Zyphera

Senegalese, Baye Fall and musician in a reggae band: this is how he introduced himself.

We shared our commute to work every morning during six months in Dakar, taking the same bus or walking the same road.

The first time I met Moussa, I was sitting on a milestone, bored and waiting for the « tata » bus, in the heat. He asked me a few questions to which I politely answered with nods of my head. From that moment, we met every morning. Whether packed tightly between dozens of sweating people on the bus or walking together through the sand, we talked every day and about the same things -we never reached to the same conclusion. Life, religion, music, education, women, men, development, money…everything passed through our minds. He told me about his poor conditions, about which I was unable to do anything. His unique appearance of reggae singer mixed with his deeply religious view of life constantly surprised me. We were complete opposites in our personalities and our lives, but we shared one thing: we both persisted. We stubbornly held onto our own points of view, without realizing that, perhaps, we were influencing each other. One Friday, we met after prayers. I made him notice that when he prays, some others pray as well, as Jewish. Shocked and then startled, he told me :« Do not say it again in the street ! ».

Despite of his past thirty years old, his precious dreadlocks, tiny nose and round eyes gave him a teenage look.

One day, I will be back to Senegal. Maybe we will still be friend and we will share more than our way to work.