Maman Louise

“You can’t live on a muesli bar and vitamin supplements for three and a half months,” I tell myself. I’m hungry and looking for a restaurant in Dakar. I only arrived yesterday. I still have one muesli bar. I can feel the sweat running down my spine. It is hot and humid and I am nervous because my knowledge of French can only be described as “très petit”. I don’t know Wolof, which most “Dakarois” speak or at least understand.

I pass general stores, which are called “boutiques” here. A bakery. At the stadium, on the walls of which small shops cling, like swallows’ nests: a “Bijouterie Africa”. A “Coiffeur Africa”. A shop that calls itself “Schengen” and offers backpacks. Brooms, neon lights, shoes. A kiosk gives off the scent of grilled chicken. I have no appetite for that.

The Avenue du Président Habib Bourguiba is asphalted, the pavements, if any, sandy. At the side of the road, young men devotedly lather up taxis painted black and yellow – I can feel their discreetly curious glances at my back. It smells of petrol and washing-up liquid. At one corner a little house, painted blue and white. “Restaurant Maman Louise”. I don’t know the dishes painted on the tin wall. I enter.

The room is small and dark. In the back, women stirring in large pots. One points to a table under one of the big ceiling fans, brings me a plate with rice, some fish, a few vegetables. Thieboudienne, Senegal’s national dish. It tastes delicious. I dare not drink from the water. My 1,000 CFA note is rejected. The most resolute of the women, I suspect Maman Louise, takes a 500 CFA coin out of my purse. “Au revoir!”

Delighted, I return to “Maman Louise” the next day. I am once again carefully placed under a fan, at the table a taxi driver already feasting. The 500 CFA coin I put on the plastic tablecloth after the meal is rejected with a shake of the head. I add a second 500 CFA coin. Madame gives me back 300 CFA. I marvel at the rapid inflation, Madame at my astonished look. She beckons a young woman in an elegant boubou to my table. “Bonjour Madame, how are you?” What a relief! The lady speaks English! And explains to me that a lunch dish costs 600 CFA. Yesterday, Maman Louise wouldn’t have had any change, so she settled for my 500 CFA. And today she took the opportunity to get the “deferred” money back. “Thank you very much for your explanation!”, I say. And ask myself: How could Maman Louise have known that the shy white woman, the “toubab”, would come back the next day?