2017-12-28 MAURITANIA DAY 19 AND SENEGAL DAY 1 – NOUAKCHOTT TO SAINT-LOUIS IN SENEGAL
“It couldn't be more different. “
(Ruth) Mohammed, Habib, and Dah are at the hotel to corral the 11 people who
will replace us. Our goodbyes are hugged and hand-slapped into memory. We will
miss them and their country. Then, they are gone. Ahmed and Rashin, guide and
driver for a few hours only, carry us south to the Mauritanian shore of the
River Senegal. Rashin babbles to Ahmed in run-on Arabic non-stop the whole trip.
Arrival is deliverance. The potholes that connect Nouakchott to the Senegal
border are occasionally interrupted in their march south by short stretches of
unblemished tarmac, still young enough to be free of the acne of neglect that
infects roads here. “No maintenance”, said Eminu. Dereliction seems to be its
replacement in much of Mauritania. Plastic jetsam covers the landscape, piling
up around bits and pieces of rusted out vehicles, all an affront to the purity
of the desert. The sands stay put behind as we move south. It's warmer, the wind
down shifted to a breeze, a soft rustle of the air. The sky, palest blue, still
carries a thin wash of 1000 grit. But the air is clear. The freed sun casts
shadows. And heat. The views into the receding desert focus, now sharply gold
and olivey green. The colors on doors and trim, shedding the sepia of sand, are
watermelon, blue sky, lilac, swimming pool, against the gold. The border is the
usual collision of people, vehicles, packages, repeated passport checks,
military uniforms, and goats, that marks the swapping of peoples in Africa. The
antidotes are a sense of humor, and great patience. A place to sit out of the
sun helps. Our new guide, roly-poly Abdoul, shepherds us through, onto a wooden
canoe, and across the river. We are in Senegal. Husky Mamadou, handsome and
charming in equal portions, loads us into the car, and nudges us out of the
heaped confusion of the border onto the road south to the island city of
Saint-Louis The tarmac is straight, flat, solid, smooth. The molars relax. And,
Ruth is so right: “It couldn't be more different. “ We’ve crossed the River
Senegal and gone from desert austere to African voluptuous The landscape is
flat, but green things grow and wave in the breeze, even the broad pennants of
banana leaves. Saint-Louis is all color, vibrant life, even if some of that life
is Tourist. It has a slightly run down, experienced look. Think New Orleans,
specifically Bourbon Street. And it bristles. Mauritania is life stripped.
Senegal is life encrusted. Some of that crust may be paint fading and peeling in
the sun and rain of the tropics, but all of it is exuberantly human. The tall,
lanky guys are Street Dudes, strutting in elegant, pastel gowns, or wildly
patterned shirts and pants, or tight tee shirts, maybe hoodies, over
underwear-flaunting low-slung jeans. Red shoes are definitely in. They may lack
the photogenic elegance of the billowing Mauritanians, but their pizzazz is
electric. And then, there are the women, visible here, vibrant, glorious. They
wrap the wondrous fabrics tightly into figure hugging skirts, sleeveless
blouses, or eschew all that for tight jeans, bare shoulders and arms, and total
disregard for the rules that should apply to Moslem women. They walk with
undulating, no nonsense self-assurance. The message is clear : I am here! Watch
me. And we do. (Really, Bob? You? To which I reply: I may not be buying, but I
know how to shop.) Our hotel has relegated our rooms to repairmen (maintenance?
Now, there's a concept.). Abdoul is up to the challenge of finding us digs in
this tourist-logged town at the height of the European travel season. Mamadou is
unflappable, We ride on his smile through the narrow, brimming, streets. Hotel
L'ile Saint-Louis is without frills or character, and humorless Desk Guy is
smile-challenged, but Rooms 1 and 3 do the job. They're sand-free, clean, smack
in the heart of the bustle, available, and have hot water. Really. We miss the
desert view…or any view from windowless Room 3---but the ensuite bathroom is a
nice touch. Lunch is…
2017-12-29 - SENEGAL DAY 2 – SAINT-LOUIS TO PARC NATIONAL DES OISEAUX
It is much better being upwind than downwind from 40,000
nesting White Pelicans, most of them not house broken. Senegal's Bird National
Park may be for birds, but a trip here is definitely one that is NOT ‘for the
birds'. This is THE primary stop for birds migrating between Europe and western
Africa, and a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are few places on the planet
where so many individuals of so many species flock together.(Ethiopia is the
other African one, and we stayed upwind there, too.) We few humans in our
putt-putting pirogue are tiny specks among the channels and reeds. We scare up a
black cloud of cormorants, indignant at our intrusion. Some tiny terns follow
us. Two fish eagles watch from a leafless tree. A blackish smear on an island
breaks into hundreds (thousands?) of landbound--- and not yet potty-trained baby
pelicans. This is Mother Earth flaunting her fertility. And it flies around us.
Back in Saint-Louis, the deep flavors of Senegalese cuisine roll easily from
plate to palate. Our favorite so far is ‘yassa', a sauce of caramelized onions,
ginger, vinegar, something a bit sour (tamarind?), served over spicy cracked
rice. Out of deference to our morning’s avian hosts I pass on chicken and eat it
over chunks of fresh, firm, dorado, local fish of choice. Fresh baobab juice,
white, a bit sour on the tongue, matches ‘yassa’ perfectly, but, then so does
the fresh squeezed juice of ‘pamplemousse' juice, grapefruit à la française.
There are other Senegalese culinary wonders, happy mealtime meztizos, offspring
of France and Africa. Spicy tomato sauce over white rice and grilled whole
dorado, brochettes of chunks of monkfish and onion, shrimp in garlic and onion
sauce...all of these pass our lips and muster. Baobab juice or beer? Both work.
With food like this, I can forgive Senegal its other gift, specifically for
foreigners, the traffic checkpoint shake down. Abdoul has bargained our way past
the Checkpoint Guys three times already on roads around Saint-Louis. 5000 CFA
($8) changes hands and they wave us on. It's a productive cottage industry for
the Checkpoint Guys who earn diddly squat otherwise. And there is that food… The
Street Dudes inspire me. With the unexpected appearance of our driver, hus/nky
(pick a consonant) Mamadou, on foot, I have a willing ally on a shopping
expedition for a pair of cotton pants in a racy black and white pattern.
