Je me suis tressé -- Yes, I have braids.

The white person who comes to Africa must do three things: wear an oversized necklace either made of "natural" wood pieces or thick gaudy beads, buy a bag made with African fabric, and get her hair braided. Now you can go back to wherever you come from--Europe, France, US--and tell everybody in appropriate tones "I've been to Africa." But as a resident toubab I feel some level of superiority over those people who come for a week, stay at a nice hotel in centre ville, visit the few tourist sites, and go home. Cushy, plush, no homesickness, no sickness whatsoever because they're eating in restaurants that cook imitation French food, and they're paying people to cater to their every Western need. They talk to a few vendors, a taxi driver, and feel like they "saw" Senegal. I know I need to work on my snubbery and I am, but it explains why I had--up until this point--not gotten my hair braided. This is no easy task in Senegal especially having long blondish hair and especially living in a salon de coiffeur all last semester.

So, why now? The timing seemed right since I'm almost out of shampoo and you can get your hair braided and it'll stay in for four or five weeks, during which time you don't wash it. Plus, I'm going to Mauritania (country directly to the north of Senegal) next week and I wanted something low maintenance (I don't want to spending a lot of time primping while I'm in the desert). And what dawned on me yesterday as I was promenading to the store and being inundated with attention (more than usual) is that I wanted to wait until I could at least dole out a few Wolof words, because people's first reaction is to say, "You're a true Sengalese now!" I don't take this as lightly as they like to hand it out so my small repertoire of Wolof helps me feel like I'm more deserving of being Senegalese now.

I spent the day in my host mother's salon with two or more people constantly at my head. My hair was stretched and pulled and picked and burned and cut and waxed and meshed and oiled and sprayed and I wasn't let loose for nearly six hours, except for the ten minutes I spent digging into a big bowl of ceebujen with the other hair stylists. And as I walked out to find the sun setting, the same security guards and people standing in the street almost nearly forgot to greet me in their suprise at the same? no, different toubab? as I came trudging around the corner making my way home to bed to rest this big head of hair that had been beyond coiffed.

In French, they say "je me suis tressé" as in "I got my hair braided," but translated literally it would be more like "I've been braided" and that's sort of how I feel especially seeing as how my head hurt for a good 24 hours afterwards (well the all-night dancing and drinking probably didn't help either). Also, a note to the purists, I'm not sure if "tresser" is actually a French verbe or if the Senegalese just use it in this context.