He tells me that we’ll meet at ten in the morning and we actually meet at ten in the morning. Ish. He is fifteen minutes late.
“I told you an earlier time ‘cause I don’t like to wait,” he says. I laugh. What an ass. But it’s OK. I expected it. I was late, too.

He pays for the taxi though I would have preferred to take the bus. I want to make a point of this not being romantic, want to make a point that he has not “claimed” me, that we are here as buddies, that I will not be touched in any way or with any intention or stickiness I don’t want to. I know he picks up on it. I know he plays it right back, writing off his offerings as “being nice” because of course he will pay, don’t even worry about it, Senegal is all about Teranga, there is noooothing expected in return while his hand casual lands on my thigh. Laying traps for me to stumble into, to get sticky with guilt and with thinking oh isn’t he a nice guy? Well luckily I have done this before; I have practiced to shamelessly brush off advances, keeping my body, my self free. Belonging only to me and my own desires. Yes; I chose this for the headache and the fight, the high-level practice in boundary-setting. It is fun.

And he is fun, he is fun; I wouldn’t hang out with him if I didn’t want to. He likes to blabber and amuse me with stories and tease and make jokes about people passing and take space with his body and charm. Just gotta keep this little friendship from showing on the dance floor later so the other leads won’t treat me as “his”, meaning so they won’t avoid dancing closely with me or looking at me or asking me to dance in fear of overstepping on “his” property. Now that is a real issue: how to stay on his good side and enjoy the benefits of friendship (or courtship?), maybe even flirt a little but without things getting out of hand.

And how else would I know to go to Ngor island? By the North shore (Dakar is all shore on all sides; a pointy triangle sticking out on a spear of land) everyone spills out of taxis and cars on the parking lot to take the small side streets they know so well – the walls full of swimwear and colorful dresses for sale – down to the shore and then elbow for a ticket and elbow for a life jacket and elbow for a space in the long, colorful pirogues just coming up to the shore, to squeeze together on the small wooden benches and leave with laughter. Suddenly, these otherwise calm Senegalese are nothing but elbows!

We get the tickets and put on the life jackets and sit to wait for the next pirogue. It is still early and pretty peaceful. We stand in line and I take off my shoes to walk the short stretch of water before climbing in through the side. Many small boats stand bouncing in the waves. The ride is short, the distance barely five hundred meters.

We get off from the pirogue and hand in our life jackets into a messy pile. The beach is short and narrow, full of sunbeds and palms and small hotels and restaurants springing up just behind, music blaring from huge speakers and fish being fried. But somehow it doesn’t feel all so phony and touristic. Through narrow roads he leads me into the island, chatting with people he knows on the way. The streets are framed tightly by walls and palm trees. He insists on looking for a hotel room. With discomfort rising in my gut I say that that is not really necessary; I like neither the implications of it nor the thought of sharing the cost. But I don’t say all that. I just say that it is not necessary. I ask him what is the point really but no, my will in this is nothing; he is taking me out, so he is the one setting the itinerary. He wins this round.

The room is on the second floor of a house with only a bed (an empty mattress with a dirt-yellow sheet on it) and a balcony. I do not like that it is rented by the hour and I do not like how easily he settles in the room, but I do like the view and the birds and the calm, and the fact that from the other balcony I can look down on people hanging out by the sea without them seeing me. I like that we can leave our stuff here, sure, it is safer when we go to the beach later. He has brought a speaker (because we said we’d practice kizomba) and he has brought his own sheet and massage oil with snails floating inside and I sigh and prepare my horns again for a fight; no massaging. No.

The beach he takes me to is calmer one, a smaller one. “The second beach.” There is space to sit on a stone ledge and the water comes in soft and clear. Many people are already playing in the water or snacking on the shore. Music is playing. Some are playing ball. From time to time someone goes for a round of the traditional, Senegalese wrestling, a group gathering around to cheer, hands relaxed into paws and searching the other, naked feet drawing the feints in the sand. I remember that many Africans can’t swim and my observation is proven right as most stay standing in the water or float around using floating devices. The water is very nice. It cools me, relieves my skin from the heat. The salt keeps me floating as I lay on my back and my ears submerge and the noise disappears for a moment. It is too lovely.

My date-friend- guy turns out to know how to swim. We splash water on each other and climb the sharp rocks and bop in the soft waves and look at Dakar on the other shore.

My jaw relaxes a little as we play and have fun but then he remarks how another guy is flirting with me as if that guy was being disrespectful to him and I want to sigh and laugh and groan again. What an ass. Fun, sure, but an ass.

So why did I come, why did I agree when I suspected it would be a fight and a bother? Did I have reason to guess I would have to set and re-set my boundaries every other minute? Did I honestly think it would be innocent and platonic and that we would share the cost of the taxi as if we were friends and I was not simply someone he was trying for as a trophy? Me and my white skin-me. I don’t know. How could I know? I just wanted someone to bring me somewhere, show me something, talk to me as if I was a person. An island sounded like fun.

So I tried it. And now we know.

I do want to spare the details of the twenty drawn-out, bickering rejections concerning massages, touching and sex. That part was no fun.

I do want to cherrypick and remember the best parts: the clear water, the lazy, playful atmosphere, the smiling people. How we really, seriously practiced kizomba and I learned many moves and that he was serious and kind and focused when he was teaching. How I had a delicious sandwich which he ordered for me just as I wanted it (and that he didn’t want to give me my change as long as anyone was looking because “it doesn’t look good to give money to a woman here,” which I found funny.) How he really did go above and beyond to show me this place and make sure I had a good time (despite him hoping for sex.) How we filled up the pirogues with all the others on the way back that evening and shouted and screamed together as our pirogue competed with the other one starting from the shore, everyone cheering and shouting in their bright orange life jackets, waving, filming. How we walked part of the way back and actually, really, truly had a nice conversation about Descartes and I came to see his philosophy through an African perspective through the noise of the traffic, with the sun setting and the street lights coming on. So what if I have to butt heads sometimes in order to have a good time? I say come! Let life be complex and let my annoyance mix with gratefulness. I’ve slept well this past few weeks; I can afford.

…

(This story told in pictures and video.)