pix

I've been a bit slack lately so here are some pictures...

The first is of Goree Island, a few minutes on the ferry over from Dakar but seems like a million miles away. beautiful colonial buildings, bougainvillea, the beach... oh and a fairly sinister history as a jump off point for slaving ships. A really interesting place, with a monument to emancipation and an interesting museum (apparently - it's been too busy to get in both times I have been) and now a firm stop over on the Roots Tour. It was referred to the other night by the Minister of Something or Other in his speech at the Queen's Birthday Party at the British Embassy. Having accidentally managed to insult a couple of important people present (he was trying to give compliments, but they just didn't come out right, poor feller) he then made reference to being on British soil in the heart of Senegal, but of course, that's not the first time we British have been here, since we did have Goree for a bit and directed the slave trade from there... Anyway, God Save the Queen!

This next one is of some lads net fishing in Aberdeen Creek just outside of Freetown on the Sierra Leone Estuary. It might look a bit grey, but the creek is full of fish and attracts all sorts of waterbirds, but it's under threat from the encroaching growing city and planned projects for hotels and the like. Wonder what it will be like in a few years time...

i've put some new pictures up on my flickr account if you fancy procrastinating a bit before starting work...

Dakar

Here is Dakar on a sunny Sunday afternoon. There are about 3 million people squeezed in there somewhere...

The Green (?) Cape

Just back from a few days too many in Cape Verde. Not that I have anything against the place, but for all of 1 day I was cloistered in a conference so, frankly, I could have been anywhere in the world. I was able to identify that I was no longer in Dakar by the following facts:
- It was a 2 hour flight from Dakar
- everyone was speaking Portuguese
- they do mean cheesy creamy bacalao and big garlicky tuna steaks
- all the streets were cobbled and everything was quite cutesy and colonial
- all the taxis were new, functional, and haggle free
- non-nescafe coffee was widely available
- bou-bous (African outfits for men and women) to brighten up the day were only visible in our conference room, sported by visitors

The most exciting thing that happened when I was there was a major communications accident in which someone (apparently) cut through Cape Verde’s connection to the outside world - some sort of undersea incident with a fibre optic cable. So the powers that be are doing their best all week to hook the islands up to a satellite system but either it isn’t connecting properly or the capacity just isn’t up to it. Either way, the situation was no internet for 9 days (horrors!!) and very limited phone calls except for the odd ‘hole’ when it seemed to be working. Most likely very relaxing to get away from it all if you are on holiday but less good if you are supposed to be at work…

The novelty conference haul includes a t-shirt in see-through cotton with a wonky logo across the boob area, a calendar featuring a battered and bloody shark and a poster identification check list of the whales and dolphins of Cape Verde.

I did get a bit of a look around on the last day. I guess when the Portuguese landed and decided it looked like a green cape, they must have come in rainy season. April is getting toward the end of the (9 month long) dry season and I’m not sure I’ve ever been anywhere quite so brown and barren looking. The roads are lined with brave agricultural attempts and the withered products thereof. A tough place to make a living. And that’s without mentioning the water. Inland on the high ground there are mountain top drainage systems to collect water from low clouds over the hills; in other areas they mostly rely on an expensive de-salinisation process, or have it trucked in if you live in the middle of nowhere.

For a holiday though, it has loads of potential. Bright blue seas, yellow beaches, plenty of shipwrecks teeming with fish life for divers, and, best of all, what can only be described as a cartoon style, perfectly conical volcano, ripe for the climbing. Sadly it was a bit too misty to get good pics….

Joining in with the Chip-Eaters

It was a few years back that I first heard this term. I’ve no idea who coined it, but I got it from people working in the Caribbean, who would always lament the stopover of the London-Trinidad flight in one of the holiday isles, when the half empty plane would fill up with be-tanned, be-braided and be-beered Brits giving off a distinct odour of coconut oil. I guess the bitterness sets in when you’ve been sequestered somewhere for months locked in a sweaty room working your arse off, suddenly confronted with a stack of holiday makers, heading back to reality with not a care in the world. And hey, we brits abroad certainly eat a lot of chips…

I thought about this again recently when confronted with another chipeating experience, this time in the Gambia. Just in town briefly for a meeting, dodgy airline schedules meant I had a rare Sunday afternoon free in a work destination. Our hotel of choice is big bungalow complex and on walking in I immediately felt like I was in the Canary Islands; little apartments with dusty tables outside; blocked toilet; broken TV. That sort of thing :-). Anyhow it was a lovely little place with a pretty garden, beautiful beachfront location and friendly staff. But I think the fact that I haven’t been on a beach holiday for a good many years now (I get bored!) has turned me into something of a prude, because what struck me most was the sheer nakidity – mostly wobbly, stripy, lobster-y nudity. Having lunch with a colleague surrounded by the naked pink boobs of your compatriots is a peculiar thing, but of course I can’t complain about that because we were the odd ones out having a business lunch in a holiday resort. But I will complain about people leaving the complex and wandering the streets with it all hanging out. Not only is it a muslim country, but that particular day was a public holiday in celebration for the prophet’s birthday! I am now in full rant mode but I reckon a bit of respect wouldn’t go a miss.

