Senegal part 7

We needed to check our email and found a small internet cafe by our hotel that seemed to run 24/7. It was dirty, hot and stuffy inside, but beggars can't be choosers. The computers were all run down and running Windows 95. English-language soap operas blared from radios and many of the people inside spoke English, which I found strange, but rationalised that it was an internet cafe, after all.

Whenever we came to the cafe and there were no computers free, the owner would kick one of the youth off a computer and give us his place. I found that strange, but figured that maybe he was getting free service and that once a paying customer came, they would be given priority. A few times, while waiting, I glanced around at what the others were doing. Most of the other customers were my age, and I was curious as to what Senegalese youth looked at online.

The guy beside me was writing from a yahoo account, enticing people to send him their bank account details in exchange for splitting a large amount of cash due to a disposed minister in some western African country. Another was having cybersex with a guy in the US. Another was searching through pages and pages of returned mail.

Suddenly, I put two and two together. I was in a 419 Scam cafe. I thought this was hillarious, since I had fun spambaiting a scammer earlier in the year. He was supposedly from the Ivory Coast but could not speak a word of French. I eventually got bored and ignored him.

Anyways, I wrote in an email "Hey, guess what! The guy beside me is a 419 scammer! Hah! Guess they are in Senegal as well as in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast." I kept going back to that cafe, even though it was getting dodgier by the second. The internet would cut out randomly, the management was suspicious and the place was filthy.

Then we found another nearby Internet cafe. This one was immaculately clean and sparkling white. The owner smiled and welcomed me when I came, instead of glowering. I loved looking at him. He was tall and regal with dark chocolate brown skin and a pure white floor-length robe. The computers were new and running Windows XP. I glanced around at these customers. They were reading online newspapers, working on college applications and playing video games. A much nicer place, and I enjoyed the time I spent there.

On our last day, I was preparing to go to the market with some of the participants. One of them called me back and said that someone wanted to talk to me. The owner of the first internet cafe stormed out and started screaming obscenities at me.

"You know what you did! How could you do that? Do you know how much trouble you could have caused?"
"Excuse me?"
*censored*
"Excuse me? I don't know what you're talking about!"
*censored*

Suddenly, it dawned on me. He knew that I knew what was going on there.

Another flurry of racial insults started.

"You think that we wouldn't know...you think you're the smart white girl who think's she's smarter than Africans. We're smarter than you. We're smarter than you'll ever be."
"I made a comment in an email."
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF DAMAGE YOU COULD HAVE CAUSED???"
"No"
"WE COULD HAVE LOST EVERYTHING"
"I'm sorry"
"You're lucky to be alive. We saw you walking alone last night. We almost kidnapped you and killed you. No one would ever have found your body. But we decided to teach you a lesson, because you're just a stupid white girl who doesn't know any better. You're going to go in there and apologise to each and every person because of the damage you could have caused".

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty shaken up.

So then, he marched me into the internet cafe and made me apologise to a room full of internet scammers. I contemplated doing a mock Rick Mercer-type apology. My common sense got the better of me and I decided to make it as short and as sweet as possible.

"I'm sorry I saw and said things I shouldn't have. I did not know how much damage I could have caused. I'm sorry if I inadvertently got you into trouble. I do apologise for my actions and I will never do it again".

Everyone accepted my apology and then went back to scamming innocent internet users. I felt sick for the rest of the day and I allow myself to be alone.

Of course, all the other participants wanted to know what was going on. Luckily, they were there while it was happening and formed a protective circle around me. I just explained the 419 scam and what was going on in the cafe, and we all just laughed it off. Well, I tried to, but I was so shaken up.

I spoke to one of the local participants and she said that people make threats like that all the time and that they wouldn't really have tried to kill me. Still, I didn't want to play around with people who would even threaten me that way.

I was surprised at how they brought race into it, how I was the "stupid white girl" and they were the "smart black men", instead of being the "foreign girl" or the "English-speaking girl". I never realised how much resentment there was between the races. We're always shown images in the media of racism on behalf of white people. This was one of the first times I've encountered racism from black people, even though it does exist, and not just in rap lyrics. This man expressed pure rage that someone, especially someone white, could take away his (illegal) livelihood. I mean, to each his own, and while it's illegal, I wasn't exactly prepared to race to the FBI to report them. I've been scammed enough in my travels where I just live and let live.

In hindsight, while it's probably not smart to make a comment in an email, they weren't exactly hiding what they did. They probably logged everything that went out of there, in case one of the employees hit gold and refused to share the wealth with the bosses. He probably thought I was a narc for the FBI, reporting back to my superiors in code, while in reality, it was a "heh, guess what, I'm surrounded by 419 scammers, teeheehee".

I didn't relax until I was on the plane out of there.