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THE BEADY EYE’S UNPUBLISHED BOOK. CHAPTER SEVEN. SECTION FOUR.

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

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Afficher l'image d'origineThis time by the back door I give the posse the slip. There is a tangible difference in the stillness of the air, which was not present on my morning walk. I pass through fields of peanuts until once more I am on a track, with high grass on either side. I come upon the first fork. “Keep to the right” …Almo had said, so right I go. Another fork, right again, yet another, right again.

If I am on the right track I should arrive at a three-fingered fork where I am to take the middle finger. I hit it right on the button, onward march. The next junction I am not too sure but right looks good. Subconsciously I take note of a large tree as a reference for the way back.   Confronted by and an array of tracks I stick to the M1 until it runs out of well-trodden earth. I halt at the edge of a rocky surface. Straight across looks the natural line. Yes, Yes, You Boy, Captain Cook is nothing on you.

On the right track once more there is a humanoid coming in the opposite direction.   I am tempted to inquire if this is the way to Paris. His passing look gives me the feeling that you don’t see many white Cadillac’s passing this way. Oblivious to oncoming traffic he keeps looking in his wing mirrors until I disappear into the trees.

A wall tells me that all is well. Sure enough on the other side of it, there is the rock outcrop. It lies on the opposite side of a steeply studded narrow wild overgrown gorge. Scrambling down > the ever-vigilant lookouts spot my approach. While the troop scatters up the rocky outcrop and out of sight the dominant males in a sudden uproar at my intrusion bear their teeth.olive baboon teeth mouth

I have a lot to learn about obligatory silence and direction of approach if I am not to be mooned by all African Wildlife. I hang around for a while in the hope of things settling down but to no avail. The troop remains well hidden and I soon lose interest in the odd view courtesy of my field binoculars.

As I walk back the first drops of rain are exploding in puffs of dust, and the grass is stirring. There is a pungent release of vegetation smells and a strong sense of movement all around. Thank Almo I make it back. In his wisdom, he has sent a young lad to find me.

Just after dark the village elders wearing tall coarse woollen fez type hats and their wives begin to arrive.  In the flickering candlelight, problem after problem is presented and discussed. Almo displays great untiring patience. He explains to me that the grievances are the same every year.

“You can see here”, he says, “That education is an emptiness – it helps me to escape into the wider world, but I cannot impart it here so that it passes from one age group to the next.   Bonding to a school is all jolly fine, but in these people’s case, the only bonding is by making them form a group as you see before you to run their village. To buy their seeds, to sell their crops, to oversee their health, to join with other farming groups, to record and keep records and only then they have something that has a strong chance of surviving.”

“Training children to recite the whole of the Koran is all jolly fine, but to teach them to be more confident in themselves, to take their own decisions, to manage on their own must all be done in their own language. To make them discover themselves is the only way forward.”

“One must know how one is before learning who others are and there is a constant tug of war between tradition and the existing world.”

Our world glistens in the dark eyes of those present during a pause for a cup of Kinkilibar.

The morning news is that Almo has been given more land to build a hospital. The young man with the elephantine upper lip is on the back of a truck and hopefully should arrive tomorrow, that the corrupted pill dispenser has been replaced and that we decide to stay another day and depart in the morning.

The next day has only one more surprise it comes in the form of vet whom I collide into head-on rounding a blind corner in the long tall grass. He has dressed in a full business suit white shirt and tie carrying a briefcase. Our meeting surprises him just as much it surprises me. I had just crossed a tree suspension bridge without falling in when we collided. He was descending the track at speed and I was paying no attention to oncoming traffic.   It was weird, to say the least, to see a suit in a jungle setting.

Over the evening meal, Almo shows us some photos of his morning patient prior to his first op a year ago. The young mans’ upper lip hang’s down below his chin.   He also tells us he is having a problem with a container of medicine, which is in the docks at Conakry.   Apparently, some corrupt customs official won’t release it. I tell him that perhaps I can help. Referring to my list of if in trouble contacts I come up with two contacts for a phone call in the morning.

Early morning Almo is up preparing for ‘Gumdrops’, the phone rings. When Almos patient – ‘Bottom Lip’, drops in, I ring my man Souleymane Souare -Chief du Protocol de la Prefecture de Mali Republique de Guinea Conakry, and. Lieutenant Colonel la Vile Beavogui Directeur General Adjoint des Sevices de Police Conakry République de Guinea.   Miracles don’t just happen on the operating table the container is on its way and so are we. (The container arrived ten days later.)

With Fanny driving we descend out of the mountains passing Mount Kavendou on our left arriving out onto savannah land we stop at Dabola for lunch. It is a small village described by some American in the Bible as a town with a Wild West ambience, obviously helped by some local grass. Pushing on we arrive at Kouroussa with one hour to make the ferry crossing fifteen kilometres away. However, the roller coaster ride with the odd thrilling water splashes defeats us. Pitch number forty-six is under a Kinkilibar tree> a good fire, a good meal and a game of rummy named by Florence as the Cricket Chirp Game. We all sleep solidly through heavy rain.

Our first dawn visitor is a dog followed by his owners one of which informs us that the ferry crossing is anything up to five hundred meters or five kilometres down the road. We leisurely break camp and arrive within two bends at the ferry.   Six trucks and two cars are waiting to be loaded.   Frenetic repairs are in progress to the landing platform, which is a quagmire of oozing mud. With loud encouragement from all in sundry two trucks get aboard with great difficulties.

We are told to wait until the next crossing. In the meantime, a few rock are added to the quagmire. The ferry arrives back within the hour. The first car to disembark sinks to its doors, it eventually arriving on terra firma minus a front bumper. More rocks are added all disappearing after the others into the unknown. Next is a truck, which lands pushing a mudslide. To the amusement of all looking on the foot passengers fair little better. Afficher l'image d'origine

A few more rocks and it’s our turn to board, which is achieved with a panache deserving a round of applause worthy of a champion rally driver. On board, we emerge from a mud-splattered Williwaw to watch the bizarre scene as one truck after the other takes the plunge engulfing the odd slow foot passenger in a coating of chocolate icing. Fares collected we are on our way. Guinea Conakry has no coins and most of the paper currency has spent its lifetime being handled by muddy fingers till it is almost impossible to read their denominations.

The river crossing as with most river crossings in Africa imparts the impression that time is standing still.   The adventures of your travels surround you. There is a mixture of the captivating natural flowing grace of the river a quickening of the heart and a warm feeling of love. It’s a phenomenon, which you can never quite believe in until you experience it yourself.

