Finally I find the African market and I slip in and get lost. It’s right next to the Medina market but totally different: no tourists, no streets but narrow aisles, barely wide enough for two, running straight between food stalls with food stuffs piled and overflowing into the aisle, tiny hair salons side by side, electronic shops, fabrics stacked in confusingly colorful piles. I jump over and duck stuff, watch my steps, turn sideways to make space for people passing and it is wonderful because it slows me down and gives me more time to take in the million things going on: hair being braided, foreign foods and roots and spices, language and laughter all around, loud music. Bodies close. No place to escape from all the eyes boring into this white stranger, wondering what she wants here; it trains me to relax and keep my focus and I notice that at this point, I am pretty good at it. I feel at home.

The first time I visit the market I am aimless and shy, just looking for a reason to hang around. I am kind of hungry; the perfect reason. Some women in one of the hair salons ask me what I am looking for the third time I pass them, and in my broken French and through all the noise I tell them I am looking for something to eat. Do they know someone who cooks here? I get help finding a mama who serves Senegalese rice. Waiting in her crammed corner-resto with loud music from the opposing salon giving it the feel of a club, I finally feel at ease. When the rice arrives it’s so delicious I want to cry. (The next time I eat there with my friend I really do cry because of the spices. I eat, tears running down.)

On my way out one of the days I walk into a dance circle. It has something to do with football I think; it always does. Women from some salons are wearing the colors of Ivory Coast and playing loud music and showing off and when they see my smile they encourage me and I join them and we dance together. They shout and laugh. We shake, move, take selfies and they are rowdy and beautiful and I agree on having the colors of Ivory Coast be painted on my face with nail polish, even though they’re kind of not the right ones, and when I leave I feel elevated, held, loved.

…

(This story told in pictures.)