chicken and fatayas, meat-filled pockets of fried dough stuffed with egg, fries, ketchup and mayonnaise that sell out daily. Visitors to the Café also get a taste of Diasporic Soul as they dine under the mango tree on the café’s beautiful, flower-filled terrace. Soul music from Nina Simone and James Brown to Janelle Monae and Kendrick Lamar is always playing in the café.
“Because I spent time here as a kid with my grandmother and friends, I wanted to offer the Sebikhotane community a place to go, and eat out and hang out, particularly a place outdoors, especially the young people in a country where the average age is 18. At the same time, because of my experience as a Diasporic Soul, I am always happy to welcome people from all over the world. Cote d’Ivoire. Mali. Morocco. England. Japan. France. China. India. And, of course, from all over the US. Oakland. Chicago. Detroit. Raleigh. Atlanta. New York.”
When asked what made us pack up and move, Eddy, recalls the Charleston Massacre at the Emmanuel AME church in South Carolina that marked the end of their 2015 vacation in Senegal.
“My wife and I were shocked and devastated. We were also angry. Then there was John Crawford and Tamir Rice in our back yard, Ohio. And, Michael Brown. And, Sandra Bland. And, Eric Gardner. And Phillip Castillo. And, too, there was the possibility of a Trump presidency.
We knew it was time to take a leap of faith in our lives, but we also felt like maybe Senegal would be better for us. It was so painfully clear that Black lives do not matter in the U.S. We felt like leaving was one way to resist. And, to have more peace. More freedom. We also wanted to create a
warm, welcoming, safe and healing space for our fellow Diasporic Souls to visit.
Eddy arrived in April 2016 to repurpose the family home, which he began building after migrating to Cincinnati from Marseille, France, to accommodate the guest house and café. The upper level of the home houses Eddy and I and serves as the Tangor Guest House where Eddy and I provide lodging and convening spaces for the Diasporic Soul heritage travel, retreats and short-term study abroad experiences that they curate. And, his extended family, which includes his mom, brother and an assortment of nieces and nephews and cousins, live in the lower level.
Tangor Café opened on December 24, 2016 not long after we hosted our first guest, an Atlanta-based Africa travel enthusiast and member of the Nomadness Travel Tribe.
“So many of our visitors tell us that our place, the café, our house, make them feel at home. I am glad my house has become a home for so many others. I know my mom is proud of me and I know that my grandmother who is deceased must be pleased. I gained a lot from my time in the United States, including my wife, but I am glad to be an American, a Diasporic Soul who is living abroad, here, in Africa, in Senegal.”