Our river is the Milo a tributary of the Niger.   A resounding thud announces the arrival on the opposite bank. Without much attention to the positioning of his ramp, our captain has to some degree arrived at his disembarkation point.

The car beside us refuses to take the jump ashore.   After much-heated discussion, it has no choice but to leap.   Leap it does and there right in front of the ramp it stays for the next hour.   Williwaw watches the proceedings with disdain and contempt until it is pushed and pulled to dry land in kit form.

Firing Williwaw up I move her to the opposite side of the ramp. She makes mincemeat of it roaring out beside the stuck car whose demented driver is now demanding a refund from Capitano.

We push on towards Kankan some sixty kilometres away. The journey requires circumnavigation of potholes that could swallow a jumbo jet. They almost double the distance to be travel.   With Kankan on the horizon, a small army of uniformed men halts us – “Pull over.”

Stopping under the shade of a tree one over-weight dude in blue police garb, sporting the obligatory dark sunglasses smells of trouble.   Sure enough, he’s spot on. Passports, Williwaw’s documents followed by the question, “What is the real purpose of your visit?” he demands, I open the back. I feel like telling him that we are here to blow up the Presidents Palace, but instead, while I open Williwaws back door let drop that Lieutenant Colonel la Vile Beavogui Directeur General Adjoint des Sevices de Police Conakry is a personal friend. His face turns ashen, and a small squeaky voice says, “Close please”.   We wave goodbye continuing on our way winding in and around and over the mine-crated road to Kankan.

We are now in Kissi country that makes up about five percent of Guineas population of six odd million people.   The Kissi says Fanny according to our Bible have a strong respect for witchcraft.   According to Florence, she can see no one kissing.

Kankan the second largest town in Guinea is in Malinke country. Populated by the Mandigo group that makes up about thirty-two percent of the southeast highlands population. The Malinke traditionally used cowry shells as a medium of exchange. With the dollar worth about one thousand four hundred to one thousand six hundred Guinean francs (1999) depending on where you exchange – they might be wise to bring back the cowry shell.Afficher l'image d'origine

The Bible says Chez Madame Marie is the best place to stay in Kankan > A guesthouse par excellence where woman travellers are especially welcome. The trouble is that no one knows of its whereabouts. We stop at a bar named London down a few cans of Guinness, which have the immediate effect of enlightening our navigation.

Visiting several dead ends we splash our way in and out of many potholes the size of duck ponds. With patience running low we eventually find the place now called the ‘Refuge’. It is up a laneway that subs up as a rubbish dump. We enter a small courtyard surrounded by prison-like rooms with an open-air kitchen backing onto a sheep pen.   Whoever stayed here must have been high as a kite or dear Madame God rest her youth was offering some Saigon attractions, not on the menu.   It is obvious that the bible has not seen this dump for some years.

With Kankan in total darkness, it is too late for us to go looking for anywhere else. The room is clean, and Williwaw is safe in the courtyard. Madame, a small frail Vietnamese is stretched out under a mosquito net in no mood to move. Only the threat of having her struck off the Bible motivates her to produce a few chips, which we eat to the sound of her generator been whipped and kicked and cursed into action. Resisting all attempts to cast any light, it joins her is a bout of coughing, farting, discharging clouds of smoke, with the odd death wheeze.

The sky opens. We sleep with a thousand Malinkes doing the Cancan on the galvanised roof.   In the morning there is no sign of her Ladyship.   We pack and move out to find breakfast and new lodgings. Driving past the train station, the university, down a wide long mango-shaded avenue, we once again plough our way through large potholes now all overflowing with dark brown water to hit rush hour Kankan style.

Bicycles, Peugeot, trucks, buses, carts, dogs, donkeys, motorbikes – you name it > stopping and starting to the flow of pedestrians who weave in and out of the traffic with the same suggestive body movements of a real Cancan. Most of who are oblivious to any right of way they risk their lives to well-worn disc pads.   We are sucked along with the great unwashed to stop for breakfast at one of the many downtown restaurants.

Drinking large espresso’s with French croissants it is hard to fathom that only a few days ago we were camping in the bush.

At forty-seven thousand guinea francs a room, Bate P’ is our new hotel > Air conditioning, TV, shower, with a large enclosed car park. In fact, everything that Mongo Parks (1771-1806) would have needed on his way down the Niger from Segou a town in southwest Mali. Our first encounter in the hotel is Kadir a Dutch photographer.   He is hoping to follow the Niger to its delta a mere four thousand kilometres away. The first part of his journey is by riverboat from Kankan down the Milo to join the Niger, and then on to Bamako in Mali – a five to a seven-day trip.

It sounds mouth-watering to just sit back and enjoy the scenery. Five hundred kilometres of smooth water after our last four weeks of jolting is just what the doctor ordered, we sign on.

A quick foot reconnaissance of town with the girls uncovers the largest pair of denim jeans this side of the Atlantic. Unlike some of its matching African cities that we have visited Kankan so far has a good-natured feel to it. With colour in competition everywhere the bustling streets are hassle-free. After some excellent yoghurt and a large dose of passing carbon dioxide, we return to our hotel.  Afficher l'image d'origine

Kadir suggests we walk down to the bus station after lunch to check on the ferry progress up river and to book our passage.   Arriving at the booking office we are assured after a long wait that the ferry is due any day now and there was no problem getting the jeep aboard.

I get back to tell Fanny the good news to find her talking to God on the big white telephone. “It’s the salad she moans “In sympathy, my Mount Vesuvius (the ant bite) explodes. The city is plunged once more into silent darkness. Without a flicker from the air-conditioning or the TV, the night is hot and sultry with Fanny beating a track back and forth to the loo. Our room unlike room 101 across the corridor that has a procession of working ladies to keep its occupying colonel cool late into the night our room is hot and sticky making sleep almost impossible.

Morning brings no satisfaction at the reception desk. “What is the point of paying over the top for an air condition room, when the hotel generator is turned off?”   We move to a cheaper room in the old part of the hotel that has ceiling fans.

Next morning Kadir – the Dutch photographer and I make another visit to the booking office.   Fanny’s recovery is helped by a packet of Dioralite. (See Medical list on cd)

(Top TIP:   A Water purification is a must.   We mounted the purification unit and a shower attachment unit on one wooden board. This board could be hung from the roof rack and plugs into one of the power points positioned on the outside of Williwaw under the back door.   A Hand pumped purifiers is too much hard work. We carried one only as a backup. During the whole African trip we used only three replacement filters.)

