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As of this year, I have been actively working as a journalist for thirty years. If there is one thing those thirty years have taught me, it is how no westerner’s words can fully describe the beauty of West Africa or the strength of the African soul. My first true love, Senegal, must define herself and does so – in her own words and action. As a result, mine are superfluous. Additional. And will never truly capture what I am trying to say.

I was 21, the first time I came to Dakar. I had already spent time in both Abidjan and Abuja, so West Africa was beginning to get under my skin, but Dakar was different from either of the other two cities. The Wolof sensibilities permeated everything, with its patience and perception. On the radio, Youssou N’Dour represented the Serer musical tradition, already back then, in 1986. Two different expressions of African culture that were tied together by me, into one experience of a multi-faceted country. A city of many faces.

It was in 1986, in Dakar, while working at the French Embassy that I met Didier. The many impressions of this new world, this new context that I had placed myself in, were beginning to make their way onto paper and Didier was the editor of an anthology of poetry and short stories, written by natives of and strangers to Dakar’s many neighbourhoods. Centred on the mixture of Wolof and French language. He had heard about my work and wanted me to contribute. In more ways than one, I was flattered and gladly agreed to write a few poems for his consideration. The first to make it into the collection was titled "in the bush (ndank ndank)" and, to interpret my own writing, was about a French homosexual man’s settlement into an African Muslim culture.

Ndank ndank mooy jaap golo ci ñaay, they say in Senegal. Slowly slowly one catches the monkey in the bush. Living in the open, even in a city like Dakar, even today, is not an option for most. It certainly was not an option for me in the late eighties, but Didier and I waited on the monkey, patiently. Like the Wolof wisdom dictates. In Dakar they are still waiting, they are still watching for their chance – meanwhile I have caught my monkey. After many years of waiting, along with the very people who taught me patience in the first place. The monkey is mine.

- The Ladies’ Man, Claude Bérubé