“Where do you go when you sleep?”

…

I go back; cycle the same road north, back toward Dakar. I have passed familiar villages, camped in the bushes, boiled my eggs over a campfire.

It’s noon when I cycle into Foundiougne. The sun is up and I am filled with anticipation; I spent a lovely day here on my way south, and it’s a bit like coming home. I expect to meet Mama Hadji, to buy a sandwich from her shop and sit and chat with her, her neighbors and family again. Like last time.

But the streets in Foundiougne are empty when I arrive. It’s Friday; everybody is at home or out of town. A girl I don’t know is working in the sandwich shop and she tells me that Mama Hadji has gone away over Tabaski. Also, all the food is sold out for the day and she is just about to close the shop. I mosey out to the street again, hands hanging, unsure what to do with myself now.

…

“How can you write if you don’t know who you are?”

…

People pay unusually little attention to me as I bike around aimlessly; they don’t shout or pull me in and suddenly I feel shy, finding it hard to approach people and ask where I can find food.

Finally I stop to ask two of the few people who are out: a mechanic working on a moto and his Baye Fall friend sitting on a bench. I greet them and they invite me to sit with them. I ask if they know where I can find someplace to eat.
“What do you want to eat?” they ask me.
“Anything,” I say. “Just some rice or a sandwich or whatever.”
They think for a bit and tell me it will not be easy today, as everyone is resting.
“Is Thiepp OK?” the mechanic asks me, not lifting his focus from the bolt he is tightening.
“Yes, anything!”
“Allright. Come.” He gets up and wipes his hands on a rag, then heads into the little workshop and ducks behind the counter. The brings forth a stool and places it in the small space between the shelves buckling with spare parts, tools, oils, wires and all sorts of muck. He takes out a covered, metal bowl and a spoon, gestures for me to sit and places the bowl on the floor before me. He lifts the cover and presents me with his leftover lunch: delicious-looking yellow rice and a generous piece of meat.
“Are you sure?” I ask him. “You’re not going to eat this?”
He shakes his head and urges me to go ahead. I ask again if he is sure, invite his friend who just shakes his head and then dig in, shovel spoon after spoon into my mouth. The mechanic pours me cold water from a thermos and I drink and eat, grateful for the meal.

I stay chatting with Osman the mechanic and Suleyman the Baye Fall. Suleyman tells me that many Baye Fall will come to Foundiougne tomorrow for a big celebration. He invites me to stay and to come and meet the local Baye Fall teacher. I am already a little familiar with the Baye Fall from my first two weeks in Senegal; their practices, values and community. What I saw then was calm, gentle and generous people who nurtured their communities and worked hard, yet still found plenty of time to relax, joke and loiter around. I was provoked, then, when I heard their talk of equal value between people of all colours, religions and genders, yet saw how women still were not invited to participate in the communal prayer but instead stayed on the side and watched while the men sang.
“Will there be drumming?” I ask, and Suleyman smiles.
“Lots!”
“And can I dance, too?”
“Of course!”

Suleyman brings me to his compound where I meet his family and am warmly welcomed by his mother, who comes out on the porch just to press my hands in hers. It is closer to sunset when we head to the teacher’s house a few blocks away. People are coming in from working outside, pots are steaming and barefoot children are running everywhere in the big, labyrinth-like courtyard. The children come close to look at me and the bike while the adults are content with just shouting and laughing.
“Eeeey, look! Toubab!”
“You better lock your bike here, just because of the kids,” Suleyman tells me.

A woman meets us, smiling; smiling as she takes my hand, smiling as she leads me inside; smiling a wide, peaceful smile, her heart shining out of her face. Inside the house, the rooms are empty and quiet. The floors are clean and tiled with white, big tiles; the walls are painted blue and above the lush couches hang gold-framed portraits. We go into another room to wait for the teacher. I am told to keep my shoes on, but the others take theirs off. They gesture me to sit on the couch while they themselves kneel on the floor. When the teacher joins us Suleyman gets up to meet him, then crouches down before him. They greet with the Baye Fall handshake, by holding the right hands and then alternating between bringing the backs of the hands to each other’s foreheads. The woman doesn’t get up but crawls to the teacher on her knees while looking at the floor, smiling and bowing down even lower as she takes his hand and brings it to her forehead. I am not sure if I should stand, kneel or stay sitting as I get introduced. The teacher, too, has long dreadlocks reaching down below his shoulders, a bright blue robe and necklaces around his neck. He walks in a stride. When the greetings are over the others sit back down on the floor and the teacher begins to address me.