We are informed that the ferry has been sighted and should arrive shortly, as to exactly when is anyone’s guess. By the look of the depth of Milo River since yesterday, it might be never. It has dropped a good three feet with the dry season approaching.

The afternoon is spent poking our noses in and out of every shop. We visit Issa Traore and Daoudor Traore Antiquaries. According to their owners, some French buyers visit them twice a year and take all they can collect by the container load.

We meet Larry a large Aussi gold miner, and Matthew a retired Canadian geologist who has flown in for a week to do a field survey somewhere nearby, for a different gold mining firm. Unfortunately, Matthew spent most his time stuck in a Guinea pothole until Larry who happened to be passing by rescued him. We meet Leslie another prospector who hails from Fareham just down the road from Winchester, Fanny’s hometown.

Day three in Kankan > There is no sign of Godo the river steamer. From the look of the river, it is high and dry and more than likely will not be seen until next seasons rains. I tell Kadir if he hangs on in Kankan long enough he will be able to walk down the Milo to join the Niger or as it is otherwise known as the Dioliba, the Joliba, the Kworra, and the Timbiko. It is up anchor for us in the morning.

I spend the rest of day with the ice cream man who brings me to his brother a welder for some running repairs to Williwaw’s exhaust. I sell one of my old tyres to one of his many brothers and purchase a new tyre from another brother along with a death mask.   The mask is received by the girls with abject horror it being consigned to the toolbox on the roof under lock and key.

Somewhat disappointed that our African Queen voyage had not materialised we set out for Siguiri I getting a lecture about filling Williwaw with junk. The bible consoles us with a description of the riverside route to Siguiri as being one of the most beautiful one can take.   

Two river crossings later, mud mires that any decent Hippo would be proud to acquire, and potholes that could be seen from outer space, we pitch number forty-seven under a full moon. Exhausted and in excellent temper all around. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Day breaks grey and overcast the first for some time. Just what we need says Fanny a drop of rain to fill the potholes. We cross the Niger at 11° 03? N – 9º 14? W. arriving in Siguiri some hours later. We push on after a quick tour of the market. We have not gone more than a few nautical miles from its outskirts when a police barrier stops us. We are sent back to have our passports stamped at the customs that we had driven past without noticing. It’s the first clue that we are about to leave Guinea – I turn down flat, a demand for ten thousand GF to stamp our passports.

Eventually clear to continue we drive on expecting the border at every turn. It does not appear for a further seventy miles of dust, bumps, and our first experience of corrugations.

(Top TIP: There is no happy speed driving corrugation. Coil springs or leak springs without shock absorbers make driving them a nightmare. They vary in depth and width depending on what uses the road, (usually heavy trucks). There is a real learning curve to driving them safely and finding a speed suitable to your vehicle. Short wheel vehicles are more inclined to turn over. The chances of a puncture and blowouts are high. They are not long in finding any loose weakness in your vehicle, be it in the inside, the engine, and the electrical, on top, underneath, your passengers’ tolerance.)

Fully conscious that any sudden requirement of the anchors is utterly a ‘no no’ I struggle to find a suitable speed. Eventually settling for sixty to seventy kilometres to avoid the blithers shaking us to death we drive by village after village leaving villagers who are walking home in clouds of dust   A few ventures on to sidetracks to avoid the corrugations with one last bump we arrive at the frontier Nafadji.

A small village with its centre in no man lands.   Clearing police and customs without too much difficulty, we are sorry to be leaving Guinea a country of unspoiled beauty. Our new hosts Mali at the other end of the village clears us with a pride in their efficiency informing us with glee that from here on it is a smooth ride to Bamako

 

THE BEADY EYE’S UNPUBLISHED BOOK. CHAPTER SEVEN.

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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Afficher l'image d'origine

 

Afficher l'image d'origine

GUINEA (CONAKRY)

Afficher l'image d'origine

What we know:
Dictators, Bauxite, Diamonds, Gold.

Fanny at the wheel, formalities over, we drive off into the unknown. Even though Guinea Conakry is home to West Africa’s greatest rivers – the Gambia, the Niger, and Senegal, Guinea only beats Mauritania by four pages in our bible.
It has lingered far removed from tourism – France dumped it on the 2nd October 1958. It’s then-dictator Sekou Toures plunged the country into a period of widespread terror and isolationism well into the late eighties.

We arrive at Segou another police check. “How far is it to the Guinea border?” Is met with blank black faces. “Which way?” gets a pointed finger to a dirt track running behind the police station but first it’s the Douane (customs) to get Williwaws Carnet stamped out. Form filling and book entries show that we are the first thing on four wheels to pass this way in some considerable time, certainly this season, we are on the way again.

According to our map Michelin 953, we are entering Guinea over the Fouta Djalon highlands. Described in the Bible > as only needing time and average determination to explore they are Guinea’s major attraction.

With the driving becoming more difficult due to many deep pools full of grey water the track narrows. The larger of these pools often have tracks that lead off to one side or the other.   They generally show where the locals preferred to cross, rather than take a chance on getting stuck in the middle.

The girls are silent when entering these quagmires. Visions of biting snakes piranha and the like have them hoping we won’t get stuck. To tell you the honest truth I am also scared of having to wade in them so I ignored the advice of walking and poking with a stick. Some of these pools are more than intimidating taking several minutes cross. The way I figured it is if tracks go in they have to come out somewhere. The gods are with us we emerging on each occasion into the daylight without getting our feet wet.

Passing a village Fanny reads from the bible that Michelin Map 953 isn’t enough and that four-wheeled vehicle are a must, and that will run into repeated difficulties, with minimal levels of survivability. Too late there is only one way to go and that is in front over mires off hills and valleys as far as the eye can see.

Halfway through the village a chain stops us. The last police check. The arm of the law is sound asleep. Walking into courtyard a Canari – traditional water container looks cool an inviting.   A young lady with nipples still erect is sitting outside the cop’s door. She looks hot and bothered as she rearranges her dress in a hurry.   He wakes with a start.

Before his curiosity can become over inquisitive we thank him for his help pull the chain clear and are on our way.

Watched by the locals we pass up through the middle of the village. The quality of the housing is a far cry better than most of those in the shantytowns that lead into Dakar. Their large round thatched roofs are in complete harmony with the cotton and cornfields that surround them. Grouped in threes and fours they are mirrored along with the tree-covered hills behind them in the water-filled ruts.

