We live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the largest socio-economic minority is the Lebanese, some of whom work with or for the American community. Put that together and what do you get for Christmas? You get this: Santa Claus enjoying a cold beer at the Christmas celebration, while watching the Belly Dance troupe shimmy. Awesome.

The riverfront is commanded by an imposing set of concrete wharfs where the fishing boats offload their catch and where the Senegalese military maintains part of its flotilla for patrolling the Atlantic. Flocks of graceful cranes skim a few meters of the river water, white with black wing tips. In the afternoon light, they wade at the water's edge, picking in the grass. But the town itself, rows of two story stucco homes in colonial architecture and tiled roofs, shadowed by coconut palms and fronds of bougainvillea, does a brisk regional trade in the usual goods.

Ostensibly luxurious hotels offer deep pools and carefully manicured garden borders, fishing excursions into the deep waters off the coast for Marlin, massage with essential oils, henna treatments, and gift shops full of neat little things. The dozen or so hotels that have set up shop along the long, placid coastline south of Dakar all vie with each other for "correctness" and quality of restaurant. They're nice enough, and comfortable. But I had the pleasure of traveling to the Petite Côte in the company of several dozen well-educated African colleagues, and was able to see the place through their eyes. And I learned more about France and the French than I did about Africa that weekend.