Discovery takes two seconds, Mamadou's charm another few minutes, my final tweak
about ten seconds (which lowers the price another 1000 francs) and I walk on
with my $8 Senegal duds. The klutzy trekking shoes would not be my accessory of
choice---my preference being a pair of red sneakers I see for sale on the
sidewalk across from the hotel---but, so be it. The Saint-Louis Street Dudes and
Dudettes are strutting out en masse tonight to a 10pm free concert by Senegal’s
beloved, and world famous, singer, Youssou Ndour. The music is foot stomping
good, the crowd body weaving to every beat, towering over even Den's 71 inches.
We retire our ears about an hour into it and walk back through the polite crowd.
The sidewalk shoe store is wrapped up for the night. I didn't need those red
sneakers anyway.
2017-12-30 SENEGAL DAY 3 -SAINT-LOUIS TO KAOLAK
“African doors are always open to strangers ” (Abdoul) The crowd roars. “You are the
best!!!!” and the roadside ‘le footbal’ game stops dead in a blizzard of tossed
jerseys, ebony torsos, pumping legs, and hugs We see the local star score a goal
just as we drive past the soccer field, a minute of youthful energy, vibrant
coda to a day traveling across this country. We're driving south, then east,
from Saint-Louis, through Senegal's Sahel region, transition between the true
desert to the north (remember Mauritania?) and tropical Africa to the south. If
the mountain-eating southward march of the dunes can be stopped it has to be in
the Sahel. Trees can grow here. The many nations of the Sahel are planting a
‘Green Wall' of trees from the Atlantic coast of Senegal all the way across
Africa to where the continent ends in Djibouti and falls into the Red Sea. This
is a wall that makes sense. There are people of the Sahel, the Fulani, nomadic
cattle herders, whose quest for water and forage for their cattle crosses
Africa, the artificial fossils of the colonial era borders meaningless. We have
seen Fulani on the march through the dust of southwestern Ethiopia, the immense
horns of their Zebu cattle up lifted in prayer for water and grass. Here I see
water towers saving water for Fulani cattle. Some Fulani have settled down. One
is our indefatigable, wonderful, guide, Abdoul. The nomad gene is still strong
in him. He travels all over West Africa with travelers. “I want people to see
the real Africa ”. Once again, we have lucked out. Senegal is named for a river.
It has water. And deluging rains that nurture rice fields, and the great spreads
of mango trees, now in full blossom, and the cashews, hiding their odd looking
and delectable offspring beneath deep green leaves. Both trees are luxuriant
green balls rolling across the brown dust into the blue sky, the mango blossoms
rubbing gold onto the green, a patina promising June's luscious fruit. Then
there are the baobab trees. Senegal shares these wild plants with Madagascar,
all of Africa in between, baobab dotted across the continent. They are wider and
stumpier than their cousins in Madagascar, probably a different species or
younger trees abbreviated by youth (baobabies?) a relative term in a species
that measures life in millennia. Some are in leaf, a costume that almost works.
A few dangle hand-sized fruit, greyish, dented egglplants, cases for the fleshy
seeds that squeeze into that juice, white, a bit thick, borderline tart. Amongst
the lush green mangos and cashews, the stark baobab are aliens, perhaps spirits,
perhaps both, who have nose-dived into the earth, roots frozen in midflail. Now
they atone invasion by holding down the immense African sky lest it fly away.
Or, maybe, they're goalies keeping the balls of green from rolling off the
horizon. The doors of the village of Seninbara open to us, colorful cloth
hangings pulled aside. We are visiting the village of Wolof peoples and come
bearing gifts of rice, sugar, soap, and biscuits ( aka cookies and crackers). In
the round thatched huts, kids tumble all over us to laugh as their photos
enlarge and shrink. One tiny future world leader--- it's always the girls, at
least the little ones, with the moxy in Africa---figures it out and takes charge
dispensing access to the magic à la Samsung. In her I see the roots of the
feisty market ladies, who control the street markets with pizzazz, banter, wise
cracks, and sloe-eyed flirtation. The village headman reached his arms up and
around the shoulders of the handsome ebony strip that is his grandson to proudly
tell us he is in high school. The boy manages a smile, then shrinks a bit,
embarrassed, eyes hiding under camel-worthy eyelashes, I wonder if the little
dynamo of the photos (surely a cousin ) will get the same chance, even if
primary school is free in Senegal. Ruth passes on an offer of marriage from our
guide in Senegal's most impressive mosque. He shrugs. In this case, Allah know
best. For sure. Dinner is, what else but crevettes, these finger length, belying
their name in English. They are good, but a notch below the ones in Saint-Louis.
Of course, we will continue our research. We will empty the ocean of shrimp. And
just maybe get to yell “You are the best!!!!” I think we will keep our shirts
on.
2017-12-31 – SENEGAL DAY 4 - KAOLAK TO THE GAMBIA AND BACK TO TOUBACOUTA
“We're in the neighborhood. It's right next door. It would be neighborly to
visit.” So, fueled by the logic only travel junkies understand, we grab our
passports and head for our nearby neighbor, the country of The Gambia. And, yes,
that ‘The' is in its official name. Even in the world of the random gin and
tonic fueled slicing and dicing of the map of Africa so dear to the myopic and
culturally insensitive colonial muck-mucks, The Gambia is odd. It is English
speaking, totally surrounded by Francophone Senegal, except where the river
Gambia empties into the Atlantic. Its borders are measured in a few score miles
from and follow the shores of the river, squiggles, and corresponding to no
cultural, tribal, linguistic contours. On my map it is a pink insertion into a
darker Senegal. Thank the French and British for any resemblance to
illustrations in the offices of your proctologist or gynecologist. Life along
its shores is dominated by the largesse of the Gambia River, thus the name of
the country, The Gambia. We have to cross it, ocean wide, here near where it
leaves Africa We drive south from Kaolak to the border, leave Mamadou behind
with the car, cross the dusty market place that contains the border, ladies
hawking cashews and lemons and cabbies hawking rides., get stamped out in
Français (Et bon voyage), then in in English (Welcome to The Gambia), Abdoul
negotiates a discount on our visas, change money into the The Gambian currency,
turn down more ladies selling roasted cashews, negotiate a cab to the river,
forgiving the door handle that long ago morphed into a rope, join the mob
waiting there for the ferry with their bundles and babies to take us across to
the horizon hugging far shore, jam onto the boat, and settle down for a calm and
quiet transit to the The Gambian (that The makes for much linguistic clumsiness)
capital of Banjul. I doubt this river town cum capital city is ever bustling.
