In Search Of Vieux

When I was working at my internship at ASBEF Dakar Grand Yoff, one of my best friends there was Vieux. He was a life saver when it came to getting me involved with different activities and helping me ENORMOUSLY with the research that I needed to do for my class entitled "Directed Research" but should more accurately have been titled "Extremely Undirected Research". He helped me make contacts that I never would have made without him. He is also one of the most, possibly THE most, selfless person I have ever met and was also one of the only people in the entire country who I felt really understood me. The relationship was only made slightly, or very, awkward by the fact that he kept asking me out and telling me that he was in love with me.

We have kept in touch periodically over email since I left and the last time I received an email from him he gave me his new cell phone number. About a week into my stay here I tried to call the number and got a woman speaking Wolof. I panicked and hung up. Oops. I tried again and whoever answered the phone told me that he didn't live there anymore and that she didn't have his new number. With this news, I had only one options: I would have to go to his house.

He lives quite a distance from me in a neighborhood called Parcelles Cité Fadia. There's a bus that goes by my house (down Bourgiba) that says it goes to Parcelles so I decided to take that bus in hopes that it would bring be to the right place. Sadly, it did not. Instead I ended up on the other side of Parcelles and then in HLM Grand Yoff. Since I really had no idea where I was in relation to Cité Fadia, I had no other option but to take a taxi and hope that I recognized where I was. Luckily, I did. Well, the main road anyway. As we got closer, I began to get a little nervous that I would end up wandering up and down the sand streets looking for the house.

One of the landmarks that I remember very distinctly is a dentist's office and a cyber cafe at the corner of his street. Apparently neither of those exist anymore. The only other landmark that I seemed to remember was a bakery called "Le Bon Pain" but I couldn't remember if that was where the turn for his house was or if that was something that we used to walk by on the way to the turn. Not recognizing anything else, I walked up that street where I found a familiar looking boutique (luckily those don't usually go out of business!) and then, his house. I told the people standing outside that I was looking for him and they said, "C'est Aicha?", that's my Senegalese name. They brought me into the house where most of his family still lives, including his nieces and nephews that were tiny last time I was here! His sister went to get him from a few blocks away where he now lives with his wife (they got married last May).

I had thought it would be kind of fun not to tell some people that I was here and then just show up randomly at their house. I didn't plan to do it on purpose, but that's exactly what happened with him. He showed up, we talked, we went to his wive's house and had lunch. I gave him and his nieces and nephew presents. The kids are SO cute and a really good way to practice and learn Wolof because they don't care if you don't understand what they are saying, they just keep talking! Overall, I ended up staying there for about 6 hours and probably would have had a harder time getting away if he hadn't had to leave for work.

Apparantly the number that he had given me several months ago was the cell phone number of his neighbors who had since moved. I now have his current cell number.