Just next to the fish market (unfortunately, as well as a sewage outlet into the sea), a huge local artisan market called Soumbedioune sits on the Corniche, the main road into town. In that market, tourists can buy anything from t-shirts and hand-made purses to paintings and sculptures. This is the saga of our purchase of a throne.
Hidden in the back of market is a small store full of statues, beads and antiquities collected by an older man named Monsieur Diagne. The store is packed with items, dusty, precious. In that store, I'd seen a spectacular beaded throne. It was probably Camaroonian, a throne made for royalty, covered with tiny beads and shells. And I was curious about the price, so I took Michael there to meet the owner.
Over time, when you've been in Dakar for a while, when you enter markets like this, you are not a tourist. You are "Madame Dakar," so the negotiations are different. This time, we sat down to discuss this throne with the Msr. Diagne. Very quickly, the seller learned that we were not tourists and that Michael was the Peace Corps doctor, so sent his son off to buy us sodas, and he started discussing his health problems. He told us a bit about his life, that his first wife (always the most important) had given birth to seven babies, and all had died.
You hear something like that and you pause and consider how fortunate you are.
As a successful businessman with four wives, he was feeling old, worn, and his fourth wife, a relatively young woman who lived in Touba, a holy city, had left him. He couldn't sleep through the night.
Michael moved away from me and began talking discretely with the store owner, discussing his problems. He told the man that we liked the throne, but we weren't going to talk about that this day; we were going to discuss his health issues. So, we left with his phone number and a promise to take him to a good doctor for a diagnosis. Michael is prohibited from treating anyone other than Peace Corps volunteers, but he knows who are the best doctors here, so he can make good referals.
The next day, we sent our guard, Patrice, to take M. Diagne to a doctor Michael knew. Come to find out that he had diabetes, a common problem here, but he'd probably had it for many years. She gave him diabetes medicine and also other medicine.
Michael had told M. Diagne that he wanted to see any medicine prescribed before he took it. So, M. Diagne drove his old car (a true sign of wealth to own such a car) and came to our house, drank juice, showed Michael his prescriptions, and Michael sent our guard, Patrice, with the money to buy the medicines. M. Diagne mentioned that as a Muslim holiday was coming soon, he needed to go to Touba, a holy city, to visit one of his wives and buy a lamb and food to feed many people.
Again, we didn't talk about buying the throne yet.
But then M. Diagne called. First, he tod Michael that the diabetes medicine was working. For the first time in many years, he could sleep through the night. But he also remnded us that a holy holiday was rapidly approaching, and he needed money for all the food he'd have to buy. He wanted us to buy the throne.
Michael and I had a long discussion about price and came up with an amount we'd be willing to spend, so Michael called M. Diagne and told him an amount we'd spend, promised that we'd come to his boutique and asked him to consider what he'd sell us for the amount we'd spend. When we arrived, his first wife and son were there, awaiting us.
M. Diagne told us that the amount we wanted to spend was hundreds of dollars less than he'd usually sell the throne for but that with a sweeping gesture, he said that he would give us everything in his store to pay for being able to sleep through the night. And then he sold us this spectacular Cameroonian throne.
But this was not all. He had noticed that I liked a beaded mask. His first wife handed me, as a gift, the mask.
We were both touched, tearing up at the gesture.
Our saga with M. Diagne continues, but I'll end here and tell more later. Now the throne sits in our living room and the mask on our wall. They will come back to America with us, not just as symbols of African nobility but also of generosity of spirit.
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