and chanting we’d been hearing the past few days celebrating the visiting religious leader from Mauritania. Maybe some sirens? Sounded like normal city sounds to me.
We had plans to check out Ile de Ngor (finally) but then I got cramps so I spent the day on the couch, reminding myself of all of the great things about being female instead. M went to the grocery store and mentioned that the gendarmerie were packing bigger guns than usual and an armored vehicle was parked in the roundpoint but nothing besides that.
Maybe my shotty hearing betrayed me. M mentioned later he heard more helicopters than usual (whereas I heard none). Perhaps I should have been more concerned than I was but it seemed quiet to me? But additional updates from the embassy made me think twice, speaking of tear gas being deployed to disperse crowds near the Catholic cemetery, a 16-21 minute drive away.
Woke up to a message from B on Monday checking in and saying maybe we should stay in.
…okay.
Which brings us back to the announcement that mobile internet was being shut off, just as C warned.
Experiencing the modern world without access to mobile data is so weird. I traveled to Senegal in part to shed any preconceived notions Western media and education I had embedded in me about the continent (knowing, of course, that Africa is not a monolith). But I already knew that Africa’s internet revolution skipped the wired stage and went straight to satellite and mobile. Streets big and small are peppered with security guards and shop clerks on the street, at all hours of the day and night, passing the time by looking at their phones. Just like any other city or country on the planet. Without mobile internet, the streets were nosier but mostly from those same guys having to talk to each other to pass the time instead of YouTube or TikTok (although a surprising number were still on their phones because wifi continued to work fine. But it was a lot more difficult for me without my crutch of Google Translate and instead having to utilize my increasingly failing French.
Tuesday, I awoke to another email from the embassy informing us that the National Assembly voted to postpone the presidential election to 15 December and reminding us to stay vigilant. I headed back for round 2 of my cooking lessons, which we packed up and I brought back to an ailing M, who’d come down with a bug the day before. I tried to get my teacher’s thoughts on what was going on but she simply replied “the president is crazy” with a laugh. After a bit of a food coma and grabbing a pedicure (that paint desperately needed to come off), the sun had set and the sounds of the city felt like they were returning.
By the time I awoke Wednesday, mobile internet was back on and I got another text from the carrier confirming as much along with advertising their services (of course). Everything seems back to normal: hot, sunny, busy, etc.
This is now the second country I’ve been in with election-related crises or turmoil (the first being the US). No sane person wants constitutional crises inflicted on others, nor should they want them happening while you’re visiting, but maybe I should have gone out to find the protests to have more of an exciting story to tell? Maybe when I have health insurance again.
Politics be crazy.