“Do you know the one true name of god?” He pauses briefly after every question before picking up the next one.
“Do you know who you are? Do you know really, truly who you are? All god wants for us is to find our true selves, so this is what we must do. Who are you? What is the soul? When you sleep, where do you go?” His voice is strong and he gestures with both hands. He mixes French and Wolof and I struggle to catch up, both because of the languages and because I am not sure what is expected of me here; I was expecting to have a conversation, but instead I feel like a kid put into a school desk. Suleyman and the smiling woman translate some of it but mostly they look on, beaming and nodding along while the teacher does his lecture.

Suddenly he stops to ask me my name and where I come from. The questions are so sudden among all the rhetorical ones that I almost don’t answer. He turns to Suleyman and molls over the pronunciation of my name, not paying any more attention to me, then thanks us and sweeps out of the room. The others turn to me, beaming, and I gather that this was it.
“There is space for you if you want to stay the night,” the woman tells me while squeezing my hands and leading me out of the room.
“You can come and stay in my house,” Suleyman offers. We make our way into the yard, all the children gathering around to look at me again as I unlock my bike.
“Are you coming tomorrow?”

More people are joining us as I lead my bike toward the gate.
“Hey, wow, beautiful, where are you from? I love your eyes!”
“Are you hungry, do you want to eat?”
“Do you want some water?”
“You can leave the bike here, it’s safe! Don’t worry!”
“Did you meet our teacher?”
“Thank you, thank you, that’s very kind…” I manage in between, not knowing who to turn to or what to say as everyone is talking at the same time.
“There is another white girl here, you should meet her! She speaks English!” someone says, and approving exclaims are heard through the crowd. That piques my interest. Another white girl? A Baye Fall, a traveler?

Somebody runs off to call her and soon she joins the crowd: a young girl, her blonde hair in thin dreads and dressed in a similar colorful robe as the others. She smiles and comes to introduce herself. Then asks me the same questions as everyone else.
“Are you hungry? Will you be staying the night here? You can sleep in my bed, I will sleep in another room!”
“No, no thank you, that’s very kind,” I am standing by the gate now, ready to head out.
“I really need a little time for myself,” I say. “To rest a bit.” I don’t know if she, or anyone, takes notice of how many are trying to talk to me at the same time.
“Do you live here? How long have you been here?” I ask her.
“For about a year. I live in another village nearby but I came for the celebration. You spoke to our teacher, right? He is truly a great man! How was it?” She is beaming like the others, a wide, relaxed smile.
“Umm, yes, I guess he was speaking more at me…” I get distracted as someone else tugs at my sleeve and asks me where I’m from for the third time. Her smile falters a little. At the same time I feel that I want to leave, now.
“What do you mean?” she asks, but then my own smile comes on and brings me momentum.
“It was interesting, thank you so, so much for everything!” I say over the noise, gripping my bike and turning to leave. I look for Suleyman and the smiling woman in the crowd, reach out to touch their hands.
“Thank you so much for having me! I will go now, but I will see you tomorrow, OK? Thank you for everything, yes, I will come to your family compound tomorrow morning! OK, OK thank you!” I interrupt all other questions with more thank you:s and start pushing my bike down the sandy road.
“OK, see you tomorrow,” Suleyman says.
“Promise to come tomorrow!”
“Do you need someone to show you the way back?”
“Hey, where will you sleep?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night here? You can sleep in my bed, I will sleep in another room!” I only smile and wave and keep walking.

Not until I am further down the road do I let my face relax and breathe out. I get on the bike and pedal, looking forward to some bushes and a campfire and being alone; I feel like I don’t even want to look at another person right now. Something else feels like a knot in me, something uneasy. I think of the woman, crawling toward the teacher on her knees, head bent and looking so happy, submissive. I shudder.

…

“All god wants from you is to find your self, your true self.”

