mikadoo:

The eyesore Monument de la Renaissance Africaine up close.

Goddamn. This. Fucking. Statue. I remember almost two years ago this October coming up to Ouakam in that van we took up from Mbour and hearing Keely from the back saying, “Oh my god it has a head!” That piece of the statue (the man’s head) had been sitting on the ground next to his legs from before we arrived and this “monument” was finally starting to resemble Wade’s copyrighted “idea”.

Abbey and Kiersten told me about how they attended the grand opening of this statue the following semester during La Jour de l’Independence. Kids waving the Senegalese flag, women in skirts made of fabric with Abdoulaye Wade’s face on it, Ouakam packed with people. Apparently Akon was there too.

Senegal is a predominantly (95+%) Muslim country. This statue rests next to Ouakam, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Dakar, and my home for four months. There was a controversy over the immodesty of the statue’s dress. None of the three figures look particularly African. It cost millions to build.

Millions.

Yet still, the power would go out almost every day for the first two months I was there. And the talibé were always on the street.