With tongues of water here and there the bush track turns sandy.

Its midday and we are looking up the dry rocky bed of a small river just a little wider than Williwaw with high banks on either side. According to our disturbed sex-smelling siesta policeman, there is no other route.   It’s up and over or back through the shark-infested pools.

This time I walk up the track. Except for a few nasty rocky steps, I feel sure we can make it. The sun is shining the birds are singing, and male menopause is out the window.

All goes well we making steady slow progress in low dif.   I have marked some of the tricky spots with leading rocks (Markers to show the best route). After an hour of bouncing, crawling, stones tumbling, undercarriage pinging, with the shocks and coil suspension flexing to breaking point we come to terminator number one the first step up on to a smooth rock surface.

Three attempts later, we are out building two ramps of stone. The small trickle of water down the middle of the riverbed is getting stronger – it has rained higher up. The trickle is fast becoming a flow I realising the danger.   I walk further up the riverbed.   Some four hundred meters away from us I find a cut into high grass. The cut is steep covered with tall grass and has obviously not been used for some time.   From what I can see before we are to gain flat ground it cuts out the last bends of our Rocky River bed road.

By the time I am back the girls are looking more than anxious. They are standing under that Lotto brolly and it is now raining heavily. “This time the brolly is saying we are not amused,” I explain to Fanny the danger of a flash flood. The water is eroding the grip of the tyres. To reverse the whole way back down is not an option.

There is only one-way out the cut or get washed back down to the bottom.

Not for the first time, the girls have to watch as I reverse Williwaw lining her up with our now submerged stone ramp. Slipping her into second gear I take as much of a run as possible hoping that her momentum will push her over the step. She hits the ramp with a crunch of metal on a rock that sounds like some serious damage is being sustained   I am over the crest of the step, but have ripped off two of my Jerry cans against the high bank.

I tell the girls that it is better if they walk.

Throwing the cans in the back, I once again gingerly start to climb. Slipping into second with full power I enter the cut. All goes well until there is a loud bang. I floor the clutch and brake, slamming her into reverse. There is a dull thud on the rear door. Saved by a tree from disappearing over the edge I cut the engine and struggle to push the door forward to get out.

The girls come running out of the tall grass. I must have looked shocked. We are all trembling > a little pathetic shivering group in the middle of nowhere. Fanny has the common sense not to say I told you so, or the bible said so.

My first concern is to stop Williwaw from slipping over the edge.   Frantically we unload as much weight as possible. Opening the back door, toolboxes, Jerry cans, food, the lot, fall out on the ground.

I secure our webbing-towing strap to her front tow ball/pin jaw mounting, (Top TIP: Mount your front towing hitch off centre to the passenger side.) tying it to the nearest sturdy looking tree.   Removing the high jack I vice the strap taut, shackling it closed.

(Top TIP: Stitched loops Straps are the best.)

For added protection, I hammer two steel stakes that sub up as my two main tent pegs when pitched on the roof. To these with a few good bowline knots, I secure two further ropes with snatch blocks.

(TOP TIP: Learn how to tie a bowline, and a double sheet bend. Buy two snatch blocks, as they are extremely useful to alter the angle of pull. Bow shackles rather than D shackles.)

Wet through, tried to the point of exhaustion, we cover our pile of offloaded boxes, equipment etc with our roof tarpaulin. With darkness approaching, we trudge up the cut to Pitch number 40. There is nothing more that can be achieved. Fanny erects the tent while I go back to Williwaw to collect our army camp beds, sleeping bags, cooker, torches, and a machete.

(Top TIP: Don’t go without a good pocket knife and a jungle Coup, Coup, also a Mag-Lite/ Coleman broad beam torch with a small solar panel for recharging batteries.)

A pretty miserable night is had by all, wet, full of wild dangerous imaginary animals with the odd snake thrown in for good measure. Florence sleeps soundly while Fanny lays awake listing for passing traffic, snapping teeth, hissing, and distant drums. I get soaked and uptight having to go out and check out every imagined or not sound till she eventually falls asleep.

We’re all up at the first flicker of light none the worse but no better off. The first job is to examine the damage. The bang I thought to be a burst tyre turns out to be the front half shaft snapped in two. It is the least of Fanny worries or mine. If it had not been for the tree Williwaw and I would have ended up as scrambled egg at the bottom of the cliff.  It has to be a very narrow escape.

“There is nothing for it but to take the shaft off and go back down to look for help.”

To my better half, great credit tired as she was from the night swirling tide of fear she, like I knew there is no good in crying over spilt milk.

It takes most of the morning to remove the half shaft.

Standing down the cut, out of the tall grass in purple trousers, a flimsy rain Mack is our first visitor.   We are the last things he expected to see. The sight of our blue tent, I covered in oil, Florence’s blond hair and Fanny’s gre gre has him standing like a rabbit paralysed in headlights. He stares at us in total disbelief. It is as if all the superstitions that infest his mind have come home to roost   His ju-ju will not let him speak. Mamadou our paralysed savour is returning from guarding his cattle.

It appears that Fanny’s imaginary prowling animals of the night were not to be laughed at.   Mamadou watchtower which he points out is well off the ground.

It turns out that he is from the village we had passed at the start of our ascent.

The half shaft on my shoulder, I promise the girls that I will find porters to take them and the baggage back down to the village.

It’s a good two hours before we emerge onto the sandy track leading to the village.   Climbing over a foot stile I enter his family compound. Three round thatched houses behind woven fences, a little mud hut also thatched up on stilts with a ladder that is broad at the bottom narrowing to its entrance.   In the middle of the compound a large bamboo table under the shade of a baobab tree. Mamadou points to the middle hut – it is to be our home for the next week.

Four hours later while Fanny moves in, I return up the mountain with a list of what will be needed. It is a long haul up in the sun and sticky heat, but by the time I get back Fanny and Florence have swept out the hut and the news has spread that a family of Toubabs has hit town.

I leave Fanny with the gathering mob to pay a visit to our philandering village cop.   Somehow he is not surprised to see me.   Mamadou explains the problem. He looks perturbed but his smile smells of money. He offers a broken-down horse shed as a place to stay, and says he knows a man in Kedougou who will fix Williwaw.

I tell him we are staying with Mamadou> A traditional hut winning hands down against his corrugated shed. As for his man in Kedougou, I will think about his offer. The disturbing news is that there is only one car a week to Kedougou that is if it can get through in the first place.

