This week was the opening of the 3rd Annual FESMAN, a global festival celebrating black and african arts. It is in Dakar. This is spectacular, but also very telling.
Last night, for example, I went to see a concert as part of the program. It was a concert to present various Haitian talents, including well-known Wyclef Jean. I got to the location, at the foot of everyone’s least favorite monument. The stage they had constructed, which had seemed to me before a very nice setup, now had a large temporary construction in front of it, allowing only those “VIPs” fortunate enough to enter to see the stage itself. There was a large TV screen playing a live feed for all other viewers, but being so close to the stage itself it seemed silly to have to watch on a screen. What’s more, the sound was barely audible from behind the barricades, the acoustics not well accounted for.
I was there with some American friends and some other students who study in both the English Language Institute and the Business Program at Suffolk with us. One student from Benin was trying to convince me to go up to the guards with my SLR camera (looks slightly professional) and my white skin and ask to enter, because he wanted to see if it would work and he wanted to get closer.
Because I am both slightly shy about some things like this and because I am very, very furious about the disadvantages placed on the local patrons, I refused.
He was frustrated, and so was I.