Today is Sunday, a somnolent day anyway, and the last day of the year with
promises of a long New Year's Eve night, partying, and general excess. People
are home prepping and primping. There’s some life in the market, but Banjul is
just plain sleepy. Low, one and two-story buildings hunch along wide, dusty
streets, their first floor shops closed and shuttered tight, except those near
the ferry dock and assured of at least some passersby. The throng from the ferry
dissipates quickly, hauling bales, basins, bundles, babies, and are absorbed by
the dusty streets. Abdoul knows his way about Banjul. Lunch is a delicious
chicken curry of the British colonial style (not too spicy, Sahib). The museum
in the tiny village of Bakau is spread through five round traditional huts,
windows added for light, floors tiled to keep the dust down and off the uncaged
exhibits. all scaled perfectly for a short visit. The ‘big tree' is impressive,
at our level a convoluted wall of dimpled elephant thighs. Then I lean down to
pet the crocodile lounging on the shore of Katchikally Pool… By dusk we are back
in Senegal, with only one checkpoint shakedown. Toubacouta is huts along a few
roads winding through the tree. Our hotel is a string of brightly painted
bungalows, an experiment in locally organized ecotourism, long on charm, still
working out the kinks. Abdoul and Mamadou are our guests for the last meal of
2017. Le Mangrove restaurant does us well for dinner and cold beer, Sprite for
the guys. We sit in the still, still semi-dark. Our food server wears a red
strobe light tiara, royally and deliriously a relative of the twinkling lights
strung around the veranda. As we wait for the first promises of 2018, Abdoul
talks about his travel business. His words take life, solid visions of the
mountains and waterfalls of Guinea-Conakry, the tribes and crafts of Burkina
Faso, the untouristed villages of Ivory Coast floating over the table, claiming
years….2019, 2020. Then…fireworks, shouts of “Bonne Année” and 2017 is history.
As is our day of being neighborly.
2018-01-01 SENEGAL DAY 5 TOUBACOUTA TO THE DELTA ISLANDS
I don’t do spiders. Crocodiles, yes. Eight legged hairy things,
not so much. Anything with that many legs is clearly Up To No Good, and this
morning those legs are Up To No Good in my shower. . I am sure I can find a
tradition somewhere claiming that a spider sighting in your shower on New Year's
Day is a good omen. Not in BobVille. I double check my shoes. I thought we had
come to an agreement when we signed the Bob-Arachnid Détente and I rubbed
forefinger on the furry appendage of a Red Kneed Tarantula, brokered by a waaaay
too perky naturalist (Oh, they are just the friendliest things), in a petting
zoo (really? , a tarantula in a petting zoo …get serious). I skip the shower and
check my shoes. Again. Today we will leave the continental bedrock of Africa. We
head away from spiders, east towards the Atlantic coast and into the great delta
of the Sine-Saloum River. Here, Africa falls into tiny green pieces, strung in
ribbons and bundles out into the Atlantic. On the way we visit two villages of
the Serer people, Tataguine and Ngoye, where we gift rice, millet, soap, sugar,
our welcome generous and genuine. Many are Christian, and carry two names, one
of Western saints. They are also animists, living in a world of spirits as well
as saints---the same thing, really--- and protected by amulets. I wore a neckful
as a kid, protection provided by my ‘Catholic' grandmother against ‘mal occhi',
the evil eye. Closer to the coast, we pass quickly through the town of Fatick,
as most people now do, its importance as a commercial center during the French
days barely a memory, the town a faded sepia photograph, wrinkling at the edges.
On the dock at Foundiougne we are pale sparrows compared to the Birds of
Paradise watching for the ferry, Senegal's women in full travel plumage. Yards
of fabric, wrapped, swirled, gathered, draped, pattern piled upon pattern, color
nudging color, in ways unimagined by western eyes, are perfected artistry here.
The headscarves, carry the same audacious fabrics upward, knotted, wrapped,
winged, cloth crowns on Senegal's sartorial royalty. We, drab courtiers, trail
the ladies and the other ‘pietons’, onto the ferry, then onto the swells, across
the channel, and onto the first landfall in the delta. A man who seems way too
young to have so many children, lines them up, 8,7,6,5,4, to shake my hand.
Beyond, Senegal revs up its green, collected in fuzzy mangrove patches floating
on the shallow river-about-to-become-ocean. At N'dangane ‘le plat du jour' at Le
Flammant Rose (The Greater Flamingo) is ‘yassa poulet', chicken in onion sauce,
yet again a gift to the senses. Mamadou leaves us here for a night at home with
his wife, daughter, 6 year old Satu, and her 18 month old brother, Mohammed. A
pirogue threads us through the delta islands to Île Mar-Lodj, our tropic
paradise for the night. Our arrival is undignified. The tide is out. The pirogue
stops short of shore. I look forward to a good wade in foot deep tropical
waters. Les piroguistes will have none of it, insist on carrying us ashore, two
off them, shoulders strong to one of us, legs splayed, feet waving. Yes,
undignified. Senegal is 90% Muslim, but it's ‘Africa Islam', as Abdoul calls it,
officially tolerant of religious and tribal identities. It works on the ground,
too. The village of Mar-Lothie is 50% Catholic. Neighbors celebrate one
another's holidays, inter-marry. There is a mosque. There is a church….and pigs,
sure indicator of Christians. The full moon rises, heavy with light, at our
back, as we, almost shadows, walk to our bungalows. We are the only travelers on
the island. The waters lap twenty feet from the porch of our bungalows. The 4
sticks of grilled shrimp, dipped in lemon-mustard sauce, surpass even this
glorious place. In the far distant village... faint drums. Once again, Abdoul
has wrought his magic.