The following morning with Mamadou and his brother I make one more trip back to Williwaw. We move most of the unloaded equipment into the tent. Mamadou will sleep in the tent on his night cattle guard duties.

His brother and I arrive back with our camp beds, mosquito nets, food, radio, books, and whatever else we could carry. I rig up our large mosquito net, and hit the sack knackered.

After a restless night due to excessive tiredness, we rise to our new surroundings. The reception committee of Mamadou two wives have brought breakfast.   Shy and unsure of themselves they stand outside the entrance till we emerge. Cumba the youngest wife is sweet and of a more gentle disposition than the older first wife.   She speaks only Pulaar but is eager to help while the older one looks at us as if to say what next.

The day is spent setting up home playing with the village children. I make another trip up to Williwaw to remove the contents of the safe.

After a good nights sleep, we listen to the early morning sounds of mother

Nature’s alarm clocks.   Down from their shelter up on the stilts the cock leads his flock.   Young boys and girls are returning from their cornfields night guard duties.

Fanny collects water from the spring after which she fully appreciates the benefits of having a few wives to carry a load. I discover that not all bird calls are of Mother Nature’s origin.

A high grasshopper come skylark sound I had heard on my way up to Williwaw turns out to be the mobile phone of the young.   In the wood covered hills the valley corn/cotton fields out of sight of their parents, from their high guard platforms they make this sound to say I am here let’s meet.

After breakfast, I take a wander into Kedougou. There is no sign of any transport. I am however reassured by all that it will come.

Fanny is content to laze away the day in the sunshine. I take our camera, a bottle of water and my trusty coup coup up into the wooded hills behind the village for the Photo of the Year.  Luckily I had remembered my Collins SAS Survival advice. No! Not hanging razor blades over a leaf full of water, or placing sewing needles on leaves and floating them in the water captured in the rotten tree trunk to find north. Luckily I had given the odd tree a slash of the coup coup.   Without the marks left on the trees, I would not have managed to find my way down before dark.

(Top TIP: Make sure you break into your walking shoes before you set out to preach the Gospel)

Day three a runner arrives to announce the pending arrival of the number 13A to Kedougou. With my half shaft, I squeeze into the last free corner aboard the vehicle.

Our driver is a tall individual in full camouflage gear – red biretta he is not to be messed with. A young lad sits beside him in the cab of the Peugeot. There are six other passengers all men carrying a collection of over the shoulder Chicago Bulls, New York Mets, Nike, Adidas, bags along with the inevitable sack that accompany all. I settle back for a long hot and dusty trip.

It not long before my driving of a few days ago is put to shame. I had given myself seven out of ten on my selection of slip routes around the pools full of water gods. For this driver every bump rock pool, river crossing has been negotiated a hundred times over. Without the slightest hesitation, we plunge headlong in with a splash that covers all surrounding vegetation emerging with an audible bow wave. The only sudden stops are when we pass this bloke or that bloke who is usually on a bicycle selling something such as milk.   Spoon by spoon of milk is transferred from one plastic container to another plastic container. The final count of spoons is checked against a small mount of pebbles with ten pebbles representing ten spoons. A price agreed and we on our way again.

No conversation is possible due to the wind, bumps, and ducking of overhanging branches. A drop off of a passenger is signalled by a good thumping on the roof. After what seems to me to be only half the time it took us to drive the obstacle course we arrive.

We stop on the outskirts of Kedougou.   My fellow passengers like stars of the night that twinkled in front of you are no more. They have melted into the passing pedestrian flow of people.   Before my karks can hit the ground I stick out like a long-lost soul. Out of nowhere a large hand is guiding me into the house we are parked outside. The grip is bone-crunching.   The beaming smile under the red beret says it all. There is no need for words I am a friend for life.   It is one of those rare moments which I am sure is similar to the bond of a drowning man’s grip.

We are welcomed into a small courtyard where I am taken under the protection of Dyqui Sidile our chauffeur. According to Mrs Sidile when he loves you, he loves you, and, that’s that.

Even though Dyqui has given me his best blanket I put in a very sleepless night.

At first light, we drive down to his mechanic. A man of Tyson stature who squeezes my already bruised knuckles in another handshake that makes me go to my knees. Tyson Caran lifts an engine block with his free hand offering it to me as a seat under his one hammer tree garage.

As he and Dyqui talk, rusting junk in different stages of disintegration surrounds my engine block seat.   There is not a tool to be seen other than the trusty hammer. It is being reshaped by one of the lads on a wheel hub that has long seen better days. The hub is being gently coaxed back onto a truck, which should have gone to the scrap yard when Senegal got its Independence. My first impressions are of deep despair, defeatism, and forlorn hopelessness.

To the background noise of resounding bangs sufficient to blow our eardrum, my problem is explained in detail to Caran. A winch with assorted lengths of chain and cable is laid out on the ground and paced up and down. With some effort, I convince Dyqui that it is not what is required. At least fifty meters of cable in one piece is what we are after to pull Williwaw to safety.

Back we go to his home for more discussion, a bucket shower with his best towel, and a large block of sunlight soap revives my spirits. More discussion on the likely cost of the whole rescue operation produces an agreed price of 24,000 CFA for his services and transportation back up the mountain to do the job.

A runner arrives to say that a cable has been located and that Tyson Caran has just remembered where there is a clapped out land rover that might offer a replacement half shaft.

(Top TIP: When buying your vehicle take into consideration when choosing your vehicle what you want to achieve, where you are going to achieve, and how you are going to achieve. Serious off-road 4 x 4’s are not for posers they are workhorses.)

They say that miracles never cease. Within the next few hours, I have a new half shaft. (A welding job that was to be tested by a further 65000 kilometres of African highways and byways to the point of being totally forgotten until we arrived back in the UK two years later.)

A section of the scavenged shaft is welded by a youth with skills that Dyque swears by. The weld is done by eye weld and for those of you who appreciate the art of welding the above achievement in brackets was indeed a miracle.

Back to Tyson tree garage.   It is now up to me to agree on a price for his work. With the odd fainted heart attack > a near broken hand, and a cracked vertebra from his frequent back slapping eventually gets the deal done.   We are to pick up everyone and everything in the morning at the crack of dawn.

Mrs Sidile a woman of nine children in the first twelve years of her marriage is awaiting our return with a couscous. I am presented with a bottle of coke, three oranges, two spoons and a small basin. The conversation revolves around my good luck. A black and white telly is placed on the balcony deck we all settling down to Bay Watch and East Enders. In the flittering light of the screen, I cannot help watching their faces and wonder if this is what they aspire too.

