I was expecting to be in rural Senegal this week as this was when it was planned for but after that being cancelled I spent this week going to classes and maintaining the normal routine. Which was weird because the professors weren’t prepared to teach us and a lot of them made assignments for us to do that basically had us reflect on the rural visit that never happened. Some of the changed the assignment’s objective others moved it back but overall, it’s a mess I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do anymore for my classes. There’s also this overall feeling of exhaustion that would really appreciate a break from classes and my internship but to no avail do I get this.

            I’m trying to be a bit real after reading another blogger’s post about their abroad experience and trying to keep it real and the truth is it’s exhausting. I’m not talking about the fun trips or even classes but about just merely existing in this different society and culture. When preparing for an abroad experience, students are advised to learn about their host city and then to blend into that society and culture. It’s infinitely harder to do that when you don’t physically don’t look like the citizens of your host country, which I don’t. I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t blend in not even if I managed to master the native language, wear traditional clothes, and know all the cultural customs it still wouldn’t happen people would know I’m a toubab (foreigner).

            While that word means no offense from the Senegalese it’s just a word and as my professor was explaining they would even call him that word to since he was wearing western clothes that day. Now that I know it’s meaning I’m starting to notice when I get called it on the street and hate is starting to root in me because I know I’m a foreigner and I don’t own you my time just because you yelled that to me on the street. I would like to just walk from place to place without getting gawked at or more, which happens. There are several recent encounters and the frequency of this is really weighing down on me. I don’t want to walk alone if I don’t have to and that’s stripping my independence because if I’m alone when someone approaches me it’s 10 times worse and more like to occur than if I was with a friend. I don’t know how to not be independent anyone that knows me personally knows that I’m very independent and that I don’t need anyone but rather I include people in my life because things are easier when you have a support group.

            I was at the beach just enjoying the sun and sand when my friend goes to buy some fries I’m left alone at our spot watching our stuff. A man comes up and starts taking to me the rest of the encounter was strange and awkward and I tried pretending I didn’t understand somethings that I did and other things I actually didn’t understand, and he’d bring out his broken English too. I’m not making fun of him for having broken English I probably have broken French but the fact that he was determined to get something out of me was jarring. He started with saying he loves American girls and that they’re the prettiest and then said he wants relationship with me and when I said no he’d ask why. When that why didn’t satisfy him, he started to make up lies as if I’d believe him over everything else I know. The lies were along the lines of my boyfriend has other wives and girlfriends, so I should get with this man because of this fact. When my friend returned she told him that we’re going to play cards and we’re not here to talk so he eventually left mad not getting what he wanted.

            I was walking home from school and I left alone because everybody at school wasn’t ready to leave and I really wanted to get home to do some laundry. As I started it wasn’t long before someone called out at me and walked up to me saying they were a rapper and they want to be my friend and invite me to shows as if what they do would convince me to be friends with the kind of person that stops women on the street and follows them as they are walking home to get their number. Again, when I said no they did not get the concept and stopped talking to me instead they persisted and it’s in this culture of men not taking no as an answer that’s becoming the most exhausting part. I was followed almost home, and I needed to go to the bank and I didn’t want this man following me while I got money out of the ATM or knowing where I lived. So, I turned around and started walking back towards school in the hopes of running into someone I knew or making my way all the way back to school. Luckily, I found a group of people I knew that live in my neighborhood and then could start walking back with them, but I was not far from school and about in the same spot the man first started talking to me.

            Besides men children also bring exhaustion to me they’re more likely to notice differences outwardly. They won’t hide their attempts at trying to touch your hair because it’s different or calling you a foreigner and they don’t get the concept of why you might not be okay with this. It also comes down to them idolizing you and where you’re from. I had an overwhelming experience with children recently because the ministry of the environment and two people in our program at their internship created a project to plant trees at a school in the suburbs and educate the children on the environment, so we volunteered to help this project. Another student reported how when talking to these children they all had dreams of going to the US or Canada to go to university and like live there and none of them wanted to stay in Senegal. They also reported how a child said they love toubabs and when asked why they didn’t have an answer. It was like they’ve never been asked that question before and it comes down to, as foreigners we are assumed to be rich and have all this money and houses and through that these children can live their dreams off us. It’s really messed up and complex and I’m not even covering the half of it there’s more layers to this issue and the ethics of it.

            I’ve been as real as I could be but because of how these children treat us foreigners it only explains the behavior of adults that try becoming my friend or boyfriend/husband it could be their ticket to “luxury” and while not everyone talking to me has a secret motive I could never tell otherwise. It makes it really hard to befriend locals beside my host family and other host families.