His ability to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations moved me to focus on sex, sexuality, gender, and health in francophone Africa. Bangoura’s welcoming me to the community and his organizing LGBT Senegalese shaped my own research interests within global health. He met me for coffee to introduce himself, the community, and his work. I contacted Djamil Bangoura who established Association Prudence, Senegal’s largest LGBT health and human rights advocacy group.
I put my head down while continuing to eat communally around the bowl with them, which is supposed to be an expression of hospitality.Īfter the first two months of my program, I needed an outlet. My host brothers stared at the news unwillingly and then quickly changed the channel. I feared telling him that I was gay in class because I didn’t know how it would affect my grade in the course.ĭuring dinner with my host family, the news reported about same-sex marriage in Italy. During a presentation on the role of women in Senegalese society, I retold that story, and my professor asked if she was pretty. In a Saharan village near Mauritania, a woman offered her sister to me within minutes of first meeting, and I smiled uncomfortably. Senegalese friends would ask if I was looking for a Senegalese wife, and I bashfully laughed. My host family asked if I had an American girlfriend, and I lied saying yes. He hopes to “fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively.” Gay Gambians flee to Senegal to escape President Jammeh’s crackdown because the situation is often more precarious for LGBT citizens in Banjul than in Dakar. Senegal is not the only country in francophone West Africa to codify systemic homophobia. Months before my arrival, the Associated Press reported the story of two Senegalese men who were sentenced and imprisoned in Dakar on charges of homosexuality. Living openly gay in Senegal was dangerous. Penal codes 320 and 321 define homosexuality as an “act against nature,” and perpetrators can face one to five years in prison coupled with a $3,000 fine. Speaking a new language, living in a new place, and taking on a new family name only augmented my crise d’identité.Īn American living abroad, I followed Senegalese law. To my Senegalese host family and friends. Speaking Wolof in the streets and French at home, all while lying about my sexual orientation Twitter During my four months abroad, I lived as an American in Senegal I made an unconscious decision to study in an anti-gay space and never realized I was to hide in the closet once more because Senegal is one of 38 African countries that penalizes homosexuality. I traveled to Senegal to spend four months interning for a global health organization and learning Wolof Twitter Jogging along the Atlantic Ocean and journaling in my notebook allowed me to escape from hiding in the closet once more. I wouldn’t have survived Senegal without my running shoes and a pen. There was a case of Ebola in a nearby neighborhood, and I was tested for malaria, but nothing proved to be more feverish than living as a gay student in Dakar during my senior year of college.