The bear bright blue walls of my room with the awaiting horsehair mattress and pillow and diving mosquitoes have no attraction to me so I stay and watch Jack Valance for an hour or two in the hope of nodding off.   Back in my room, I lay in a mixture of exhaustion, itching and anticipation of the next mossy bit.

Morning cannot come soon enough.

The revolution of the Internet, DNA, Genetic Engineering, Stem Embryology are further away than the Galaxy of stars I sleep under.

I awake with the fragments of a dream still in my head. I had been looking up to the top of a cliff from a valley floor and there is no sign of Fanny or Florence. All I can hear is love songs whistled on the breeze. Young legs stand over me. Hand in hand I see them walk away. This vision of where Williwaw could have ended up sends a shiver down my back.

“Faith, Sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow” (Aphra Behn 1640-1689)

Breakfast of the milk mixed with sugar and water bread and corn does nothing to improve my ageing body.

By first light, we have collected Tyson and four others. Dyqui’s driving makes no allowances for the early morning nip in the air. He laughs and smiles as we weave and bounce our way back to Segou.

Hanging on for dear life there is just time for a quick holler to Fanny as we speed by. The uncompromising rocky bed river ascent to Williwaw is attacked without any reduction in speed.

Shrills of amazement announce our arrival. With the whole event being described once more to the Woes and Awa’s of all present.   The rock on which Williwaw came to a cropper on is inspected with great interest.

While Tyson slides under Williwaw the surrounding bush is hacked down. “Yes I can do the job on site,” he says. The steel cable replaces my towing strap. The winch ratchet is set up in the fork of a tree. The strap is passed through my rear-towing hitch and made secure around another tree trunk.

There is little I can do other than watch. The link axle rods are removed and hammered back as straight as possible.

(TOP TIP: Stubborn track-ends can be removed by soaking them in penetrating oil. Place a heavy hammer on one side of the track-end and give it a sudden wallop on the other side.)

The new driveshaft is fitted just before Cumba with her latest arrival strapped to her back followed by her young daughters and wife number one arrives. All are drenched in so much perspiration that their colourful dresses refused to move an inch as they unloaded the basins from their heads. Lunch has arrived.

After lunch watched by all, rubber-legged me is now sitting behind the wheel awaiting Tyson’s signal. Under the front wheels are my two steel perforated tank tracks projecting side up to get as much grip as possible.

(TOP TIP: There is an argument for and against which type of track/sand ladders one should bring. My preference is for the perforated heavier tank style tracks. Although heavier than sand tracks they are cheap and more versatile in their usage, affording good grip, they are interlocking and more durable than many designer tracks. I had one track cut into two lengths stored under the tent platform on the roof of Williwaw. A few sections of pipe insulation tubing interwoven through the holes in the tracks stopped any roof vibration from the tracks. They have however a habit of bending upwards and sagging under the vehicle.)   

I start the engine and let it run for a few minutes. It’s now or never, as the quotation goes, “Here today, gone tomorrow.” My faith hovers near.   The tyres spin for a fraction of a second. Frantic hands release chains, straps, and chocks. Williwaw inches forward. Dyqui yells, his eyes expressing all the encouragement he could muster. Before I can breathe a release of adrenaline makes me shiver. I am up and over.

With all the gear loaded a claque of thunder has Dyqui wanting to urgently departure. On arriving back at the village there is only time for a quick coffee before crashing out for the night.

That night not a drop of rain penetrates our round-grassed roof dwelling. We watch the lighting through our arched open doors, which are partially closed by a waterfall of water.   Sleep comes in dribs and drabs until the steam from the roof and the dull thudding of the maze being pounded in the courtyard announce morning.

By the time we surface all is in full swing.   The cooking huts one for each wife have their fires alight. Breakfast is served under the compound cotton tree. A mixture of rice with a peanut sauce, some Lyons yellow packs tea, with power milk.

(Top TIP: Powdered Milk (with full fat) can be found all over Africa.)  

The repack begins. Even with four porters, it is a long and arduous day trudging up the mountain. We decide to stay over for one more day in our village just to enjoy a lazy day without any worries. We tour the fields with their guards each showing us his sentry post with dangling pots to raise the alarm. We visit the bonking cop leaving him some music to make love to.

We shower, dine on pasta and fresh corn on the cob, exchange some gifts and present Amadou with enough money to treat his family to a day out. He never asked for the slightest payment of any kind.

Waves all around we once more march out of the village up the riverbed to Williwaw. We’re off.   One and a half kilometres passes Mamadou’s cattle my left tracking rod u bends with the axle swinging out of line. The girls are in tears. I let fly a string of language that would have choked the devil himself.

Six hours later I eventually get the axle link rods free. Heat them over a fire I hammer them out straight to the best of my ability.

All efforts to push back the axle to reinstate them fail. I try pulling the axle forward on one side with rope and pushing back on the other side with my feet. Eventually exhausted with every knuckle grazed I quit and settle for a spliff, supper and the calming psalms of Fanny’s support and logic. “It’s Murphy law”.

Luckily wild pitch number forty-one is hacked out of the bush on some raised ground between two rivulets of water. It is a night to remember > crawlers, mosquitoes, barking monkeys, with humour at a premium.

Fanny’s brave face say’s it all next morning as I leave them both to march down once more to Segou. I arrive at eleven am. Mamadou and his brother Boubacar are fetched from the cornfields. Their faces reveal not the slight’s sign of surprise only two large smiles that transcend language and race. We visit Cassanova the cop to see if there is any possibility of a car to Kedougou. As to how he would know is a mystery.   He is as helpful as the hot breathless, sticky day. After much discussion most of it blasé and unreassuringly, there is a vague possibility that a car was due later in the day. I deposited myself under a tree to wait.

Here I stayed for the next few hours listing to the solid thuds of the pounding poles of two young girls. The ancient African sound is punctuated by the odd hand clap as the pole is flung an extra inch higher or a yell to scatter the attending audience of chickens, goats and sheep that pounce on any grain seed lucky to escape.

I roll a spliff and all of a sudden remember my knife sharpening man across the street.   He has a forge. One hour later my link rods are welded to an old starting handle to give them extra strength and I have learnt that the shopkeeper has a certificate in motor mechanics. With him, in tow, I arrive back to the girls. Some brute force and by chucking the wheels we hammer the axle back inch by inch we are successful. Eureka we are back in business.