…

I wake up early and the sun is already high. I’ve spent the night between a field and a dry riverbed, the tide having drawn back the lagoon. The bridge of Foundiougne curves white and high over the water, way off on the other side of the town. I have my morning coffee and watch a large herd of cows stroll by further away on the dry lagoon, their light hides like shades of sand billowing gently. Legs like a marching forest. I wave to the barefoot boys following behind and they wave back.

Suleyman’s compound is already full of people when I arrive around noon. Tents are pitched, people are loitering and resting on mats in the shade from the big mango trees while more people bustle back and forth over the yard. In the furthest corner of the compound three pots are being set up over gas cans, each pot big enough to bathe a toddler. A dead sheep hangs from the tree in its back legs and some of the men are occupied with skinning it. Others are seated around big plastic tubs and either chopping onions or peeling or chopping potatoes. Most are men, though a group of women have claimed one of the onion-chopping tubs. Laughter, voices and music fill the yard. Everyone in their finest, colorful dress, beads, dreadlocks and beaming smiles.

I am taken around and introduced, my hand is shaken and brought to foreheads. Suleyman’s wife strides forward through the crowd, her hair wrapped in colorful fabric, big earrings dangling and a long dress billowing after her. She takes my hand and welcomes me to the house, then turns to shout instructions on how to cut the potatoes, turns again to point and order somebody else to run and bring oil from the store. She turns back to me with a smile and I realize, impressed, that she is in charge of all the cooking today.

They chase someone else out of a chair so that I can sit down in the shade with the elder men and women. Suleyman’s brother Ousman introduces himself, smiling a tooth-less smile from the next chair, and then we’re off:
“So, what is god, do you think?”
“What is the difference between men and women?”
“What do you think happens after death?”
“Where do you go when you sleep?”
I do my best to reflect my thoughts in my arid French; that the soul does not have gender; that god is grater than any word or image can imply. Both Ousman and Suleyman sit and nod thoughtfully as I try to construct sentences, and I have to hand it to them for being patient. I ask about their family and stories, which is easier, try to talk about mine and like this we pass the time.

When my head feels too tired from the French I ask to help with the cooking. Suleyman’s wife oversees my assignment to one of the potato-tubs and makes sure that I get a chair and a knife. I get seated with the guys and it takes a few potatoes until they cool down and everyone has heaved out their exclaims, jokes about the white one joining them and the “I want to marry you”-type of remarks. Then the conversation turns back into religion and spirituality and I have to repeat my thoughts on the soul, the genders and god.

In the afternoon I am invited to share a plate of rice with Suleyman’s mother and afterwards she offers me her room to take a nap. By the time I come out the sun is setting. One of Suleyman’s sisters brings me a dress to wear and I am happy to go to the party wearing something else than my dirty shorts and t-shirt. Meanwhile the music from the festival area a few streets down is getting stronger, excitement is building in the air as people pass on the street outside.

Out back the pots are boiling, sizzling, steaming and bubbling. Darkness falls, and flashlights illuminate sharp circles of light for the working hands, darting here and there between pots, plates and tools. I can nothing but admire the Baye Fall’s ambition to work together to feed everyone; I don’t think I have seen so much chopped onion before in my life. When the rice is done the food gets portioned into big plates, one plate for about ten people. The sauce is steaming in the light of the flashlight, pieces of meat and potatoes are carefully picked out for each plate, then the sauce drizzled over the rice. I get invited to eat in a small side room with Suleyman’s mother and Ousman; a little more peaceful.

…

“You are thinking, thinking, always thinking! Stop that! There is no space for god if you are always busy thinking!”

…

The drums are banging, everybody is jumping, shaking, the voices rise and chant; a male voice turned sharp and nasal, almost grating through the speakers, is leading the chant while the hundred or so men reply. An oval space is left in the middle of the crowded party tent for the musicians and the main singers. Around the tent are more people, most of them elders, sitting in chairs. I feel like a part of it and not, wanting to dance but uncomfortable by how people stare at me. None from Suleyman’s family that I know is around, and almost everyone here are men. The chant is also a little painful for me, the voices sharp and loud. When a small group of women comes in, all wearing matching dresses and their hair done up with white fabric I stay close, enjoy both their presence in this male space as well as their softer, fuller voices when they take over the microphone.

