Dakar 2

Back in the city of scum. This place really is despicable. But I ain't got no choice but to come here to get my flight back to good old Germany. Stuttgart's going to be a hell of a culture shock after this place. Talk about night and day...

I just had lunch in a fantastic restaurant just off place de l'independance. It's called La Palmeraie, and they had a Carpaccio de Thiof, which is a local fish from the coast here. For 6,000 CFA (about 9 euros) you can get a really gorgeous meal and a drink in this place.

Now I'm heading for the Librairie Claire Afrique to blow my last traveller's cheque on books. That'll be the only souvenir I'll have brought back for myself, so I might as well make the most of it.

I spend last night by the Lac Rose, which is about an hour and a half from Dakar. It's a salt lake which has a pinkish glow, and it's especially beautiful in the sun. It was great, except that I ended up getting stranded at the hotel! The receptionists all buggered off with a tour group, and when the electricity broke down there was only a security guard left to deal with it. The sky covered over very quickly, and all the birds and frogs started going crazy, announcing a storm. Then the rain and thunder hit, and the wind blew really hard. It was like being in a storm by the seaside or something. The trees were bending, you couldn't light a candle or anything. The guard had to run about looking for candles for me, and the door of my hut kept bursting open with the wind. It was pretty powerful stuff.

It kept up for a couple of hours and then just died away. Very impressive, but not very consequent for people here. Having said that, I don't know how they manage, in the shitty little shacks they live in. Most people have better houses somewhere inland, but live in these iron or wooden shacks by the tourist areas to be able to sell stuff and make money. I was lying in the comfort of my shack, under the mosquito net, writing poetry by candlelight, wondering how Adamsa, the guy who had sold me dinner an hour earlier, was going to make it through the night...

He was fine in the morning, and sold me some clothes at a ridiculous tourist price when I got up. I didn't have the hard to bargain him down beyond 50% after the storm. I'm a cissy, I know.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for the MP3 player to charge so I can distract myself during the luxurious 12 hour journey starting 3.30 am tonight, to get back home. In fact, I won't make it to Stuttgart till the late evening, since I'm landing in Frankfurt and still have to catch a train. The joys of travelling with Royal Air Maroc.

Better go. Please respond, if you read this. I have no idea if this travel diary is of any interest whatsoever.

Joal 2

De nouveau sur Joal, je viens de passer une journee de FOLIE, comme on le disait autrefois dans le Club Dorothée.

Je suis parti hier matin dans les iles du Saloum, pour N'Dangane, une ile assez touristique, mais pas moins belle pour autant. Je suis arrive sur place, apres trois changements de voiture, serre contre quatre personnes dans la banquette arrière d'une Renault defoncee. Comme d'habitude, quoi.

En arrivant, un Senegalais tres bien habille, a la Playboy Europeen en vetements Adidas etc. m'accoste en demandant ou je vais loger. Je lui dis l'auberge que j'avais prévu de prendre, et il m'indique une autre auberge un peu plus loin que je pouvais visiter, et qui coutait la moitié. En la voyant, elle est plus qu'acceptable, alors je la prends.

Bien sur, le gars veut me proposer une visite touristique, et finit par me convaincre d'aller visiter les iles en pirogue a un prix ridicule, mais avec plein de petits bonus attachés. J'ai fini par m'en mettre plein les yeux. Les arbres qui poussent dans l'eau, les huitres attachées aux racines, les arbres sacrés des Catholiques et des Musulmans qui ont les racines et les troncs embrassés, les pélicans et les cormorans qui mangent les crevettes... C'était un petit paradis. J'ai fini par taper la discute avec le pécheur Sérère qui dirigeait le bateau, parlant de foot, de basket, de ses projets d'avoir son propre bateau un beau jour. C'était inoubliable.

Le soir j'ai terminé dans une soirée d'un hotel dont j'avais rencontré un groupe de résidents, qui avaient prévu un groupe de musiciens djembé. Dés la première chanson, la moitié des players du village se sont pointés. Ils se sont déchainés pour plaire a leur audience grandissante de touristes. C'était artificiel mais super agréable tout de même.

Je fonce pour ne pas oublier les évènements d'aujourd'hui...!

Joal

This place is gorgeous! Leopold Senghor's birthplace has turned out to be one of the most colourful, buzzing, laughter-imbibed places I've ever seen. It's teeming with crazy pictures on the walls, scribbled signs, indicating shops, giving practical telephone numbers or hygiene reminders. The little kids call 'Toubab' after tourists - which means 'white man' - as a sort of well-intentioned mockery.

Today I went back to the library I've been spending the last few days visiting and hanging around, to give the kids a present of a kite my sister Michelle gave me about a year ago. They all crowded around as I showed them how to use it, and laughed and jumped when it stayed in the air for about 10 seconds. I'm still surprised not to find custom-made kites here. There's so much wind, and it'd be the ideal toy for some of these kids. Anyway, they have one now.

Paul, the librarian of the Centre de Lecture et d'Animation Culturelle of the town, invited me to see his house last night. We got there late after dinner and a few beers in a local bar. His mother was already asleep, and woke up just to greet me. Their house was one bedroom with bare, stained white walls and a corner packed with pictures of Jesus and Mary. A sort of Catholic shrine. The guy has studied for years to be able to be librarian of this village, only to be worse off than the laziest of merchants who flogs stupid toys in the bus station. And to live with his mother. Damn

Dakar

I don't have a picture to post yet, but I am writing from the most hectic city I have ever been to. Dakar is hot, dirty, colourful, teeming with people selling all sorts of trinkets you don't need, and evidently full of overwealthy politicians you can't see.

I spent last night on l'ile de Goree, which is just off the coast of Dakar. It's much calmer, and really, really beautiful. Its beauty is all the more disturbing as it was the main outlet for the slave trade to America and Europe for 4 centuries. The musee de l'esclavage is also chillingly aesthetic. It's colourful, almost pleasant to be in, if not for the placards showing which room was for shoving young girls below age 12 into, assuming they survived that far.

A door give out onto the sea, which was nicknamed since 'la porte de la mort'. The sun glistens over a gorgeous coast through a doorway which saw 12 000 000 africans sold to slavery.

Am on my way to Joal now. Will write soon.