(TIP: Your vehicle undercarriage needs lots of tender love and care. Don’t skimp > fit the following. The best shock absorbers you can afford. If leaf springs add an extra leaf. Coil springs carry two compressed spare springs. Fit a heavy metal Sump Protection Plate. Last but not least beef up your axle link rods and fit tracking rod protection plates. O! Yes, don’t forget a bar of sunlight soap it comes in handy if you spring a leak in your fuel tank.) 

By the time we are ready to roll it’s too late in the day. A good meal and a game of rummy, which Fanny has taught to Florence whilst I was away, see us asleep pondering the morrow. It’s not long in coming as I am up at six am.

Slipping out of the tent I walk a few kilometres up the riverbed. There is tranquillity to the morning, which I hope and pray will stay with us for the day. The theoretical road our riverbed is now wider and flatter winding through a remoteness of trees and vegetation unknown to me.   Bird calls or the barks of a monkey from impenetrable trees are the only sounds that break the silence.

Not a car to be seen, only the undulating plateau of the Fouta Djalon bare and rocky stretches out before us under a freckled clouded sky. .

Packed and ready to go, I tell Fanny that I have walked the track earlier in the morning and as far as I could see once we make the plateau the going should be a lot easier. Starting Williwaw I listen like a father awaiting the cry of a newborn baby to every creek and moan from below. We have only just started when on the far side of an Island of scrub we hear an engine.   Through the foliage, a battered cream coloured land rover is making its way from the direction we are trying to go.

For the first time, our route is confirmed as the correct one. We exchange conditions of the slippery slope down to Segou and what lies ahead. According to our first Guineans, we are over the hump with only a few miles to go before we hit a dirt track.

( TO BE CONTINUED)

A quick update on Donations. Still at the magic figure of Zero. Be the first.

R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

Sorting Code: 98-50-10. Many thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE’S UNPUBLISHED BOOK. CHAPTER SIX.

10 Sunday Apr 2016

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SENEGAL.

What we know.

Marabouts- Wolof – Dakar – St Louis – ĺle de Gorée – Slaves – Flies Malaria, Muslims.
Senegal is supposed to have got its name when some yobbo of an explorer pointing at a river. “What is the river name,” he asked of a local Wolof bloke. The Wolof seeing that he was pointing at a wooden canoe replied in his best Wolof
“Ii sunu gal le,” that’s my boat. We have the choice of two frontier crossings from Mauritania into Senegal, the Rosso–Richard ferry crossing > which by all accounts is to be given a wide berth, or around the back of Djoudj National Park.
Leaving Nouakchott in the late afternoon our first difficulty is finding the right exit. The main route out-of-town is called the road of hope. For most of the time it is buried in sand and riddled with cadeaux demanding police, it is well named.
Still exhausted from the ocean floor crossing and last night’s sounds in Hotel Sabah Room 4 at 7000 UM (Uuguiya) without breakfast it does not take long before Fanny’s morning radiance is taxed. In no time it is obvious that one more day in Mauritania will be one too many.

After eighty tar squeezed kilometres we pull over for our last night in a country of over one million km of moving sand driven by the Shahali winds from the south, that combine with the sand to manufacture flattened stones with one or more sides along with pointed grass seeds that form into balls to be blown across the desert floor in search of water.

We are never to know if Mauritania is worthy of its allocation of seven pages out of the one thousand plus pages in Africa Lonely Planet or for that matter the forty bravely mustered pages out of its thousand-plus pages in the West Africa Rough Guide. Or for that matter if the locals still believe in the Islamic Mythology of Muhammad riding on a fabulous beast named Borak (Lighting) part human part animal on his night of ascension into heaven.

However, there can be few places on earth that teaches us that we are all living with unseen hordes of living things, unnamed > vanishing before our eyes.

Over 600 million people live in rural isolation in Africa unaware of the IMF, World Bank, Television, and Electricity. I am told that all over this vast continent lies donor Aid, countries hardware rusting in the noonday sun bearing witness to the lost cause of technology. As we prepare to leave this barren land it is hard to believe that the greater part of Africa will soon turn into an information desert of underclasses due to the inability of the microchips being able to chat with each other. (A Job of the UN to address: Technology should not encroach on a nation’s people freedom of opportunities or intelligence. The smart card is the human card, not the internet > everyone is surely entitled to an equal opportunity to get smart.)

Wild pitch number 35 is alongside a watering hole hidden in a hollow, surrounded by brown sands. Our Sahara sand is still with us if only in a different colour. The well attracts every passing moth, mosquito, fly, ant, and what have you. That night all repellents fail miserably

Bitten to shreds early morning is announced by the local bird population, camels, goats, and well-going people.

After many enquiries, we find a dirt track that leads down to an irrigation canal.   Our route to Senegal is to be the top of the canal bank to the border. Djoudj National Park des Oiseaux is to our left.   With last night’s insect’s attacks, any appetite to visit the Park has long gone out the window.

Some hours later after a relatively easy frontier crossing with a salaam malekum here and a dash there we are on our way to Saint Louis the oldest French settlement in West Africa founded in 1659 and now a UNESCO protected World Heritage Site.

We find Saint Louis in a state of smelly quaint decay. It’s current status as a world heritage site somewhat hard to fathom.   Its island, (Ndar in Wolof) can be given a total miss.

Fought over by the British, French, and Portuguese it has a museum that is closed more often than open. A 500-meter iron Faidherbe Bridge built-in 1897, which was meant to span the Danube with a collection of St Louisienne Architecture that could do with some tender love and care.

The piece de- resistant is a wonderful old silk-cotton tree that has seen all of it in better times. It’s no wonder that UNESCO itself is presently sponsoring a global poll to find out what is worth saving and what is not.

We booked into the Old World colonial Post Hotel for the night. The linen napkins have long disappeared with Jean Mermoz a famous French first world war aviator. However, the ability to charge for past glory remains along with the musky stuffed head trophies of animals once found in Senegal.

Over dinner, we decided to give St Louis a few days but in accommodation more suited to our pocket. We move to Hotel Battling Sikri dedicated to the memory of the ghost of Mbarick Fall – the first African heavyweight-boxing champion of the World.   In 1925 he was bumped off for being black in the USA.

We secure a large room with a street balcony over the hotel bar for half the price of Post Hotel. With the girls needing a rest we decide to stay two nights. While the girls settle in with a shower and a soaking in a large tub I over a beer downstairs in a bar of loose rules get propositioned by one of Mbarick’s reincarnated sparring partners. The rather large lass is promising to go more than the distance for a price. In a dream horror ring, it turns out to be a restless night for me.