And don’t even get me started on the female sex tourism …

Out and About

Well, there’s nothing like a bout of food poisoning to give you time to catch up with your blog. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to go out on a Saturday night or anything…

Mauritania.
In my final year at university we had a world map on our toilet wall. Always one to find new ways to avoid writing essays, I used to spend quite a lot of time in there memorising capital cities. Judging by the expansive geographical knowledge of my housemates, I wasn’t the only one. Nouakchott was always a toughie – none of us knew how to pronounce it and I still need the spellchecker to write it down. Mauritania is enormous, with bizarre, dead-straight borders, and usually coloured in yellow – almost pure desert. Always wanted to go there, but never thought I would.

Nouakchott itself is unspectacular. It didn’t exist 50 years ago and is a sprawling expanse of low rise buildings emerging from the desert. The lowest point (metaphorically) is the strip between the city and the sea, which is a giant rubbish dump. On the plus side, it has a great lively fish market, and the city itself is leafy, quiet and super safe. The airport is hilarious. The airline delays that are so frequent that you can rely on them and there is nothing to do there. To avoid wasting precious hours, for a small fee, a guy will check you in and stamp you out at immigration while you are on the other side of the city! Amusing, but pretty worrying really, and one of the reasons why this story didn’t surprise me too much... BBC NEWS Africa Air Mauritania hijack ends safely

However, I was headed up to the Parc National du Banc d’Arguin, up in the North, apparently one of the best bird watching sites in the world. The route there is via a superb paved, smooth road all the way, surrounded by sand dunes on one side and flatter sand on the other leading to the coast, with the odd tent here and there along the way. They might do a nice line in mint tea, but surely this is one of the most difficult places in the world to live your life?

The Park appears without signposting, although the office back from the road painted in brightly coloured birds is a good sign. Then we follow a ‘road’ for a couple of hours before reaching the sea. I couldn’t see that we were following any particular route, but we reached our final destination so we must have been.

There are a couple of research camps and a couple of basic campsites spread throughout the park. I say ‘basic’ – there are several ready made tents which sleep around 6 people and you can order delicious food from the villages (yellow mullet is the local thing - really good, especially after a day bouncing up and down in a 4x4). But that is where the luxury stops. The campsite we stayed in is one of the best, but even they’ve not yet got around to building the toilet facilities. Picture an amusing scene at 7am when everyone on the site is searching for their own dune….

The tourist business is limited, but those who do come all this way make the effort for the birds. Millions of migratory birds spend their winter here, or at least stop here on the way somewhere else. Pelicans, flamingos and spoonbills are among the big attractions but actually just the sheer numbers of little wading birds takes your breath away. The pictures don’t really do it justice because we were quite far off. The birds gather on the islands off the coast and you take a sailing boat to get there. The famous desert winds were not performing that day though and by about 2pm it became evident that we were going backwards! Still, noone was complaining – we were close enough to get great views through the binoculars and a group of dolphins (no idea of the collective noun for dolphins?!? A school of dolphins? A giggle of dolphins??) entertained us with some gymnastics around the boat while we ate fresh fish and rice cooked on the boat.

Inland there ain’t much but sand and camels. Warm camel milk is supposed to be the dogs bananas but negotiations with some camel shepherds were to prove fruitless in this regard. Two toothless rugged chaps who spend weeks in the desert at a time with only water and camel milk for nourishment had learned one very important word in French: ‘Biscuit’. Perfectly understandable considering what they normally have to live on but this was our last day and there was not a hob nob left between us. No Biscuit: No Milk. Had to make do with some camel cheese from the shop in Noaukchott – not bad, sort of camembert-y (funny colour though…)

Before the main road, the best way to and from the park was via the beach at low tide. We took this journey on the way back (environmentally allllllllll wrong – and we are supposed to be in conservation!) and it turns out to be quite a main road. Trucks full of fish dealers were flying by, but it was particularly busy on that day because the Dakar Rally had just finished so teams of brightly coloured 4x4s were heading home in the opposite direction. Felt a bit sorry for a Hungarian team we passed who were still heading towards Dakar, but I guess it is all about the taking part…

Another place I always wanted to go to was Cape Verde – a group of islands sticking out of the Atlantic off the West African coast. Apparently it is not really the ‘green cape’ at all, rather it’s a rocky landscape beaten by the ocean winds.

Anyway, I’m off there in April, so mission accomplished. What now for random places in the world to visit? Best sort out a trip to Vladivostock …

Hot Orange

Have you ever eaten a really hot orange? One that has been sitting in a car in the blazing sun all day, for example?

Don't do it. It's disgusting.

dipping a toe in the music scene

I have now had my first trip to go and see Senegalese music on a stage. I've qualified that because although I've not been to a club to specifically watch a performance before, there is music everywhere around here. In particular, the area where I live is a fairly close knit community and there is a lot of traditional singing goes on around the place and there are also a few groups of guys who set up for drumming sessions here and there - just like Camden! I am considerably less keen on the whole musical experience when it is in honour of the recently deceased, because in my very limited experience this means maximum volume and a 12 hour singing/wailing marathon. It is touching for the first couple of hours but it's a bit hard to concentrate on your work when the same tune is booming into your office for hour no. 6.

I saw a brief but very impressive performance by Habib Fall, long time bassist to Youssou N'dour, who is setting out on a solo career. By contrast to the standard 7 or 8 man band, his performance was just three guys and was a very mellow and catchy affair and very hard to pigeonhole. I'm already a fan.

For something a bit more folk-y, there was also Pape & Cheikh, who are way famous, have toured Europe, played in London and all sorts, but predictably I had never heard of them. I have now though - what's not to like about Senegalese music??