2018-01-02 SENEGAL DAY 6 - SINE-SALOUM DELTA TO M'BOUR
As far as I can see the world is flat, stretching from my sandy beach across the
sky capturing waters of the Sine-Saloum delta to mangrove islands, deep green
closer in, paler, then hazy, then part of the sky far to the east. Last night
distant drumming from the village behind the shore carried the first night of
2018 into our memories. This morning the day forms around this island, sung
awake by birds and lapping waves. There may be a more idyllic spot to wake up in
West Africa, but I doubt it. And, we leave it…without repeating our undignified
arrival in the brawny arms of the piroguiste brothers. Back in N'dangane a pair
of patchwork drawstring pants flutters from hanger in a roadside shop into my
wardrobe, followed by the wide-brimmed hat that Ruth spotted, tried on, bought,
and rejected as too stiff, uncomfortable, and hard to pack, in 15 minutes. Add a
tacky tee shirt and my West African Dolce Vita beach bum look will be almost
complete. Rasta dreadlocks may take a bit more work. The trunk of Senegal's
biggest baobab is an ankle level view of a convention of elephants, slowly
stepping around some tiny humans, toe-jam in the making. This is solid land,
briefly, but then we are back in the delta where solid and liquid do their tidal
dance, in a place where neither leads. Seashells, meters deep, crackle, snap,
crunch, as we walk through the village on Fadiouth, Shell Island. It's an
improbable place, grown high above the delta waters on the discarded shells of
oysters and other shellfish, not quite land, gift of the water. The islanders
rub tiny shellfish from their hatchery on the roots of mangroves, spread them in
shallow spots in the delta waters, and let the sea and river nurture them to
harvest. The shucked shells have been piling up since the 14th century, most
deeply on Cemetery Island. The graves of Moslems and Christians may be in
separate parts of Cemetery Isle, but they are all deep in shells, not soil.
Porcine oinks and wallows of sleeping fat-bellied piglets are proof that there
are Christians here, 90 percent, 5400 of the 6,000 inhabitants. That's the flip
of the national population which is 90 percent Moslem A statue of Mary, revered
also in Islam, though not as graven image, welcomes visitors almost in the
shadow of a small mosque. “We're one village, all neighbors, and related.
Religion isn't important”…and our guide, who has a Christian name, hug-greets a
friend wearing the cap reserved for Moslems who have made the pilgrimage to
Mecca. They're also cousins. The islands may have been settled by inland people
trying to escape the slavers, a literal ‘shell-ter' (groans accepted). They did
not escape colonialism, political, cultural, religious. Our guide, Abdoul, no
apologist for colonialism, admits the missionaries brought schools, as they did
in Saint-Louis. Both places have the highest percentage of Catholics, and the
highest literacy rates in the country. Senegal's first President was a Catholic
educated in Saint-Louis. Abdoul repeats that his 90 percent Moslem country is
inclusive. The constitution permits the formation of new political parties, but
only if based on issues. It bans parties formed on religious or tribal
identities. That, and accommodation to Senegal's ethnic complexity and
linguistic history has made tolerance more viable than confrontation. Abdoul
speaks French, English, Spanish, Wolof, his mother tongue and lingua franca,
plus the languages of 3 other of Senegal’s many peoples. He does not speak
Arabic. Flocks of school kids (average number of kids in a family is 4), in
yellow for primary school, blue for higher grades, crowd the narrow wooden
bridge that links the island to the mainland. Backpacks are universal. They're
playful, and a bit raucous, bumping, chasing, teasing. A few of the really young
ones are carrying their shoes, precious, reserved for school, not for walking. I
see no heads bent over cell phones. There are no shellfish for sale on the beach
at M'bour, fish market for this stretch of the Senegal coast. The pirogues look
like the ones way north in Mauritania, shape and size tested and approved by the
swells of the Atlantic. Here in Senegal, horses, not humans, carry the catch
from pirogue to shore through the waves. The fish lie flat, cover the beach,
bodies still, eyes wide open, amazed at life in the air. The people don't pay us
any more attention than the fish do. We pay a lot of attention to our 4 skewers
of grilled shrimp, delectably dripped with lemon/mustard sauce. And even more to
the bananas flambé that follow, and very definitely get Abdoul's several lip
smacks of approval. All that alcohol is burned off in the flash of the
flambé…isn't it?
