parting thoughts

In a world where young boys don’t beg at taxi windows in traffic

Where the smell of trash being burned mixes with poop of various animals

The generosity of a person you don’t know

Is allowed to stand still

Without being compared to a scarcity that is projected onto them from a religion of materialism

In this world

I try to learn from a lack of control

Sitting through traffic in downtown Dakar

I observe the street sides from the passenger seat

Admiring wax prints and silently judging other white people

I imagine the lives they have

the woman selling nuts window to window

Or the man holding dish towels between lanes

Leaving soon I’m trying to see everything with fresh eyes

Soaking in the magic of a huge bowl on a woman’s head and the piles of fruit being sold by the fruit sellers

The loaded shelves of boutiques

the epitome of abundance

in a place that is all too often defined by others as lacking