Dakar is a world of its own, as are most African capitals, who take on a
culture and an economy of their own largely separate from the rest of the
nation.  But not far from Dakar is a world of escape even more unique than
Senegal's capital.  The urbanites and expats take refuge there on the weekends,
but the Petite Côte also plays host to numerous troops of French traveling on
package tours.  

"This place has the same relationship to France that Cancún does to the United
States," observed an astute colleague, and that helped me put the rest into
perspective: ostensibly luxurious hotels with deep pools and carefully
manicured garden borders, fishing excursions into the deep waters off the coast
for Marlin, massage with essential oils, henna treatments, and gift shops full
of neat little things.  The dozen or so hotels that have set up shop along the
long, placid coastline south of Dakar all vie with each other for "correctness"
and quality of restaurant.  They're nice enough, and comfortable (though the
word "luxury" means something much greater in the Yucatan and elsewhere.  This
isn't Monaco, after all).  But I had the pleasure of traveling to the Petite
Côte in the company of several dozen well-educated African colleagues, and was
able to see the place through their eyes.

I learned more about France and the French than I did about Africa that weekend
(I'm sure one would learn more about Americans than Mexicans in Cancún, as
well).  The open buffets at dinner had been carefully calibrated to French
tastes: dishes of carefully pickled crudités before the meal, long platters of
cheeses (some of them oozing), and tall baskets of bread, alongside trays of
mysterious whipped meats, blended mysteries, and strange little things encased
in clear gelatin.  There was lots of seafood -- after all, we were seaside.
And the bar was stocked with Pastis, Martini, Cointreau, and the like.

As revealing was the entertainment, i.e. the evening "spectacle" in which
Africans danced, sang, and performed. One entertainer purported to reveal
"African wisdom" that was rather a series of careful one-liners unrelated to
any African proverb we'd ever heard. Others play-acted funny skits that were
risqué, but not too risqué. On call at one hotel was a troupe of Colombian
dancers, all morena, slender, and well groomed; they were desperate to chat
with me in Spanish, and complained at length how far away they were from
everything (Latin America, obviously, but even the temptations of the
Senegalese capital!). Seemed like they were well paid, though.

My favorite was "African night" in which the evening meal purported to be
African traditional dishes like chicken cooked in ginger sauce.  I asked my
African colleagues if they recognized any of it: No (It was delicious anyway).
Same went for the dance that evening: beautiful but unrecognizable to any of my
Senegalese friends.  Was it from another region, like the Congo?  "... or
France!" responded my Senegalese friend.  Outside, the hotel had arranged a
sidewalk fair for artisans, mostly retired Frenchwomen selling interesting
jewelry they'd created.

It seemed clear that if we don't understand Africa, it's because we haven't
really tried.  We have learned to like traditional African food and music
without preserving the authenticity of what we've adopted, much the way
American Chinese food is only vaguely Chinese, and Italian pizza around the
world is anything but.  No worries, as Africa continues to grow and develop in
its own way.  But we will apparently someday discover that we are at a
disadvantage, and what we "know" about Africa turns out to be anything but the
truth.  Perhaps, deep down, we remain afraid of this scary and different
continent, even after all these years.