2018-01-03 SENEGAL DAY 7 – TO DAKAR
Suddenly, there are cars
everywhere. Dakar, at 3 million, may only be an also ran in the bloated contest
for Africa’s Worst Traffic, but right now it's giving Cairo, Addis Ababa, and
Nairobi some serious competition. Mamadou is sublimely gifted at finding and
threading the needle that will get us out of this motorized haystack, but the
going is slow, then constipated, then gelled. For a minute the haystack
collapses into an immobile heap, a metal pudding. Then the whole mess moves
forward, backward, sideward, at once, and we head into Dakar. The waves of
street sellers blur any distinction between road and not-road. Pushing fruit,
cell phone cords, towels, underwear (more on that later), the latest fashion in
sneakers, wrenches, groceries they are bipedal bodegas, mobile markets, walking
Walmarts, life-filled, with color, and mercantile moxy. They serve an urban mix
of styles and of accommodations with tradition and modernity. A matron passes,
full sail, in head-wrapped glory. Behind her a stunning young woman, clicks by
on stilettos, in hijab…and clinging low cut blouse, and tights. The men almost
billow in robes, tunic length, or longer, over matching pants. Or, they talk
into their cell phones in dark suits, white shirts, hurried steps, conferring in
groups. The younger guys go for international Stud About Town look, a look well
suited to their wide shoulders and chests, narrow hips, zero body fat, and
perfect butts, both BB and Bubble. Many are tall, nudging or jumping past 6
feet. They crowd the road, on foot, bike, donkey cart. This is where the
aforementioned underwear comes in....or out, actually. I am riding in the car,
just about butt level, research opportunities staring me in the face. The pants
defy gravity, but, unlike, the droopy drawer, formless, butt bags, of the West,
these are snug, butt hugging, with a rise of maybe two inches, hooked in front
over whatever is available, slung in the back way below Bill the Plumber
territory. They flaunt the next level in, loose cotton drawers, often white,
sometimes patterned. These are but a theater curtain for the real performer,
tight, butt glazing, spandex, labels showing of course, and almost always bright
pink. Red, yellow, aqua run distant second. The ladies may flaunt their head
wraps to one another. The young guys, assets also in full flaunt, have a
different end in sight. Abdoul and Mamadou manage the traffic to give us a taste
of Dakar. We're never far from the ocean. It laps against the three sides of the
Dakar peninsula. These waters spawn the winds that become hurricanes on our side
of the Atlantic. Today, cool breezes slip onto the land. We lose count of the
solid things, buildings, statues, churches, that confine a place, but don’t
define it. Dakar Is generous. The city tosses us its color, and the energy of
life lived in public, unwrapped, no artificial flavors added. Much of the older
part of the city sits in the shade of trees so ancient their roots push the
sidewalks into hillocks. Plateau, the privileged district, has elegant shops and
services, only a few bipedal bodegas. Ruth gets a 2 hour pedicure, ‘as good as
New York', for $18. She picks from two in the same block, ignoring my suggestion
that she can do one foot in each, for a better comparison. My expedition to an
over-staffed and siesta-driven office on embassy row yawns another permission
(Come soon, stay 30 days, $88 dollars, please, thank you, yawn) into my blue
book. Those $88 visas guarantee there won't be many disruptions to the siesta
schedule (Yes, another neighborly visit is in the works, but only for me. Hint:
it's small, shares part of its name with several other countries, and its
inhabitants speak a European language not English or French, ) The singer strums
the khora, two hands plucking the strings arcing twice over a polished gourd,
becoming two players, one on guitar, one on harp. His song adds a third voice,
piling melodies and rhythms. The music almost pulls us away from the food,
flavors layered kindly over shrimp, chicken, fish. It is our last night with the
guys, and our treat at a restaurant suggested by Abdoul. “Music, we want music”
we said. Delivered!
2018-01-04 SENEGAL- DAY 8. – GORÉE ISLAND
We stand at the
Door of No Return, the place where people stolen to be slaves in the Americas
took their last steps in their homeland. The walls still weep. For those who
pray to an all-powerful god, I say I cannot respect a god who would permit this.
To those who would say to our African people get over it'. I say I can never
respect you. Humanity can never get over this. Ever.
2018-01-05 SENEGAL DAY 9
DAKAR DAY 2
Yesterday after Gorée Island, we had our last afternoon with Abdoul
and Mamadou. They have been boon companions, and generous brokers of their
culture. Mamadou is genuinely kind, helpful even before we know we need help.
Abdoul has a third ear, listening to what we say, but hearing what mean, and
taking us to places we want to be, like the islands in the delta. They both
deserve the stuffed envelopes we slip into their pockets. The double cheek hugs
and clasped hands are genuine, but inadequate. Abdoul’s parting stroke moves us
to Hotel Saint-Louis Sun, in the thick of things , as we wanted for our last
days in Dakar. We turn at the hotel door for last waves, and they disappear into
Dakar traffic. We're on our own. Hotel Saint-Louis Sun has been here since 1887,
updated, but still 19th century languid. Our rooms have narrow French balconies,
just deep enough to stand on, and floor length shutters that filter light and
almost mumble the street sounds. The call to prayer from the mosque next door
rattles the shutters 5 times a day. It is the bass drum in the concert of
Africa. As they do for Moslems, the first and second ones start our day. Today,
under the trees in the courtyard of the hotel. we lounge through the ABCs of a
French colonial breakfast (Almost coffee, Baguettes, Croissants). Dakar will be
our guide today. We will walk wherever the city leads us. Pedestrians have ceded
right of passage to cars. The roads all over the country are superb. Sidewalks,
not so much. They are narrow chunky ribbons of afterthought. Apparently Dakarois
believe 2 bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. We are not
convinced. We sidle up and down the chunks, arms held tight, squeezing between
sedate parked cars and their carnivorous kin on the prowl a few inches away.
Dakarois take their news seriously. Under the trees, they crowd around large
easels displaying newspapers for anyone to read. We pass. The life in the street
has better stories to tell. Down an alley we find a shop displaying deeply
genuine, often antique, carvings and fabrics. Madame the Proprietor, is a French
ethnologist, a left over colonial, still here, browned skin wrinkled, tinged by
Le Mal d'Afrique, the ‘Africa sickness’, the seduction of Africa. She is a
volume of stories. Ruth buys a ring, round amber set in silver, two fingers
wide, a chunk of Africa. Shop owners lay prayer mats in the street. It is
Friday, sabbath in the Moslem calendar, a holy day, mosque attendance required.
People heed the call to prayer wherever they are, kneel and pray. Thus, the mats
everywhere. At 5 we cab to the port for the overnight ferry southbound around
Gambia to the far south of Senegal and its garnish of empty beaches. We don’t
expect much and are so very wrong. Our cabin for 4 is spotless, has a pristine
bathroom (with a toilet seat) and shower (with water!! Hot water!!!!), reliable
electricity (the plugs don’t fall out of the outlets), closets (with hangers),
drawers, private lights (more than 5 watts) in each curtained bunk (not at
astronomical zenith in the ceiling). We vote: these are, better digs than many
of the hotels we've stayed in…and these digs travel. I claim dibs on a top bunk.
and Dennis test out the two bottom bunks. All are Hobbitt-comfy. Getting into
the top bunk from the ladder involves a slithery horizontal roll, legs flailing
in space, then a sort of floppy seal-humping-the-mattress maneuver. This
entertains Dennis and Ruth for several minutes. Dennis is sure that in a 90
percent Moslem country Bunk 4 will remain off limits to women (thanks to us),
and to men (brava, Ruth). The large colorfully festooned matron who joins us is
either one of the 10 percent who are Christian, or, like so many African
Moslems, is a bit casual about the rules. What she is not casual about is that
ladder. We all get the picture, ‘Mama in Full Roll' and it isn't pretty. To
sweet and relieved mutterings of “merci, merci” she switches with Dennis, crawls
in below and disappears for the 15-hour trip. As we sleep, we slide down the
Atlantic. We will awake closer to the Equator.
