Elevator

Author's note:  I've been surprised to hear the elevator part of this story in various forms from other people.  In fact I've heard it often enough that if I didn't know that it had actually happened, I'd think it was an urban legend.  Perhaps all of the stories originated with this one.  Or perhaps this is a common example of culture clash between technological and non-technological cultures.

This story happened to another Peace Corps volunteer named Jeff.  Jeff was posted to a village outside of Kaolack (pronounced "cow-o-lack"), a Wolof village in the northern part of Senegal.  All of us that were living in villages had been adopted by African families, our hosts.  We adopted an African name with our host's family name and became a member of the family.  This was important as many of the greetings involved using the family name and a non-African name simply confused things.  So I was Jibril Biaye, with Biaye being a Balant name.  This sometimes raised eyebrows since it was unusual for a white man to have an African name.  But generally the eyebrows had already been raised when they learned that I spoke a couple of African languages.  So by the time they learned that I had an African name, there were no more eyebrows to raise.

I spoke Balant and Mandinka, languages spoken in the southern Casamance region of Senegal.  But Jeff spoke Wolof, a completely different language.  One day, Jeff took two of his African brothers to the big city of Dakar.  Neither of his brothers had ever been more than a few miles out of the village before.  I'm not sure that either had ever even been to Kaolack, with a population of about 100,000.  The village population totalled fewer than 100, so Kaolack would be a big city in its own right.

Kaolack is a distinctly African city.  But Dakar is not only bigger (population about 2.5 million, with 1 million living in the city proper,) but is very western.  Downtown Dakar looks a lot like downtown Paris with shops, paved streets and sidewalks, cars, traffic lights and any number of things that you won't normally see in a traditional African town.  An African who had spent his whole life in a small village would feel very out of place.  Culture shock doesn't begin to describe it!

Jeff wanted to show off "his" culture to his brothers.  So he took them first to the shore.  Dakar is a port city with a lot of beautiful sandy beaches fronting the Atlantic ocean.  Jeff was surprised when neither brother would cross the line from pavement to beach.  After come coaxing, one of them came a little ways onto the beach, but the other was not to be persuaded and would not even come onto the sand.  

Jeff asked them why they wouldn't come down the water?  One, staring fixedly out to sea in amazement, said, "It never stops moving."

Neither man had ever seen the ocean before.  In fact, neither had ever seen a lake, or any body of water larger than a puddle.  Remember that these men were products of the Sahel, the subsaharan desert of norther Senegal.  The sight of seemingly endless water, constantly moving in waves to the shore frightened the bejeezus out of them.  It turned out that they were afraid that the ocean waves would get them, take them out to sea and they would never be heard from again.  So they kept a healthy distance.

Abandoning the idea of teaching them to swim, Jeff took them to a restaurant to sample western food.  And not just any restaurant, but the best one in Dakar.  It happened to be at the top of the tallest building - all of 6 stories - where it commanded a wide view of the city and the surrounding area.  They walked into the lobby and Jeff parked his two brothers near the elevators while he went to chat with a staff member about the reservations.  He was gone for a couple of minutes, but when he returned neither of his brothers would get on the elevator.

As one of them explained it, they had been waiting for Jeff when a part of the wall they were facing opened and two men walked into a small room.  The wall closed again, and a few minutes opened again.  But the room - which had no other exits - was empty.  The men had obviously vanished into some nether realm.

Jeff tried in vain to explain to them that it was only an elevator and would take them to the restaurant on the top floor, but they weren't having any of that.  They refused to get into it.  So they went to a different restaurant on the ground floor.

You might wonder how it is that Jeff's brothers would not accept his explanation, or at least take his word for it that they would be safe, since Jeff had taken elevators many times before without incident.  The Africans, or at least the villagers, understood that things were different for white people than for them.  I was often told by the folks in Bafata that "that's true for white people, not for us."  I have no doubt that Jeff's brothers were convinced that Jeff would get out of the little room at the restaurant, while they would vanish away into the spirit realm, never to be seen again by living soul.

And they weren't taking any chances!