I Get 2 days In Senegal Before Leaving

Accompanied only now by my friend Idiboy, I would leave Gambia for Senegal. Idiboy told me on the way back with a sigh,

"It's going to be different going back to Gambia (after dropping you off at the Senegal airport). And I know your going to feel it when your headed back to America."

What he meant was him and I had been like brothers for a month straight, hanging real tight everyday. I could picture him and I making our way back to our respective homes, him in Gambia, myself in America, both feeling the void seperation from a dear friend.

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In Senegal, once again we visited the home of my friend from back in America, Shiek: and ate and relaxed there with some of his family and their friends, Khady, Ibrahim, Matee, and the many people coming and going from their home, which also housed a salon that Shieks wife had bought for the family to have work.

There we were met by idiboy's cousin Dawda who rolled up on a motorbike, and appeared angry...

"You are bad", he said. "I've been calling you guys, you never call back, or anything."

I tried to explain, he argued with idiboy briefly in Wolof, told me he about some difficulties he was having at work that day, but promised hed try to get off early so he could spend the evening with us.

He made good on that promise and that evening and night we went to see the capital biuldings of Dakar, Senegal. On the way we stopped for something very important to me. I had to get a cd of the music i'd been hearing throughout my trip. Something I could listen to in America when I wanted to escape into my memories of Africa. One song had been playing everywhere we went, from cell-phones to ringtones, and car speakers everywhere and that was Titi "Musica". Also I had to get some songs from my favorite Senegalese artist Viviane Ndour. It seemed like Titi was the alternative for people who had grew tired of Vivianes overexposure, but for me being a tourist I didn't feel that way and it was clear to me Viviane was the number 1 artist in the country. Ofcourse Yosou Ndour is the most popular choice of the locals young and old in Senegal and Gambia, and also their most well-know artist worldwide. He even appeared on the Bullworth soundtrack with Wyclef John and Canibus (a soundtrack I'd actually had since 1998 when it came out, but of course I knew nothing of him then, or of Senegal. It was interesting to realize Id actually listened to him years earlier). Still though, for me Viviane Ndour is the number 1 musical artist of Senegal and Gambia.

But getting the music wasn't easy. its not like going into best buy in America and looking up the album.

There everything is bootlegged, so a record store is a very small, messy place, where the owner digs and digs for a half hour to hopefully come up with what your looking for. Then idiboy and Dawda insisted he play it for us to make sure it was what he said it was, then there was arguing over the price, and so on.

In the meanwhile some guys were hustling me, telling me to come with them and that my friends were bad, "lol". Like I would just take the word of a group of strangers and leave my friends Id been with all along.

Anyway finally we left there and got a bite to eat at a lebanese resteraunt. There is and has been for a long time a thriving lebanese community in Senegal. I was impressed to see how fluent the store owner was in Wolof, he was really like one of them.

We sat for dinner and listened to some songs on Dawda's cell-phone. I shared a nice moment with Dawda in which I told him it was nice to know whenever I came to Senegal I had a good friend I could trust. We all talked about future plans and all the things we wanted to do in gambia and Senegal in years to come. Dawda said, "Yes, idiboy and I fight and argue, weve always been like that, but he is my boy, we used to be in the village together..."

They told me some stories of their youth, Dawda had me visit with his mom on the phone and I promised Id visit the family next time I came.

We visited the capital biuldings of Senegal, and then made our way to the aiport around 10pm at night.