2018-01-06 SENEGAL DAY 10 –
BOAT TO CASAMANCE – DIEMBERING DAY 1
The river dolphins seem to race the boat,
but maybe they have no thoughts of us, interlopers in their world. The river
here is horizon wide on one side, crowding mangroves on this one. Egrets add
motion and glitter in the green, still soft in the dawn light. River cruises,
the same ripples over and over again, compress time for me into a permanent Now.
There is no Was or Will Be, just the Is. Now. Rippling, over and over, and over.
Then, the channel narrows from river sea to river, human size fishing pirogues
ride their wide outriggers out of palm-thick and thatched villages, breaks in
the mangrove hedge. Deck passengers unroll from their blankets, startled by the
light. Seat passengers and cabin dwellers beat them to the crunch of fresh
baguettes, free breakfast, and like everything on this ship, crisp, fresh,
‘comme il faut', as it should be. We share the river and wind and rising light
on deck, watching for the port of Ziguinchor. The dolphins have lost interest
now that we are bound for land, and no longer of their world. Within minutes we
are ‘bienvenue'd by ‘Pap', herded into his rattling car, and on our way back
west to the coast…and paradise. When the tarmac gives out, we hop into the back
of Ali Baba's truck and slog through the sand to our lodge. Annie Gavietto, and
the two dogs, Gandhi and Mia, welcome us, sealed with a handshake, sniff, and
scratch behind the ears…distributed ‘comme il faut'. We are in paradise. For
Now.
2018-01-07 SENEGAL DAY 11 – DIEMBÉRING DAY 2
he perfect beach stretches
for miles in both directions. Empty. Behind shrubs rise up the dunes. In front
the Atlantic spreads straight west, just misses the northern tip of South
America and washes up onto a beach in Nicaragua. It carries white spume and the
chant of surf back to us. We will be here a week.
2018-01-08 SENEGAL DAY 12 –
DIEMBÉRING DAY 3
Guinea-Bissau has two names and a hyphen amid those two names.
I doubt the guy in green uniform and dusty rifle snoozing in the leanto in the
sand on the banks of the river between here (Senegal) and there (G-B) knows
either one. He might not be up to the hyphen, either. He keeps his boots up on
the rickety table stares at my visa out of siesta-rich eyes a long time. I offer
him the benefit of the doubt. The number of foreign travelers crossing to G-B
from this blip of a village at the far end of end of a molar mashing sand track
and handing him a visa is probably some multiple of zero. He mutters
‘Américain’, mutters ‘permis’, hands it back. My $88 visa retains its virginity.
There's no stamp out (here) or in (there). I suspect he was not the star student
in Border Patrol 101. He's so inept I am surprised tRumpleThinSkin hasn't
offered him a place in the Cabinet. My seat in the pirogue across to
Guinea-Bissau costs 18 cents. On the other side my fellow piroguers disappear
slowly down a sandy path into a forest. I follow them, crunching shells spread
as a bridge across a shallow lagoon, to the shade of a tree dripping round, grey
fruit. It is totally quiet. Sharing the shade is a bicycle, unlocked of course.
It reminds me of the life of bicycles in my village in Taiwan 40 years ago. If
you saw a bike and needed one you used it. Eventually the bikes found their way
home circulated in the wheel of neighborliness. I walk back to the river,
stretch out on the dock, sharing it with two ladies and their jerry cans, and
the guy in his hoodie, flat out on the dock, music trickling out of his
‘portable”. The pirogue will come eventually. Dennis and Ruth watch the 6-minute
crossing. “We have a picture to show you.” Indeed. It is of them standing in
front of a sign announcing they are in Guinea-Bissau. Yes, boys and girls, the
very land I was standing on before I crossed the river IS a little chunk of
Guinea-Bissau cozying up to this last remnant of Senegal on this side of the
river. Funny, nobody mentioned it. That $88 visa was not necessary to claim
bragging rights. I don't care. The trip across the river makes it MY
Guinea-Bissau And I can now tell my friend Peggy, former Ambassador to the
country, and who said “you are the only person I know crazy enough to go there”
that I have. Paying $88 for the visa suggests she might be right.
