So much more

"For better or for worse, it is so much more." Wise and resonant words from another MSID student and friend about our burgeoning relationship with Dakar.
(Also, for significantly better writing about our experiences here, you should just read her blog).
I had not fully appreciated the "more"-ness of Dakar (seriously, Mollie writes much more eloquently than I do. Just go read hers) until I spoke at length with my mom about my experiences here.
"The weather is so humid! Is everything airconditioned?"
*Falls to floor, laughing* "Hell no, well... my school is... but I mean no. I have a fan though! And it's not so bad really. We shower a lot."
"Are the roads paved?"
"Some are, but not really in the neighborhoods. I mean now they're rivers because it rained and there isn't any drainage but the roads are pretty good. And hey at least the wifi is working because it normally cuts out when it rains!"
.
.
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"This is the capital city right? I thought it was more developed."

That word, developed. A word that slipped through my own lips so easily just a week ago. I now understand why some are so vehemently opposed to its use. It is at once a solemn judgement and a meaningless description.
Words cannot do justice to just what Dakar is. That peculiar mix of my family's ginormous flat screen and the dirt road outside, the two maids and the sheep on the roof, living in the nice expensive neighborhood but passing countless beggars on the street.

That's a brand new car driving down a completely flooded street

So is Dakar, and by the same turn Senegal, developed? Developing? Third world, low income, traditional, sustainable, dependent? A non-producer, an import only country, an international aid darling, an up-and-comer?
Dakar is nothing like NYC or Ottawa or London or Rio. It is to its very core African, Senegalese, shaped by some of the more unique circumstances that history can offer. To measure it by any standard other than its own is in many ways meaningless. For better or for worse, Dakar is so much more.