I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan

The Market in Abidjan

4 Pap Khouma Illegal How does it feel to be an illegal immigrant? Terrible. Mostly because you have to compete with people just as bad off as you. An immigrant has to put up with everyone and everything . He has to keep quiet and accept the worst of everything because he has no rights. He has to suppress every reaction, empty himself of his personality, and face the fact that there’s nothing he can do. Take, for instance, when I find myself face-to-face with a police officer. The first rule is always say, “Yes, Boss. You’re right, Boss. Sorry, Boss.” Rule two: Look down. It shows that the illegal immigrant respects the uniform and that he gets who’s in charge. These rules aren’t written down anywhere, but you need to know them by heart. If the officer’s chest starts to puff up right before your eyes, and he even sprouts a few inches taller, well, then, maybe you’re off the hook. You’ve earned his charity and he just might let you go. I sold for years and then I decided to stop. But there are guys who only know a life of selling. They started in Africa as kids, like their grandparents and parents. Selling was the family business. I, on the other hand, was the first to sell in my family. I learned in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. I used to sell ivory there to Italian and French tourists. From Senegal to the Ivory Coast, then to Italy. From Italy I went to France, with my eye set on Germany, but there I Was an Elephant Salesman 5 they turned me away at the border because I didn’t have enough money on me. So I went back to France, but I didn’t want to live there. I was always scared there. I don’t even know of what, but I was always scared. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all; maybe I just imagined it. The whole time I was in France I never had trouble with the police, but I was always waiting for the worst to happen, even if they never even asked for my papers. All my problems were money related, and maybe also related to the fact that the Senegalese there were not the most hospitable. I crossed back into Italy and started selling again until I was able to find myself another job. Selling brought me only fear and anguish because I had to run away from the police an infinite number of times, because they confiscated my merchandise, because I ended up in jail, because people looked at me assuming the worst— that is, when they weren’t cursing me for setting up my elephants and necklaces in front of their store. But to understand all this better, we have to return to Dakar. 6 Pap Khouma Africa November 1979. One day I got on the train. I was twenty -two. In my pocket I had thirty thousand CFA francs on me—which came to about one hundred and twenty thousand lire—and the idea to get to France sooner or later, where I planned to work on my pottery. I had been trained as a potter in a school in Dakar. I knew how to mold clay, shape vases, bake, and design. I used to paint flowers. When I chose to become a potter I broke with family tradition. I should never have chosen this line of work. It wasn’t for us. We were a poor family but at one time an important one and so tradition demanded that we not dirty our hands with certain professions. No law prohibited me from making my beautiful pottery. It was custom that advised against it. My father told me this, day in and day out. But I liked to mold clay and paint. Better to forget tradition than spend one’s life doing nothing. In Senegal there is no shortage of people hanging around doing nothing. Strolling along the white streets of Dakar is a national occupation. My country is divided up according to a caste system. It is poor and seems to be getting poorer all the time. After ten years of drought, the peanut-farming industry is now suffering. Other countries produce peanuts now too so the prices have plummeted. In Senegal there is a socialist...