You’ve got a long way to go before you can get to this final stage of air travel in Senegal. Read on…
If you’ve ever taken a flight from the Léopold Sédar Senghor Airport, then you will probably understand a little about where I’m coming from in this blog entry.
[DISCLAIMER: This entry in no way purports to stereotype an entire component of the Senegalese population. Indeed, I am absolutely certain that somewhere someone has written a similar blog entry that turns the spotlight on me and pokes fun at the idiosyncrasies of the American traveler. What you will find here is merely the culmination of many flights that have taken me in and out of the LSS airport.]
Mama Africa.
You know her. She’s the middle-aged woman enrobed in layers of boubou who may or may not have a stick protruding from her gob. Air Travel Warfare begins the moment LSS ground staff gives departing passengers the vague signal to queue up and prepare to embark the bus taking everyone onto the tarmac.
Standing in line in this country requires deft footwork that, in the eyes of a Westerner, means that you are going to be playing the A-hole Card. This necessitates that you must ensure your spot in line by inching up behind the person ahead of you so that you leave exactly two centimeters of space between him and you. You leave any more daylight than that, and you’re going to have someone cut in and you’ll lose out on your chance to score optimal positioning on the shuttle bus. Once aboard the shuttle, you still must battle for your right to exist in this enclosed space- because if you don’t you will almost certainly be bowled over by Mama Africa and her assemblage of carry-ons that will certainly be positioned right in front of the bus door so that she attains a place of alighting primacy. (At least one of her carry-on bags, by the way, will be an overstuffed plastic bag with the words “Mauritanie Super” emblazoned on the side).
[DISCLAIMER NUMBER TWO: I will have you know that I am not the person who coined the term “Mama Africa”. It was in fact another Senegalese person who first attributed this epithet to these enterprising women- I am merely recycling the term in the name of convenience. Okay and also because I find it humorous.]
Once the airport transport shuttle lurches to a halt in front of your chariot in the sky, passengers await with anxious anticipation the dramatic opening of doors that lets everyone know that the 100 meter dash is on. You jockey for position to get to the foot of the aircraft ladder, knowing that you still must wield your boarding card even though they just fricking checked it before you got on the bus not even 100 meters earlier. As you hustle up the metal steps in order to escape the humid Dakar midnight, you stow your stuff quickly so that you have time to spectate the ensuing theater will commence tout de suite in the cabin.
Within the cross-section of passengers holding a Senegalese passport, you’ve got quite the mix of characters. From the quiet professionals heading out on another business trip who never cause a fuss, to the older gentleman en tenue musulmane who clutches a copy of The Koran in Arabic, to our character of the moment Madame Mama Africa. Everyone is coming aboard. Maybe it’s the bright color of her boubou, or maybe its the noisy jovial discussion in Wolof (this is not a language spoken in whispers) that she has with other passengers who quickly become her allies- but Mama Africa is the person who I am always going to observe with measured amusement as I sit quietly in my chair and wonder if we are going to take off on time.
Why yes- I do from time to time take stealthy photos of lousy quality with my iPad while I’m flying the friendly skies.
Mama Africa never sits in the right seat as indicated on her boarding pass. Either she doesn’t understand the aircraft’s seating system or she doesn’t care enough to pay it any heed (my guess is on the latter being true, because Senegalese really are a clever bunch). She will most certainly stow her plastic bags and settle herself into the exact opposite section from where she is supposed to be. It won’t be until the rightful seat owner comes along and requests that he claim his seat that the stewardess will come over and help interpret the seating code for the mis-seated passenger. Mama Africa will then have to shuffle past a now-solid line of cranky boarding passengers who now must squeeze to the side and make for an already unpleasant boarding process to be even more désagréable. This is why you want to get aboard early and be planted in your seat.
When she is finally escorted to her designated chair, it will invariably be in front of or behind you. As such, when you try to recline in your cramped slot she will forcefully deny your credit card-earned right to repose and push back on your seat back so that you are denied the opportunity to spent the overnight flight in a modestly-recumbent position. If she is seated in front of you, her headpiece will hang over your chair and you’ll have some pretty fabric to stare at for a few hours while you are stuck upright and unable to sleep.
Disembarking the aircraft is just as confounding. Remember how she first sat in that incorrect chair at the back of the plane and stowed her gear? Well, that stuff is still back there and rather than waiting for everyone to disembark, she’ll push her way past everyone who is calmly standing and waiting to get their things in the overhead bins. Once she’s got her bags retrieved, she will then push her way back past everyone and insist that she should be the first one to get off the plane. Elbowing her way past you as if her coach class ticket is somehow superior to yours, you sleepily come to the lucid conclusion that it is best to let her pass rather than make this a bigger issue than it already seems to be in your decorum-loving brain.
The Senegalese are athletes of transportation, and once we’ve all filed into immigration arrival area, these quarterbacks in African fabric continue with their shenanigans. If they aren’t cutting to the head of the long line as if they were some kind of visiting royalty, then they are positioning their carry-on bags (now ripping open because they are plastic) underneath the velvet rope dividers. As Mama Africa snakes her way through the series of cords, she leaves her bags unattended until she links back up with them on the opposite side- whereupon she then merely pushes them under the subsequent rope so that she can walk unencumbered by her pesky luggage- while the rest of us jealous suckers continue to schlepp our crap through the entire back and forth process because we are rule abiding citizens of international travel.
Oh and if she happens to be standing in line behind you- then she is literally collée to whatever part of your body or luggage that is most aft on your physical sphere. She does not observe the two centimeters of personal space separation rule.
Mama Africa.
But you know what? In the end we all get to where we need to go, and I am sure that this Senegalese woman arrives at her destination bearing bags that are filled with gifts from home that will be gratefully received by family or friends who miss their homeland. I get it. Furthermore, I can’t exactly say that I judge myself to be the consummate traveler. There have been a number of occasions where I have caught myself “spacing out” and doing my part as a member of the you’re-slowing-up-the-process human traveler population.
And I am sure that Mama Africa would agree with the Somali troubadour K’naan when he said “when you’re insecure about yourself it’s a fact, you can point a finger but there’s three pointing back”.
Galsen forever.