...well...perhaps a different reality. But, we are back to it here along The Smiling Coast, and our remaining time looks to be busy and action-packed. However, today I’ve given myself time to write.
Happy New Year, I guess would be the appropriate opening to a first blog post of the New Year. So yes, Happy New Year to one-and-all. And safe journey back to your own realities for those who spent the holiday abroad...like us.
That’s right; we went abroad for the holidays. To Dakar to be exact. From the 26th to the 31st to be exact. And, there will be no pictures because M.C.’s camera was stolen...to be exact.
Yes, sadly for friends, family, followers, and most importantly us, there will be no record of two Canadian’s four-day sojourn in the Senegalese Capital. So, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Here goes:
After a lovely two-plus hour Christmas Eve mass (with incredible Christmas Carol singing from the choir) at the Catholic Church just a 15-minute stroll from our compound doors we settled in for Christmas Day witnessing the “haunting” or “masquerades” in Banjul, or as I like to call them, “the mob of slapping of little sticks, beating of drum, while one guy blows a whistle incessantly, while another guy in a scary-ish mask and outfit a la potato sack, dances around in the street”. With a couple hours in Banjul, we returned to Old Jeshwang for a nap, and then a lovely prepared Christmas Dinner of Chicken Yassa (local stew), brought to us by our colleague Abbie Barrow. Then off to bed for a 6am wake-up and journey to Dakar.
We were up and out the door at 6:15am. Quick walk to the main road and a van into town to the ferry by 7am. Across the ferry and in a taxi to the border...all seamless. We got to the border and got stamped. Sat and had breakfast before walking through the border...or as I will refer to it, the border-ish. Hopped on a little crotch rocket to take us to the car park, where we made our first mistake. Instead of hoping on the $15 “sept-places” (seven-seat station wagon) to take us the rest of the trip, we opted for the more spacious and less expensive ($8) bus that was virtually empty when we hopped on. There we sat for the next two-hours waiting for the once empty bus to fill itself to the brim. Shortly after 11am we were off...like a herd of turtles. Literally we got out of the cark park, and then parked...again...for ten minutes while the driver had the bus tires pumped up (something that couldn’t have conceivably been done in the preceding two-hours). Again we took to the road, for about 25 minutes, where we were stopped by Senegalese military/police/security officials to have the ENTIRE bus unloaded, all the luggage taken off the roof, all the passengers out, while we were searched for...sugar??? Or so I was told by a young lady sitting on the bus beside me. I’ll spare the rest of the details, but a good 1000 or so GINORMOUS pot-holes later, we arrived in Dakar as the sun was setting and were taxied to our quaint, yet amenable little auberge. We’re talkin comfy beds, CNN on the television and a beday in the washroom, type of quaint, yet amenable little.
All-in-all, Dakar is just big. Well big when you’ve been living in the sticks for two-months...and it’s still very much Africa. We spent a lot of time walking about, exploring...with no real agenda in mind. Dusty streets, marketeer-filled markets, shop-lined roads fill much of the upper neighbourhoods of Dakar as we walked southwest to the coast. Then...all of a sudden, WHAMMO!! (Pierre Mcguire alert) we were walking on broad, paved avenues, with multiple (6-7 floors) storied structures, tree lined roads and coffee shops (a la home) all around. Central Dakar is built like a North American or European city. Quite the shock to stumble upon, really...and for a while, quite a novel feeling.
While I could stammer on and on about this and that in Dakar, it would serve my time on the blog best to highlight the...ah...highlight of the trip. That, being our visit to Ile Goree. Ile Goree, a UNESCO World Heritage Site is a tiny little island just off the Southeast coast of Dakar that once upon a time served as a primary hub of West African slave trade activities. As it was explained to us, Goree is where captured (soon-to-be) slaves from throughout Africa were brought and housed (for those who have read The Book of Negroes you will be able to picture the scene) until they were auctioned off to their wealthy captures and then taken across the Atlantic to assume their fate. The history of the place is sobering...as is the feeling you get walking through the rusted and faded houses and structures that line the rocky beach, or as you pass to the top of the hill among numerous artisans all selling their (overpriced) lovely paintings of African motif. My favourite part of the day you ask...sitting on the beach enjoying a couple of the local brew (big surprise). Visiting Ile Goree is probably the most regrettable part about losing M.C.’s camera...we had taken so many breath-taking pics of the scenery...much in the backdrop of a setting sun.
Word of advice to anyone traveling to West Africa, go to Ile Goree, and take your overnight bags with you to stay the night. We didn’t, but were assured that had we, we would have been welcomed into any number of guesthouses on the quaint little piece of paradise.
We took the ferry back to Dakar, giddy and thrilled to have visited such a stunning place just as the night time air rolled in...and then the camera was stolen...and that about all I have to say about that.
Several more days in Dakar, with a visit to their 21st Century “Sea Plaza” a chic little mall, with Big-Ball Bowling Alley and arcade that sits directly on the water, some marketing, and an evening taking in a local musician at the World Black Arts and Culture festival—sidenote, there was no word of a lie several hundred thousand people at said concert, and it took us over 20 minutes of shoving and ducking and diving to escape from the central area where the concert was held (Obama inauguration had nothing on this thing).
Our trip home was much smoother, though not any comfier, as we snuggled into a sept-place at 7am to slalom in and around the crater-sized pot holes on the highway back to the border. Some unnecessary snooping by the drug patrol at the border later, we were on our way to the ferry back to Banjul, some unnecessary snooping by the immigration official at the ferry later we were in a cab back to our little Old Jeshwang with several hours to rest up before our big night out on the town to celebrate the New Year.
And a big celebration it was. We passed the New Year at the house of a U.S. foreign service official along with some 40 other ex-pats, including our new Canadian (3) and British (2) friends, and then headed into the touristy, bar area of Senegambia to party like it’s 2011 until the wee hours of the morning.
And so it is that after a whole week of work, a little trip up-country with our ex-pat amigos to visit our British friend who volunteers in the large hospital in the village of Bwiam (just this past weekend) that I find myself with a moment to update my friends, family, well-wishers, followers, and other nosy persons, who find time themselves to patronize my self-indulgent nature by reading this blog.
Holidays were great! Being back to work is wonderful as well. And as I realized last night, we are now just over 10 weeks into our adventure here on The Smiling Coast, and just under 10 weeks away from our return to Canada...where we will really be back to life...and back to reality.
Until Next Time...Don’t Stop Believin.
Matty
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FYI: Cribbage Update – After, for some unconceivable reason, falling behind M.C. by a score of 27-20, the kid has been on a tremendous pegging streak, regaining the lead to the point where our best out of 101 battle
stands at 29-27 for Matty.
