No Expectation

On the afternoon of January 1st I was sitting by a pool in Dakar, watching the pool boy try to knock a coconut off a palm-tree. I was wondering whether the coconut was going to fall into the pool. I was wondering where they planned on making pina coladas, and if I should pre-order one. I was wondering whether someone was finally going to call me about the meeting, for I was in Dakar on business.

You could not say that I came to Senegal unprepared. First of all, at the office Christmas party someone told me a story. A young Swiss banker gets an African account, goes there and then spends months on end in some seedy hotel waiting for the elusive client to close the deal. One day, having yet another cocktail on the banker’s shrinking expense account, the client leans towards him, smiling: “Perhaps I should explain something” he points at the banker’s wrist. “ In Switzerland, you have watches. In Africa, we have time.”

Following the Christmas party I left for Latvia, where the sun sets at 3pm  in December, and, if it rises at all, you won’t see it because of the snow-flakes.
A week of Nordic lifestyle, and I was no longer feeling skeptical about my business trip to Dakar. I was absolutely prepared to face any corporate disappointment, as long as my iPhone weather widget happily stayed on “Sunny, 27 degrees”.

So there I was, on January 1st, philosophical about my chances of getting anything done in the next few days.  And then I was proven wrong. As it turned out, there was not nearly enough time. The phonecall came, and we’ve swapped the hotel for a dusty road, where impossibly tall girls float through mud in high heels and perfectly tailored dresses. Our car passed crowded streets where every single person is an entrepreneur – from boys washing car windows to men selling prepaid phone-cards. Dakar is abuzz with business, and the beat of wheeling and dealing punctuates the day like the call of the muezzin. This may be one of the most industrious cities I’ve ever been to, next only to the Big Apple – though the logic of these deals, I am afraid, would leave the poor Swiss banker completely dumbfounded.

Then again, if you are in a music business, like me, then you are suddenly blinded by the  goldmine of talent, and you end up forgetting whatever it was you came here for. You listen, you watch, you dance – and then you realize that perhaps the only way to get things done in Dakar is to give up all preconceived ideas and let things follow the beat of their own. Suddenly, everything falls into place – meetings happen, doors open and you find yourself transported way beyond your expectations – if you had any, that is.
Then at the end of the day you get on a plane and wonder if this will still make sense back in Geneva … Insha’Allah.