2018-01-09
SENEGAL DAY 13– DIEMBÉRING DAY 4
“They said he was crazy.” (Pap) The morning
slips through the lattice. It carries the flute notes of the mourning doves,
high over the wide basso rumble of the surf, softened by its climb up and across
the dunes. Rumbling closer in are the dozen grilled 5-inch water-fresh prawns,
eggplant napoleon, stuffed tomato, roasted carrots and green beans, several
glasses of cold Gazelle beer, and ‘mousse chocolat’, last night’s caloriic, but
definitely welcome, gastronomic indiscretions. (Minus the beer, that all cost
$10 each.) Gluttonously delusional, we deny the rumblings have anything to do
with the plate of tiny shrimp sautéed in butter, garlic, and pernod, perfectly
crisp French fries, salad, and pineapple soda that was the ($6) prelude only
four hours earlier. Half a baguette, coffee, and pineapple juice make a truly
petit ‘petit déjeuner' . Fresh pineapple, passion fruit, oranges, bananas, and
guava juice suffice for ‘le déjeuner’ and assuage the rumblings. I am prepared
for another of Anne's staggering ‘dîners’. But, first, we lounge, pampered by
the shade of straw roof and cushions, atop the dunes. The only rumbles are of
the surf, its spumey arrivals white through the trees, and rough against the
sky. Digestive processes no longer intrusive, blood flow diverted from the
nether regions to cerebral parts retaining some function under the onslaught of
the paralysis of paradise, yesterday percolates, memories insistent, out of the
haze…. From the crossing to Guinea-Bissau at the very end of Senegal, remote as
Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness, but filled with light, we bounce in a
pick-up back north over the sandy road to Kabrousse and Pap's new Renault. I
ignore the signs claiming Guinea-Bissau is just off the road to the left. Don't
believe everything you read. We are in Casamance Basse, Lower Casamance, far
southern Senegal, river-rich, liquid, shape-shifting in the tropic light. It
sits uneasily as a part of the country. Rebellion is in its history, and very
current. Pap drives tarmac, then dust, because he wants us to ‘découvrir la
culture de Casamance’. M'lomp is not a name that sits easily on the western
tongue, which expects vowels, not apostrophes and a tiny gasp between
consonants. Senegalese don't trip over the name, but at one time the strangeness
of the village defeated language. It has 4 two-storied mud houses, vertical
giants, monsters in the flat villages of Casamance. Their origin is as alien as
colonialism. A villager, conscripted by the French to fight the white man's
second great war in Europe, brought back with him stories of multi-storied
houses, which, of course no one believed. To prove he wasn't totally ‘fou',
crazy, he built one, then a second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Mud subbed
for cement, palm trunks for steel girders, staircases for ladders, second floor
verandas for dusty courtyards, memory and inventiveness for blueprints. Only 4
of these ‘palais de terre', palaces made of earth, remain, odd still in the
one-story world of Casamance, and unmistakably African, of its earth,
soft-curved. Like the name. M'lomp. The small museum in M'lomp is across the
dust in the shade of immense kapok trees. The young guide is thorough, in both
French, and accurate, slightly hesitant English. It, and he, gild this place. We
wander the rest of the day on the sandy ‘pistes’ that predate tarmac roads,
around the flying buttress roots of the kapoks, past thatched one-story ‘un
M'lomp' houses, goats, a pig or three, in the quiet of Casamance, “discovering
the culture of Casamance” as promised. Bravo, Pap! Later, the Internet tells us
that rebels killed 13 people today, just west of where we were.
2018-01-10
SENEGAL DAY 14 - DIEMBÉRING DAY 5
Paradise. Ingredients: sand dune high above
the ocean, thatch roof to block the sun, no walls to block the view, cushions in
the shade, no other people, 75-degree ocean breezes, the sound of surf… We stir
briefly from our dune top aerie. The reward is fresh pineapple, bananas, melons,
oranges, gift of the green of the fields and condensed sunlight. We stay to take
photos of the crew that make paradise work, all young. The women, Eleeza,
Nicole, Ayisha are fussier than Pierre, Elijah, Jean-Baptiste. Ali Baba and his
rasta curls are off doing car things. Mamadou comes at night. Anne, Gandhi and
Mia pass on photos, Anne with a wave. The other two offer an upward glance and a
few tail wags. And go back to sleep. We retire up-dune to paradise knowing
Gandhi and Mia have our backs. Astir again late in the afternoon, I walk off
Africa into the surf. It's a long walk. The water stays shallow, washing my
knees, shy of the rest. I could walk to Central America. Africa lets go of
paradise reluctantly. I get it.
2018-01-11 SENEGAL DAY 15 - DIEMBÉRING DAY 6
Humid haze bleaches the sky and hides the horizon. No breeze reaches our dune
top aerie. The day is not hot, just heavy. The surf, so loud this morning in the
dark, now only mumbles, flat, weighed down. This is the 40th day of this return
to Africa. Only 4 more remain after today. Day 40 is blurred by the haze,
retreats, leaving me, on my cushions, in the shade, to remember the days before,
let them settle, take root. This is why we look for paradise at the end of each
trip, the airlock between the adventure and our lanai. By 8 we're well into cold
beers and appetizers when Eleeza launches her dinner game. We each get three
guesses. Anne has whisked her magic wand over pork, chicken, crévettes, fish.
Odds are on beef. Eleeza demands accuracy here at Jeopardy on the Beach. We all
flunk. The beef shank ‘pot au feu' (aka stew) is worth the disgrace. Night
settles over the lodge, sovereign, ignoring the candles and the buttons of solar
lights. Ghandi and Mia, puppy-eyed, but un-beefed, slump into disappointment,
then sleep. For me nothing disappoints in paradise. I sleep, satiated.
2018-01-12 SENEGAL DAY 16 - DIEMBÉRING DAY 7
“Est-ce que vous allez à Cap (the
town 4 miles down the beach)?”(Guy on the beach) “No, were just walking.”
Silence Walking is Western privilege. We walk for its own sake, for exercise,
for health, to lose weight, for enjoyment. Most of the people in the rest of the
world, at least in rural areas, walk because they have to, for water, for food,
for work, carrying heavy loads, in the heat or cold. Of course, the guy on the
beach is silent. On the subject of walking, there are too many paces between his
world and ours. Way down the beach someone, foreign of course, is building a
square villa with glassy walls and a thatched roof deck just off the beach. It
has spectacular views of the sea. The sea might have a different opinion. I do.
The march of the condos has begun. Paradise lost. For now, our part of the beach
is pristine. The rare vehicles and bikes, propelling the non-walking, tourists,
of course, leave little trace. The sea reclaims paradise each high tide. Ruth
sits on the beach, braver about the sun than we are, and of interest to a few
fishermen, 5 dogs, and a few cows. The Beach Bovines are a puzzlement. Cows eat
grass and drink water, neither available on the beach. One stares at her from an
arm's length, tourist to tourist. Our final evening meal, seafood and vegetable
lasagna topped with grilled prawns, is these last seven days distilled,
perfection. And that is not Eleeza’s rum punch talking. Pap joins us and solves
the Mystery of the Beach Bovines. They come to the beach to escape the flies and
mosquitos inland (critters that ignore me), more refugees than tourists. I
wonder if cow thought extends beyond a search for greener pastures, (or at least
bug free pastures, color irrelevant), to notions of paradise. If so I hope they
don't wake up knowing today is their last day.
