As I was doing homework, I suddenly realized: you have no idea who I am, do you? And I figured I would fix that, and tell you a bit about me, and about how I ended up halfway across the world, from Dakar to Paris to SF. I hate doing homework anyway.
Sooooo. I was born and raised in Senegal, a
small, beautiful country on the West Coast of Africa; I loved living there. I
used to go to France to visit family every holiday, but I was always eager to
go home. We lived in a house about five minutes away from the beaches (because
they were a lot of beaches – we were
right on the coast); the perfect place. Today, the Almadies neighborhood is the city’s posh, kinda snoby neighborhood, full of expensive
nightclubs and fancy restaurants. But twenty years ago, my father was the first
– yes, the very first – to ever build a house there; we owned the only house
within miles. A few years later, other families settled next to our home. They
were almost all white families. It was interesting to be the only black family around
in our own country. My best friend was a blond girl with blue eyes – Tania; we
were always together until she went back to France. Life in Senegal is easy
with its year-long summer weather, and people are welcoming. Mind you, Senegal was
actually awarded 6th most welcoming country in the world! So when my
parents announced that we were moving to France after I finished high school, I
cried for 15 minutes, at least. Now, I know what you think. Poor Brigitte is
moving to Paris, how sad! Well, yes,
I was sad. I was going to leave my high school friends behind, my house, my
ROOM. I didn’t want that. And I don’t even see why people love Paris so much...Don’t get me wrong! It is beautiful, it is the capital of Fashion, and I do
have fun there. But when you’ve lived in Africa for your whole childhood, you
do not want to leave. In my case though, the sadness didn’t last. I had another
objective. The U.S.A; better yet: California.
See, I am one of these people who,
as a teenager, saw America through the media and especially channels such as
MTV, with its reality shows (The Hills
or Laguna Beach). I was a fervent viewer
back in Senegal, and it didn’t change when I moved to Paris. I practically
learned English with these shows. I know. As lame as it sounds, through them, I
saw California as the dream land where everything was possible – even the
impossible. I was already seeing myself as a rich and famous it-girl walking down Rodeo Drive with a
dozen shopping bags and high heels, followed by paparazzi. I am just kidding…a
little. Of course, my life here has nothing to do with all of that. It doesn’t
mean that I stopped dreaming about it. I went to a French-American business
school in Paris; they were offering an exchange program in San Francisco, and
now, I am here. Let’s say my dreams are now more realistic: at the airport, the
hard reality hit me right in the face. I was no celebrity, no it-girl. I didn’t
need to hear (or understand the unsaid) that I looked so suspect that they had
to put me in a separate line and look at my things. Why? I don’t want to know. I
did realize that after 9/11, it would be difficult being in a US airport as a
stranger, but this much? I felt immediately unwanted, and my feet began
touching the ground again. In other words, I woke up.
The hassle to find a place to live
was the second obstacle to my future-fabulous-and-happy life – if we want to
stay optimistic. I went places that made me question my faith in humanity. Some
people actually try to rent places that could only be good for rats. It’s my
faith in God, however, that was reinforced when I found the perfect room
completely out of the blue. Someone must’ve
been looking after me: a girl from SF State was leaving the room she was
renting near the campus, and posted a picture of the house on Facebook. I
wasn’t the first to see the post, but I was surely the first to pick up my
phone, because I got the room five minutes before another girl called. Talk
about luck: the house was well decorated, the bathrooms were clean, and the
bedroom quint and cozy. I didn’t even want to think about it; I just knew I was
going to be happy there. I snapped a ton of pictures and sent them to my
parents. They were just as happy as me. I had been in San Francisco for only
three days. I paid for my room and spent my first night out of Mom and Dad’s
house. I thought I was prepared for that moment; I thought I would be scared in
a way, and excited in another. I was actually very sad. I missed them terribly.
A couple of days after I moved to
my student room, Orientation Week started at the university. It was supposed to
be a way of welcoming students, and it was, but I don’t think it worked out as
well as I would have wanted. There were house parties and trips planned by the
Exchange program committee, but at the end of each day, I still felt like I was
out of place. I didn’t share the love of partying and drinking alcohol all
night. I didn’t like to “get wasted”. I was the only African girl, and whether
or not that mattered, I was feeling lonely. That was when I met my boyfriend (yaay). He was nice and handsome with his thick brown curls which turned red under the sunlight; bright blue
eyes shaped in a way that made him look always tired. That day, he was wearing
a beige cardigan and blue jeans, and was carrying a (completely busted) black backpack – that I
wish he could get rid of now. He was very handsome, but that’s not why I fell
for him. I fell for him because he had the courage to come and introduce
himself, out of the blue, at the bus stop. Who
does that? I thought it was funny and interesting. Of course it wasn’t the
first time a guy came up to me; every girl gets that. But it felt good, for
once, not to be whistled at, or not to be called “Sexy”, “Mami”, and other
petty ways to show interest in a woman. We spoke for a while and he eventually
asked for my number. I wanted to say no. In my country, a girl cannot give up
her number like that. We don’t do
this. We like men to court us, to
keep running for a while, before we even accept to talk to them. It always
sounded ridiculous to me, but at that moment, I realized that my first thought
was: Wait, he can’t have your number just
like that. You don’t even know him. What
would Mom say? Before my mind could put its veto on the matter, I heard myself say “Oh sure! Here, 415…” I was
angry at myself. Afterwards, everything happened fast. What was I thinking, you
ask? I wish I knew. I was only going to be here for 6 months. What’s going to happen after that? I
thought. I was only going to suffer and make someone else suffer…unless I
stayed. I am now here for another two years.
Don’t get me wrong, I am graduating
in two years; that is why I am
staying in the first place. But a new relationship makes you decide faster, makes
things more dangerous, complicated, and beautiful as well. I left everything I
knew and loved, and it may or may not be the biggest mistake of my life: I fell
in the trap of loveeeeee and affection (Holla Riri! Holla Future!). However, though I was afraid to be hurt, San
Francisco is the kind of city that makes you see new opportunities over time.
There are so many things to see and discover that I know I'll be okay no matter
what happens.
Do you think I'm crazy?
Brigitte
