To Surrender Everything

I have enjoyed living and working in Dakar. Senegal is exotic. The culture has great depth: animism mixes freely with Islam, the people are warm and engaging, and the music is groovy. But you must be willing to engage, and look below the surface, below appearances.

Being an older male helps. To act my age in Senegalese culture means to expect respect. Were I a pretty twenty-something Peace Corps volunteer, the attention I attract might be less than noble. Thus far, no one has proposed or propositioned. Sad.

The disparity in wealth between myself and everyone around me is fantastic. I have an abundance of stuff, and toubabs such as myself can be perceived as things-with-money, particularly in areas frequented by tourists. We can be objectified and categorized. Sharks gather at the smell of blood (manifest as passive, browsing, overwhelmed attention) around the big African markets downtown. Not surprising.

Sadly, there have been an increase in the incidence of robberies along the Corniche -- a scenic north-south artery along the western coast. The perps tend to be younger men, working almost exclusively at night, carrying machetes, looking for quick targets. Not a pretty scene.

I have been swimming twice a week at the Club Atlantique pool, adjacent to the school, training for the big Dakar to Goree Island 5K Swim, taking place this morning. I am a morning person, and prefer the quiet of the early morning hours to swim, when most normal people are still in bed, including, I had assumed, wrongly, all potential muggers.

I was robbed last Thursday morning, at about 5:45 AM, while en route to the pool. The thief, just a kid really, brandished a machete and demanded my satchel, which he received, without provocation. There I was, alone on the Corniche, in my shorts, sandals and t-shirt, no one in sight, no traffic, having just lost my laptop, camera, and passports (being delivered to the school that morning for renewal of visas). Surreal. I thought of Dali.

It never occurred to me to strike out, to aggress. If anything, I acted to calm him down, indicating that I would offer no resistance. This was the right thing to do. Anything out of the ordinary and I think he would have begun swinging, as agitated as he was.

As you can imagine, the week ended with multiple investigations, and kind expressions of condolence, particularly from the Senegalese staff at ISD.

I'm sorry to have lost the camera and laptop. I'll miss them. They cannot easily be replaced. I used them to good ends.

Someone from school asked if I felt that I'd lost my innocence. There's some truth to that. I'll need to readjust my habits -- how and when I come and go to school, when I swim, what I carry. Still, it might have been much worse; there is a potential for it being much worse. Fortunately, there was only one guy (as far as I know), not a group, and he chose not to take an unprovoked swing of his machete. I still believe that the robbery was random; I believe that I roused him as I walked by. Sportfishing at this time of the morning is a really poor investment of one's time.

May whatever profits from the sale of the camera and laptop fill the bellies of a large family at Tabaski.

We inherit the consequences of our actions, and these consequences are unanticipated. There is a psychological rebound effect which the movies tend not to examine. Rambo and Dirty Harry self-medicated. (Note the high incidence of PTSD amongst returning soldiers returning from combat, or the remorse of conscience profiled in Spielberg's Munich.)

It's better to give it all up, with pleasure, and let the universe determine the rest.

I must be willing to give up everything at any moment. I thought about this yesterday while snorkeling along the Mamelles. After setting my camera on the sea bottom, I relaxed with eyes closed and rose back to the surface, empty-handed.