2018-01-13 SENEGAL DAY 17 -
DIEMBÉRING TO DAKAR
Ruth is stopped dead by passport control at Dakar's new
airport They claim she has no visa. She does, of course (she did get into the
country, twice) but it's buried among the many in her bulging passport, and the
passport minions are not interested in archeology. This is a first for us: a
passport check after an internal domestic flight. I have a stamp in my passport
showing entry into Senegal…from Senegal. Given that somnolent border guy at the
porous southern frontier with Guinea-Bissau it makes some sense to check
legitimacy for passengers on any flight from the south. Ruth doesn't care Why
Official processes in Africa tend to climb a mountain of forms and paperwork
before they lurch to completion, out of breath and out of ink. She fills sheets,
signs, is stamped, sprung, wrists and hands tired. She Is Not Amused. Our flight
here from Ziguinchor, hopping over The Gambia, both river and country, takes 45
minutes, including taxiing at both ends. Thoroughly passengered by 4pm, TransAir
flight 6i4 has no reason to wait until the posted departure time of 4:45, so we
arrive in Dakar a few minutes before we ‘left’ Ziguinchur. The minutes gained in
the air drain away on the road with the water flowing from jerry can to
obstinate taxi radiator and hose. It's the third stop to irrigate the cab's
nether regions. The taxi driver mouths the black hose to…somewhere under the
hood. Stuck on the shoulder were going only slightly mote slowly er than the
sludge of unmoving objects on the road from the spiffy new airport to Dakar.
Traffic oozes by, belching black and miasmic gloom, enough to scar our lungs and
scare the next pulmonologist who fingers our X rays. Launched into the slow
flow, then finally onto the fast toll way, we slide through the dark into Dakar,
then wind up the narrow spiral staircase to our rooms in Hotel St. Louis Sun,
now ‘our’ hotel. Dinner is good, but meals in paradise have cauterized our
tongues against the merely good. Comfy beds promise a good sleep. Then the
street explodes with music. All night.
2018-01-14 SENEGAL DAY 18- LEAVING DAKAR
“Your ticket is no good” (Ticket Guy, Dakar airport) Two Ticket Guys rally over
his shoulders. Three heads stare at the monitor. Three heads shake back and
forth, metronomes of disaster. At no time and place is that good news. At 10pm
in Africa, I prepare for the disaster. So do they. So they pass the buck. “Go
over there” launches me and my bad luck out of range and at Ticket Lady. TL
checks. “Your ticket is fine”. The computer begs to differ. Ticket Guy 4 takes
over, glowing with confidence and authority, takes the ticket. And disappears.
By midnight, plans settled for my life as a castaway in Dakar airport, Dennis
and Ruth go off through Security. I have 3 chocolate bars, a credit card, and
some dollars. I hope none of these kind, helpful people has heard that
tRimpleThinSkin has called their country and continent a “sh#thole”, leaving me
up ‘sh#tscreek'. Three chocolate bars do not a paddle make. Like a Jewish mother
dispensing chicken soup, I pass chocolate around: it can't hoit. TG4 returns
with the Big Gun. TG5 is Station Manager. “We have fixed it. All will be fine..”
They have fooled the system into burping out a paper ticket as far as Newark.
Tampa?? Nowhere on the ticket, which marroons me in Newark. I've been to Newark.
I'd rather take my chances in Senegal. “Go to Transit Desk in Lisbon. We have
sent a message.” This gets me out of Senegal. Lisbon? Not so much. ‘Transit
Desk’ suggests it's in a location IN the transit area where there are people
who, uh, ARE in transit. Right? Wrong. The Lisbon airport Transit Desk is on the
other side of Passport Control, through Security. In Portugal. At 7am Dennis,
ever loyal, and I are swallowed by the immense anaconda of bleary-eyed zombies
heading into Portugal. Somewhere just past the ‘From here it is 45 minutes.
Welcome to Portugal' sign, I convince Dennis to skip this, go back to transit.
He does I have one chocolate bar left. Transit Desk, of course, has no idea what
I am talking about and passes me on to Newark. “You have been many places.
Where?” The gate security lady fingers my passport, smiles. I tell her, ut can't
remember the airline when she asks me what airline I took to Tunisia over six
week ago. The smile goes Antarctic. “Go there”. ‘There is Bag and Body Search
Central’. The guys are nice enough, even restuff the backpack, survive fondling
my smelly shoes, and thank me. I have been awake 24 hours, too gaga to let slip
even a hint of my opinion of TAP Air Portugal. The people have been nice,
friendly, truly willing to help. I forgive even the frostbite from that
Antarctic smile. I am about 15th in my boarding group at Gate 44, happy, visions
of my pack stowed neatly and easily in my choice of the miles of empty overhead
storage bins on TAP Flight 201. I reach the boarding desk. “Step aside, please,
the system does not authorize your ticket. I will look into this.” This time the
3 shaking heads are female. I have higher hopes. And they are justified. Ticket
Lady 1 checks in the other passengers. They hurry past, bin-lust in their eyes.
Ticket Lady 2 works the phone, my name, beautifully pronounced, euphoniously
sent to Ticket Central. Ticket Lady 3w is a true artiste. Her fingers fly over
the computer keys, clicking a concerto of efficiency. J Just as the very last
passenger of the very last group passes me with his huge glutton of a
schlepp-on, the printer adds its rat-a-tat-tat. I have a ticket. On the plane.
To Newark. On the plane! Next to Dennis. And to Tampa. I even find a spot for my
bag. Three of us share four seats. There's room for my knees. The food is tasty.
Dessert is mousse au chocolat. TAP Air Portugal is redeemed. I fail security
check in at Newark. Need to get my ticket reprinted. Again. I have been up since
6 am January 14 in Dakar, or midnight January 13/14 east coast time. This is
hour 40. Helpful archetypal New Yawk lady, recognizes the dull stare, rescues
me, takes charge. The ticket takes 3 seconds. She will be sainted. My last day
in Dakar before the airport events rearranged my grey cells, also includes
Ruth's ring of 15th century coral beads, the return of Abdul, shrimp in cream
sauce in the surf, 100-year old turtles, a race horse dancing in the second
saltiest body of water on the planet, and the only one that is pink. But..those
are other stories. Drinks are coming down the aisle ….
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