Warding Off Marriage in Senegal

By aileen on November 24, 2010

“Je t’aime” (“I love you”) are likely to be some of the first words I hear out of Senegalese men’s mouths when I meet them. As a white American woman (otherwise known as a “toubab” or white westerner to the Senegalese), I’ve had to learn to ignore obsessive attention from Senegalese men. I’m frequently asked if I have a husband, a question that I would never get during a two-minute conversation as a 20-year-old in the United States. For the sake of ending the conversation, I respond, “Waaw, am naa jeker.” (“Yes, I have a husband”) in the local Wolof language