Toubab in Senegal

A white man travels for the first time to Senegal, a country he knows almost nothing about. His inner images and diffuse fears, shaped by a generalized Africa, travel with him. In West Africa, people like him are called “Toubab“, white bread. The young man is a comic artist and is actually here to work. But he is busy dealing with unknown rules and codes. Sweating constantly, he is initially harassed by pushy taxi drivers and salesmen, and only when he leaves the tourist worlds of experience and gains insight into the everyday life of the people does he learn to give up some of the usual control and Eurocentric arrogance and lets himself drift with the Senegalese “flow of life“.

Patrick Bonato spent three months in Senegal as artist in residence. In his autofictional comic Toubab in Senegal, he gives an insight into the efforts that arise when two worlds collide, but also into the possibilites and how much comedy lies in such encounters. His very personal descriptions and experiences are colourful, loud, sometimes strange, often funny, always beautiful.