Suddenly a younger man comes up to me in the crowd, gets really close to my face and takes a hold of my arm.
“Hey white, you gotta dance with me!” I instinctively take a step back and pull my arm free, but before I have even said “let go”, all the attention of the people around is on us and another man has stepped in. He takes a hold of the guy and practically lifts him out of the crowd and out of the tent. And that’s that. Everyone around me goes back to dancing. I nod a short thank you to my rescuer and go back to dancing too, feeling a little shaken but very, very touched; they stare, yes, but they are also keeping an eye on me to make sure that nobody bothers me and that I am OK.

During the small hours I am enjoying some Café Touba outside on the street, resting a little, when I notice the white girl from before. She is wearing a handsome black-and-white robe and a big necklace, and I shout and wave her to me. She has just arrived. We greet and she points to a pile of sand behind us.
“Sorry, could we go and sit over there? I have been scrubbing the floors all day, I am so tired.”

We go and sit in the sand and look at people passing on the street, greeting and smiling, dancing and chatting. The music resonates from the tent. As she drinks her coffee I ask her how she came here and she tells me about coming on a sailing boat to Senegal, having just had her masters in biology and set to do research on sustainable farming, her passion and speciality being fungi.
“I met a woman here who was Yaye Fall and she was just so… happy,” she says. I think back to the smiling woman I met the day before.
“And she seemed to love her teacher so, so much. She brought me to him one day and it was as if he just… saw me,” she goes on. “Since then I have been here, learning the Baye Fall way.” Her eyes are far away and her voice is dreamy, a slight smile on her lips.
“I always felt like there was something missing before, all my life. Now I have found it. Our teacher is a great man, and all the people from Europe will come here to see him one day, I am sure of it. Since I found this, not even the mushrooms have called to me.” We watch the people moving on the road before us. After a while she turns to me.
“What is it that you’re doing? How come you are here?” I wait for a moment, unsure what to say. I am used to people asking me this, but I never really know if they want to hear the long or the short version. I feel like this might be an occasion for the longer version, as she told me her story, and I tell her how I travel by land and spend time in every place to learn about life from different people. About my wish to write and share what I’ve seen.

As I talk I remember my purpose and intention, remember that I am living my dream. That I wouldn’t want to be nowhere but right here, in the middle of this strange mystic party, sitting on a pile of sand at three in the morning, tired and overwhelmed.

But the girl seems to grow impatient. She looks around, fiddles with her dress and finally she interrupts me:
“How can you do all that, how can you write if you don’t know who you are?”
I pause. I have never claimed to know who I am; neither that that would be a problem. There are many tangles in the notions of “knowing” and “self” which do intrigue me, my former post-humanist student-nerd me, and I decide to take her train:
“That is a good question,” I say. “I think that becoming oneself is a process, and there is value in sharing that process, even if-”
“I think you have to know who you are,” she interrupts me again. Now her voice has lost the dreamy tone.
“You know, the problem with the westerners is the lack of connection,” she goes on. “People are so disconnected. From each other, from the planet. No wonder that things are the way they are!”
“Yes,” I say, “I relate to that. Do you-”
“There is only one way to go back, to fix it, and that is by connecting to oneself; finding out who you are.” She stresses the words and I realize that she has stopped listening. “You know, all god wants is for us to know ourselves,” she continues, and I suppress a sigh of frustration because even if I agree with her words and ideas, I dislike the way she is laying them on me. She continues, repeating the familiar rhetorical questions that seem to be the refrain of this town.
“Tell me, what happens when you sleep? Where do you go? Your body doesn’t go anywhere, yet you are somewhere else. Tell me, where do you go?”
“I don’t know,” I sigh, “what do you think?”
“No, what do you think?”
“Umm, well I guess that the soul goes somewhere,” I ponder. “But it’s not so important to me to name the place-”
“It goes somewhere, but where? See, our teacher, he has never gone to school, but he knows the answers, he is very intelligent! Wait!”

