The Shadow of the Sun

Madame Diuf Is Coming Home

At first, nothing portends what is to come. At dawn, the train station in Dakar is empty. There is only one train on the tracks, which will leave for Bamako before noon. Trains rarely arrive or depart from here. In all of Senegal, there is only one international rail connection, to Bamako, the capital of Mali, and only one short internal one, to St. Louis, with a train running once every twenty-four hours. Most frequently, therefore, there is no one at the station. It is difficult even to find the cashier, who, reportedly, is also the stationmaster.

Only when the sun is already high in the sky do the first passengers appear. They take their places in the compartments unhurriedly. The cars here are smaller than in Europe, the tracks narrower, the compartments more cramped. At first, however, there is no shortage of seats. I met a young couple on the platform, Scots from Glasgow, who were traveling through western Africa from Casablanca to Niamey. “Why from Casablanca to Niamey?” They have difficulty answering. That’s just what they decided. They are together, and that, it seems, is enough for them. What did they see in Casablanca? Nothing, really. And in Dakar? Nothing much either. They are not interested in sightseeing. They want only to travel. Travel and travel. What is important for them is an exotic route, and experiencing this route together. They look very much alike: pale complexions, which in Africa look almost transparent, light brown hair, many freckles. Their English is very Scottish, meaning that I understand little of it. For a while, it’s just the three of us in the compartment, but right before departure we are joined by a heavy, energetic woman in an ample, puffy, brightly colored bou-bou (the local ankle-length dress). “Madame Diuf!” she introduces herself, and settles herself comfortably on the bench.

We set off. At first, the train rolls along the edge of old, colonial Dakar. A beautiful coastal city, pastel-colored, picturesque, laid out on a promontory amid beaches and terraces, slightly resembling Naples, the residential areas of Marseilles, the posh suburbs of Barcelona. Palm trees, gardens, cypresses, bougainvillea. Stepped streets, hedges, lawns, fountains. French boutiques, Italian hotels, Greek restaurants. The train, gathering more and more speed, passes this showcase city, enclave city, dream city, then suddenly, in the space of a second, it grows dark in the compartment, there are loud thudding, crashing sounds outside, and we hear blood-curdling screams. I lunge at the window, which Edgar, the young Scot, is trying unsuccessfully to slam shut in order to keep out the clouds of dust, garbage, and debris forcing their way in.

What has happened? I can see that the lush, flowering gardens have disappeared, swallowed beneath the ground, and a desert has commenced, but a populated desert, full of shacks and lean-tos, sand upon which sprawls a neighborhood of squalor, a chaotic and swarming district of slums, one of the typical, depressing bidonvilles that surround most African cities. And in this cramped bidonville, the shanties crowd one another, press together, even climb up on one another; the only open space for a market is the train tracks and embankment. It’s busy here from dawn. Women display their merchandise on the ground, in bowls, on trays, on tables — their bananas, tomatoes, soap, and candles. They stand next to one another, elbow to elbow, as is the African custom. And then — here comes the train. It arrives at full speed, unchecked, thundering and whistling. And then everyone, shouting, terrified, panicked, grabbing whatever they can manage to, starts to run as fast as their legs can carry them. They cannot move out of the way earlier, because no one knows for certain when the train will arrive, and, moreover, one cannot see it from a distance: it comes barreling out from behind a bend. Thus there is only one thing to do: save yourself at the last minute, in those seconds when the enraged iron giant is already coming at you headlong, rushing like a lethal rocket.

Through the window I see the fleeing crowds, the frightened faces, hands instinctively raised in a protective gesture. I see people falling, rolling down the embankment, covering their heads. And all this in clouds of sand, flying plastic bags, shreds of paper, rags, bits of cardboard.

It is some time before we finish rushing through the market, leaving in our wake a trampled battlefield and billowing dust. And people, who no doubt will now try to restore some semblance of order. We come to a spacious, peaceful, unpopulated savannah, on which grow acacias and blackthorn bushes. Madame Diuf says this moment when the train knocks down and, as it were, blows up the market is ideal for thieves, who are lying in wait for just this moment. Taking advantage of the confusion, concealed behind the curtain of dust raised by the train wheels, they pounce upon the scattered merchandise and steal as much as they can.

“Ils sont malins, les voleurs!” she exclaims, almost admiringly.

I tell the young Scots, who are on this continent for the first time, that in the last two to three decades the character of African cities has changed. What they saw just a moment ago — the beautiful Mediterranean-like Dakar giving way to the frightful desert Dakar — is an apt illustration of this change. In the past, the cities were administrative, commercial, and industrial centers, practical constructs, performing productive, creative functions. Typically of moderate size, they were inhabited only by those who had employment there. What remains of these cities today is merely a shred, a fraction, a fragment of the former cities, which even in small and thinly populated countries have expanded monstrously, become great metropolises. True, urban centers the world over are growing at an accelerated pace, because people pin on them their hopes for an easier and better life. But in Africa’s case additional factors came into play, which further intensified this hyperurbanization. The first was the calamity of the drought that descended on the continent in the 1970s, and then again in the 1980s. Fields were drying up, cattle were perishing. Millions of people were starving to death. Millions of others sought salvation in cities. The cities offered a better chance of survival, because international relief supplies were distributed here. Transport in Africa is too difficult and costly for such supplies to reach the countryside; therefore, the inhabitants of the countryside must journey to the city in order to take advantage of them. But once a clan abandons its fields and loses its herds it will not have the means to regain them. These people, now permanently condemned to depend on international relief, will live only as long as it is not interrupted.

