Whistle

In a New York Times article about Cairo written last year, the author wrote something to the effect of, “ In Cairo anyone can own a gun, but not everyone has a walkie-talkie,” meaning that those with walkie-talkies hold power. Regarding Dakar the sentence can be altered to, “ In Dakar, anyone can own a machete, but not everyone has a whistle.” Recently Inoticed the respect given to those with whistles while walking downtown. Cars were speeding around in every direction making it difficult for me to cross the street. At one corner stood a man in a navy blue over-shirt, whistle in hand, directing traffic. He stopped traffic to allow a car to back out of a parking space, which allowed me room to cross the street. Since that miraculous incident I have been on the look-out for whistleblowers. I noticed that those with whistles, mainly men, rarely blow into them. Instead, they wind the straps attached to the whistle around their hands, ensuring that the whistle faces outwards for everyone to see. It’s their badge of honor, so to speak.

Several of these whistle men were standing together, talking and gesturing for their whistles to be seen by all during another terrible Dakar traffic jam caused by a truck carrying rocks that hit a school bus, that hit a motorcycle. I noticed that everyone passing the accident, stopped for a few seconds to check out the damage to the bus and the truck. It is as if rubbernecking is a right given to drives upon completion of their driving test. I have never seen such systematic rubbernecking in my life. Each car pulls up to the accident slowly, stops, looks, shakes their head, sucks their teeth, and then continues to drive. This observation even happened from the cars in the same lane as the accident, which had to pull up onto the sidewalk to pass the accident. Once on the sidewalk, they stopped to look before maneuvering back onto the road. I would like to add that this applied to everyone from toubab, to Arab, to Senegalese. II just stood on the side of the road, waiting for the bus, laughing to myself, like the crazy toubab I am.