Suddenly she jumps up, shouts and waves to a guy passing on the street. She runs over and hugs him, giving me a few minutes to think about whether I am interested to continue having this conversation. I may not know who I am, but I do know that I am starting to feel annoyed. She brings her friend over and introduces him to me.
“He helped me so much with my spiritual development here!” she beams, her hand on his shoulder. “Like that time when I felt stuck counting rosaries and then I talked to him and he pointed out that I was still thinking and then I realized that I was thinking, even though I thought I wasn’t!” They beam at each other and I wish they would get a room.
“Good for you,” I say, as her friend sits down facing me with his legs crossed.
“I was just trying to explain our teacher’s ideas,” the girl says before I get the chance to say anything else. At that her friend turns to me, smile widening.
“So,” he says, and gestures with a firm hand toward me; “who are you?”

…

“All other prayer is nothing, forget about it! You will not have a need for anything else once you recite ‘Allah-illiah-illa-laa’! Forget about ‘oh dear lord’, forget ‘allah akhbar’, forget the ‘omm’! It’s nothing! It’s for fools! This is the one true incantation, the only thing that will purify your soul! There is nothing else!”

…

It is dawn and the mosquitoes are devouring me when I finally set a boundary.
“OK guys, thank you, I think I want to drop it now.” They look at each other, smiling. I have drawn the line shortly after the guy has started distorting his voice and face to mock the Muslim prayer, the Christian prayer and even Buddhist meditation practices.
“Yes,” he says and looks at me with a wide smile, “it is easy to get upset when speaking about topics like these.”
“Sure is,” I reply. I have neither raised my voice, hurried it or changed the tone. It’s probably better to give it up before I do; I am tired.

It feels like hours that we have been sitting here, me trying to ask questions only to get laughed at, interrupted and made a fool for my Buddhist principles, my admiration for Islam and my coming from Europe. It stings; my belief is that every person has something to teach me, but here my lesson seems to be where to draw a boundary when talking to somebody in religious rapture.

The idea that there is only one method to reach god, or enlightenment, provokes me. It implies that god is less than a multi-facetted, complex and generous creature, there to embrace all souls who wander towards finding enlightenment. Spirituality is inherently human and internal, never fully translatable out of the body, into words or symbols. It is when we try to translate it into something to be shared with others that it takes the shape of religion and ritual, which will always look different for every person and culture. But that is no reason to say that different practices will not serve to develop spirituality, as they are all translations of the same thing.

But I can say none of this in French.

A group of people pass, elated and chatty, and they stop to greet the girl and the guy. They greet me too, give up impressed shouts as I, too, turn the back of their hands to touch my forehead, ask me briefly my origin and then the first one jumps straight into business:
“We are Baye Fall. Do you know Baye Fall? Do you know the true name of god?” I laugh, not even knowing where to begin and say that yes, I have heard of the Baye Fall and that it’s very interesting but I am hungry and really want to go and find something to eat. That seems like a valid reason to let me escape another lecture.

…

The sun is up by the time I am back in my dirty shorts. The drums still echo through the town and the party is still going strong with new people joining as they wake. I hand back the folded dress and I thank Suleyman’s mother so, so much for her hospitality.
“But it is for you,” she says. “Take it!”
“Oh thank you,” I say. “You see I have no space in my bag, I can not possibly take it! It was very kind of you to let me have it tonight.”
I really just want to be on my way.

Eventually all the good-byes are said. The white girl has stayed by my side, like a tired shadow. I wonder when was the last time she saw another white person. I wonder if I represent that “western culture” that seems to have caused her pain and discomfort. I wish she’d see that I am running from it too. I feel annoyed with her for not listening and for pushing her beliefs on me, but if she is happy then that is all that matters.

I turn the corner and pedal down the main street as I let it all tumble around inside me; frustration, fatigue. I come up to the roundabout before the bridge. The market by the port is just waking, meanwhile the port itself is full of life with little pirogues docking and departing, people stepping into and out of boats, throwing produce and parcels between each other, motos, horse- and donkey carriages going to and from. It is a surprise; it’s Sunday morning.

Without much hesitation I turn into the port instead of heading up the bridge, brace myself for negociations and set my heart on a new way instead of going back the same road. Instead of empty salt pans I prefer the thought of taking a boat down the delta, the wide, quiet delta, resting from all the talk and napping on the waves.

…

Where do you go when you sleep?

…

(This story told in pictures and video.)