It is pre-dawn on a chilly January morning, and the mosque speakers come alive with a hiss and crackle and the stirring call of the muezzin singing the first call to prayer.
Allaaaaah hu Akbar. (Allah is great.)
Hayya ‘ala-l-falah, hayya ‘ala-l-falah. (Hasten to real success. Come to prayer.)
Five times a day across the arm of Dakar and throughout Senegal, Muslims take down their holy beads and unroll their prayer mats toward Mecca. I awake to start my day more leisurely, getting up to heat water on the kerosene burner and sitting on the balcony with my devotional. Senegal is 94 percent Islamic and is tolerant of the remaining 6 percent, comprised mostly of tribal animists and various missionary groups. After being shocked awake by a cold shower (water heaters are an ill-afforded luxury here), I eat. Breakfast is water and powdered milk, boiled and mixed into tea, a baguette with chocolate hazelnut spread or Kiri cheese and some fruit, usually guava or oranges.
This is Saturday and my to-do list has only two errands, but in Senegal, it will take me most of the day to complete. The list reads 1) fish market 2) laundry. It’s a pace I’ve missed during my time living in Austin. Now, after more than 20 years, I’m back in Senegal, and it feels as though I’ve never left.
The street awakens in a rush of noise as the vendors set up their wares. Sheep baaa for home, sharing the road with the first of the traffic. At the port of Soumbédioune, fishing boats start to come in with the dawn, their crews tiredly triumphant, for today the market will have fish. I jostle with the crowds for a place in line as restaurant owners write up their lunch special and the days catch is made into Ceebu Jën, a delicious platter of fried rice, fish and olives, cabbage, carrots and manioc, perfected in Senegal. Ceebu Jën is served best with bissap, the red, cold national tea made from hibiscus petals and sugar.