The city also tempted with the mirage of peace, the dream of safety. This was especially so in countries tormented by civil wars and the terror of warlords. The weak, the defenseless, fled to the cities, hoping to increase their chances of survival. I remember the little towns of eastern Kenya — Mandera, Garissa — during the Somalian war. When evening approached, Somalis arrived from pastures with their herds and converged around these hamlets, which each night were encircled by a glowing ring of lights: it was the newcomers burning their lamps, tallow candles, torches. They felt calmer closer to town, more secure somehow. At dawn, the band of lights died out. The Somalis dispersed, walking with their herds to distant pastures.

That is how drought and war depopulated villages and drove their inhabitants into cities. The process took years. It involved millions, tens of millions, of people. In Angola and in Sudan, in Somalia and in Chad. Everywhere, really. Go to the city! It was an expression of hope, and also a gesture of despair. After all, no one was waiting for them there, no one had invited them. They came spurred on by fear, with the last ounces of strength, just to find a hiding place, to be saved somehow.

I think of the camp we passed leaving Dakar, of the fate of its residents. The impermanence of their existence, the questions about its purpose, its meaning, which they probably do not pose to anyone, not even to themselves. If the truck does not bring food, they will die of hunger. If the tanker does not bring water, they will die of thirst. They have no reason to go into the city proper; they have nothing to come back to in their village. They cultivate nothing, raise nothing, manufacture nothing. They do not attend schools. They have no addresses, no money, no documents. All of them have lost homes; many have lost their families. They have no one to complain to, no one they expect anything from.

The increasingly important question in the world is not how to feed all the people — there is plenty of food, and preventing hunger is often only a matter of adequate organization and transport — but what to do with them. What should be done with these countless millions? With their unutilized energy? With the hidden powers they surely possess? What is their place in the family of mankind? That of fully vested members? Wronged brothers? Irritating intruders?

The train was slowing down; we were nearing a station. I saw a throng of people dashing toward the train cars, desperately, as if a crowd of would-be suicides who in a minute would fling themselves beneath the wheels. They were women and children, selling bananas, oranges, grilled corn, dates. They pressed around the windows of the cars, but because their goods were laid out on trays which they held atop their heads, one could not see the sellers’ faces, only competing heaps of bananas, which were being pushed aside by stacks of dates and pyramids of watermelons and jostled by tumbling oranges.

Madame Diuf immediately commandeered the entire span of the window with her magnificent self. She picked through the heaps of fruits and vegetables swaying above the platform. She haggled and quarreled. Occasionally, she would turn from the window and show us a bunch of green bananas, or a ripe papaya. She would weigh her loot in her soft, plump hand, and exclaim triumphantly: “À Bamako? Cinq fois plus cher! À Dakar? Dix fois plus cher! Voilà!” And she would stash the purchased fruit on the floor and on the shelves. There weren’t many other buyers. The fruit bazaar undulated before our eyes practically untouched. I wondered how these besieging people made a living. The next train would not pass this way for several days. No settlement was visible nearby. Who do they sell to? Who buys from them?

The train jerked and set off, and Madame Diuf sat down, satisfied. But she sat down in such a way that there was now noticeably more of her. She not only sat down but sprawled out imperiously, as if she had decided to liberate her massive body from its hitherto invisible corsets, to let it breathe, set it free. The compartment filled up with the ever expanding, panting, and sweaty Madame, whose shoulders and hips, arms and legs lorded over us, pushing Edgar and Clare (the Scot and his girlfriend) into one corner and me into the other, until I had barely any room left at all.

I wanted to step out of the compartment to stretch my legs, but this turned out to be impossible. It was the hour of prayer, and the corridors were filled with men kneeling on rugs, bowing rhythmically. The corridor was the only place where they could pray. Even so, the train ride posed a liturgical problem: Islam commands its faithful to pray facing Mecca, whereas our train constantly swerved, turned and changed direction, positioning itself at such angles as to put the faithful in danger of prostrating themselves with their backs to the holy places.

The train twisted and turned, but the landscape was always the same. The Sahel: an arid, sandy, beige, at times brown plain, heated by the sun. Here and there, above the sand and the rocks, patches of dry, rough, straw-yellow grass. Bushes of pink barberries and slender, bluish tamarisks. Scattered over the shrubs, grasses, and earth, the thin, pale shadows of the knotty, thorny acacias, growing all around. Quiet. Emptiness. The quivering, white air of a hot day.

