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

Street-Smart . . . Beach-Smart

14 Pap Khouma way. I have many brothers and sisters: about thirty, more or less. We don’t keep count because it is bad luck. I want to help them all. I want to leave and break free of this poverty that I just can’t seem to shake. I want to leave to come back a rich man. I fantasize about freedom. I am young and somewhat rebellious. In Senegal the father is in charge. His word is law. He is the head of the family, the voice of authority , and he has the right to tell you “This is good” and “This is not good.” You have to ask his permission before going on a trip. He can forbid you to leave if he thinks it is an “unfavorable day.” In many other matters as well you have to obey him. Instead I want to do as I please, even if it is not the day he has chosen for me to leave. So I secretly get ready, and when I decide to finally leave, I do it without anyone knowing. I am stubborn, the most stubborn in the family. And now I have decided to run away, by plane this time, and to Europe, and once again at six in the morning. I don’t tell anyone except my father, who as always I tell at the very last minute. Where I come from we don’t advertise when we leave on a trip for fear that the news will end up on the wrong people’s lips. It is better to wait, because if things go badly and they send you home immediately—as can happen if you don’t have a job or papers—there will always be someone to spread the word that you never even set foot out of your house. “What a liar he is!” they would laugh behind your back. I don’t want this, especially from those who should understand how painful it is to leave. So at six in the morning I leave. Destination: Germany. But to get to Germany, I have to first pass through Italy. It is July 21, 1984. I Was an Elephant Salesman 15 Dakar–Riccione The plane has taken off. By now Dakar is far behind me. The sky is blue and you can begin to make out the outline of the land of the tubab, which still seems like the land of happiness. I am calm. The words of the fortune-teller were clear: You, young man, will go to the land of the tubab. So, what could go wrong? Mamma mia, what will become of me? Hovering in the air between one coast and another, one sea and another, I can feel the anxiety spreading, and nothing can contain it. There are other Senegalese with me on the plane, but fortunately only a few. They are silent and sullen, their mouths shut tight. They look like men who have just been sentenced to a sad fate, and are praying that the good Lord remember them. The moment is about to come when our lives will change, when we will have to use our brains, our arms, and the money that we have saved or borrowed. I feel as if I am jumping from a sinking ship, and I blame our government for its sinking. The other passengers, the whites, see our anxiety and they reassure us: Everything will be OK, it will all be OK. I believe them and pray to my God. “The pilot has informed me that we are now flying over Sardinia, and the weather is . . .” Who cares about the weather? As soon as I hear them say “Sardinia” my stomach knots up like when I was sick in Abidjan, and my courage flies out the window. Mamma 16 Pap Khouma mia. Dear, dear Senegal. Beautiful Senegal. My brothers, sisters , friends, heck, even a future wife: I want them all here with me in this moment instead of the shoes and the clothes of the tubab, the beautiful shoes and clothes of the tubab. I would give it all up just to go back, but instead I am flying over Sardinia. I hear my fellow countrymen whisper and mumble, itching in their seats. One after the other, we dig deep into our bags and pockets and pull out little bottles containing a liquid for good luck. We...