In the large Tambacounda station, the locomotive broke down. Some valves burst, and a stream of oil trickled down the embankment. The local boys hastily filled their bottles and cans with it. Nothing is wasted here. If grain spills, it will be carefully gathered; if a pitcher of water cracks, every drop possible will be saved and drunk.

It looked as if we were going to be standing here quite some time. A crowd of curious onlookers from the town quickly assembled. I encouraged the two Scots to step outside, have a look around, talk a little. They categorically refused. They did not want to meet or speak to anyone. They did not want to get to know anyone, visit with anyone. If someone started to approach them, they turned and walked away. Ideally they would prefer simply to run. Their attitude was the result of limited but bad experience. They had seen that whenever they engaged in conversation with anyone, that that person always wanted something from them later. Different things: help securing a scholarship, employment, money. He or she invariably had sick parents, younger siblings in their care, and had not eaten for several days now. These complaints and lamentations were constantly repeated. They didn’t know how to react. They felt helpless. Finally, discouraged and disappointed, they made a joint decision: no contact, encounters, conversations. And they were now sticking by this.

I told the Scots that these requests on the part of the people they had met follow from the belief of many Africans that the white man has everything, or that, in any event, he has a great deal, much more than the black man. And if a white man suddenly crosses an African’s path, it’s as if a chicken has laid him a golden egg. He must take advantage of this opportunity — he must remain focused, must not miss his chance. All the more so because so many of these people really have nothing, need everything, and want so much.

But this behavior is also a manifestation of a great cultural difference, a dissimilarity of expectations. African culture generally is a culture of exchange. You give me something, and it is my responsibility to reciprocate. It is not only my responsibility; my dignity, my honor, my humanity require it. Human relations assume their highest form during the process of exchange. The union of two young people, who through their progeny prolong man’s presence on earth and ensure the continuation of the species — why, even that union comes into being through an act of interclan exchange: the woman is traded for various material goods indispensible to her clan. In this culture, everything assumes the form of a gift, a present demanding requital. The unreciprocated gift lies heavily on the head of the one who has received it, torments his conscience, and can even bring down misfortune, illness, death. Thus the receipt of a present is a signal, a goad to immediate reciprocal action, to a quick restoring of equilibrium: I received? I repay!

Many misunderstandings arise because one side does not understand that things of a very different order can be exchanged; for example, we can exchange something of symbolic value for something of material value, and vice versa. If an African approaches the Scots, he showers various gifts on them: he bestows upon them his presence and attention, imparts information (warning them about thieves, for example), ensures their safety, etc. It goes without saying that this generous man now awaits reciprocity, recompense, the satisfaction of his expectations. It is to his astonishment that he observes the Scots make sour faces; more, that they turn on their heels and walk away!

In the evening we continued on our way. It grew a bit cooler, one could breathe. We were traveling east, deeper and deeper into the Sahel, into Africa’s interior. The train tracks led through Goudiry, Diboli, and a larger town already across the border in Mali: Kayes. At each station Madame Diuf shopped. The compartment was already bursting with oranges, watermelons, papayas, grapes; now she bought carved stools, brass candleholders, Chinese towels, French soaps. Each transaction was punctuated with her triumphant cries: “Voilà, m’sieurs, dames! Combien cela coute à Bamako? Cinq fois plus cher! Et à Dakar? Dix fois! Bon Dieu! Quel achat!” She now took up the entire length of one banquette. I lost my seat entirely, but even the Scots had only a small sliver left on the other side of the compartment, now packed to the rafters with fruit, laundry detergents, blouses, bunches of dried herbs, sacks of seeds, millet, and rice.

I had the impression — I was a little drowsy and felt that I was coming down with a fever — that Madame was becoming ever more immense, that there was more and more of her. Her full bou-bou caught the wind coming in through the window, swelled, ballooned like a sail, undulated and fluttered. She was returning home to Bamako, proud of her cheap purchases. Satisfied, victorious, she filled the whole compartment with her person.

Looking at Madame Diuf, at her ubiquitousness, her dynamic and commanding presence, her monopolizing and unapologetic omnipotence, I realized how much Africa had changed. I remembered how I had ridden this railroad years ago. I was then alone in my compartment; no one dared to disturb the peace and encroach upon the comfort of a European. And now the proprietress of a stall in Bamako, the mistress of this land, without so much as blinking an eye, pushes three Europeans out of the compartment, demonstrating unequivocally that there is no room for them here.

We reached Bamako at four in the morning. The station was full of people, a dense crowd stood on the platform. A band of feverish boys burst into our compartment: Madame’s crew, come to carry her purchases. I walked out of the compartment. Suddenly, I heard a man shouting. Pushing my way in that direction, I came upon a Frenchman in a torn shirt sitting on the platform, moaning and cursing. He had been robbed of everything the second he stepped off the train. All he had left was the handle of his suitcase, and now, brandishing this scrap of leather, he was shaking his fist at the world.