We head out on a day’s excursion south of the town.   Our target is a swim on one of those holiday brochure sandy palm tree beaches. Three hours later after digging Williwaw yet again out of more sand, we settle for a swimming pool.

Returning in the tingling light of night we have the misfortune of running into one of Saint-Louis not so saintly like occupants. A douane customs excise Wanker on the make. It takes an hour of argument to get rid of the blither.

Next morning in a cloudburst mixed with sand we leave for Dakar where we need to do some visa hunting.

(TOP TIP: When planning it is worth marking on a Map where and what visa can be had where.)

We make it as far as Kayar a fishing village, about 60ks north of Dakar.   Here amongst the pirogues, we learn that it is possible to cut out the potholes and dust by driving the beach to Dakar.

This time the sand looks firm smooth and inviting.   We whistle down until the tide makes us take a sharp turn up a sand gully between some pine trees. Halfway up the gully, the yellow sand is up to Williwaw’s axle.

The look on the girl’s faces is abundantly clear. O! No, not again. We get stuck within earshot of the breaking waves, and unfortunately in earshot of the adjacent wood night sounds. There is no option but to camp.   The pounding surf combined with the rustling fern trees and dark shadows do not take long to assert themselves on the insecurity of the girls. Pitch 36 turns into Pitch 3. Six hundred meters further up the gully. All six achieved with sand tracks. Here we pitch our tent on the ground.

With fatigue setting in tempers are on a short fuse when a group of young boys arrive. They make it quite obvious that camping where we are is inviting death by mugging.   With a collection of willing pushing hands, we move once more to the end of the gully. Pitch No 38 is alongside a compound wall on top of an ant nest.

The morning reveals the end of the gully opened out onto a small village with a Club Med type camping compound under construction.   The village consists of three or four-grass roof round huts overlooked by a large high water tower.

After the nights’ pitch outside the compound’s wall, no persuasion is required to move us into the village under the only shade-giving tree. Here we are to stay for the next three weeks until the rainy season comes to a halt.

The village is nothing to write home about.   Situated just above the sand line it is five kilometres north of Lake Rose. A sum total of four mud baked wall houses and another few dwellings scattered in amongst the sandy hollows outside the compound. Our accidental adopted villagers are Peulh > a nomadic ethnic group of cattle people, light-toned skin herders.

To Fanny’s undying relief there are two English-speaking people living in the village along with an ex-French Legionnaire in his early sixties who has a strong liking for dark pussy. He and the village chief are business partners in the camping project.

By week one we have met all the chief’s wives whom he refers to as problem one, problem two, and problem three. Problem four has done a bunk some time ago. He spends his days on the roof of the water tower, descending at speed when he spots a dust cloud coming along Lac Rose (Lake Rose). The dust announces the pending arrival of some tourist suckers that have been persuaded to come around the lake to visit his traditional village.

Two of three times a week he scurries across the village, whips on his only white jallaba.   Dons a few strings of beads, which no woman is allowed to touch and abracadabra he has transformed himself into a tourist attraction.

The tour starts with a welcoming speech.   Followed by a quick viewing of all his problems, the well, and then back to his house where he hopes to sell a few wood carvings. Called Josef he is a likeable enough scoundrel, tall, lazy and resourceful who has taken too relaxing in my hammock after any guided tour.

The two English turn out to be a Welsh divorcée and a South African with a visiting child from her first marriage. Living in one of the village sturdier one-room houses they are both playing the white doctors syndrome.

Lake Rose is a Picasso canvas, continually changes colour from silver in the mornings and a deep purple in the early evenings.   It’s a salt source worked by a large community living on its eastern shores, which is peppered with sparkling fresh pearl white conical blobs of salt. Depending on their age the salt mounds descend in intensity of white. In the glaring sun, they silently squat on the reddish soil like the tops of ice cream cones waiting for buyers from Dakar. Postcard of the Lake are grace by them with bare-breasted woman standing waist deep in the purple waters towing strings of colourful plastic washing – up basins.Afficher l'image d'origine

Each mound of salt represents hours of backbreaking work by the village woman. The Tupperware convoys of plastic basins follow their mothers like ducklings over the blue or purple mirror waters of the lake. When full with raked salt they are towed back by the woman to a flat-bottomed boat, which is then poled ashore where the salt is then added to its owner’s individual coned mounts.

By the end of the first week, we have become accustomed to the sound of breaking surf that rings in each morning, the cooing pigeons, and the village braying donkey. We make several trips from Deni Guedj our village to the nearest village Niaga.   It lies twenty minutes south of us along a dirt track that runs beside the lakeshore. Niaga has a small market, a pub and a gre gre maker. These are African miraculous medals that protect everything from mobile phones, vegetables, and your own body against theft, death and conversion. We commission three Gre Gres for our necks to protect us from unwanted events such as dieing from fright, yellow fever, or being eating by cannibals. We have become well-known around the Lake.

The salt village Gin distiller has never had it so good, nor does the large frying pan in the last of the salt village huts, at which we usually stop for a fried egg bread concoction, better known as a banjo which usually ended up being frantically wiping of or laps as we bump our way home.

By week two I am on the local football committee. The chief has got the hang of getting in and out of the hammock, along with twenty odd children.   Flo has made friends with a little adorable fellow named Gaddafi.   We have acquired an egg/chicken runner named Mansual aged twelve. Both are sons of the chief who practise polygyny one of the African continents main scourges. He is the proud sire to more than a handful of children.

I have gone on a night hunt with my widow’s memory catapult. “There, over there”, shouts Ngom for hours. A slim built man, with laser-beam eyes, the eldest son of the local Marabou, (a Muslim holy man and teacher, often gifted with special powers of healing) who by the end of the night is convinced that I am blind and could do with his father help.

We have met Dalie a Serere of twenty-five or six years.   He lives in one of the Legionnaire huts. Kind-hearted, he is a gentle soul, with an African smile that triumphs over the terrible efforts of making a living. Also Amadou in his late twenties, tall, reads English, speaks French, who bemoans being caught by his own culture and the extended family. He is genteel and intelligent, craving change. Lastly, there is Mamadou Da the village woe who has the ability to transfix one with a not overly friendly eye.   Suffering from piles, he hauntingly wanders around in a vagueness of the present, which is both complex and torturous.

Living adjacent to our campsite we also have three gardeners. They spend days attending small market gardens, drawing water by the bucket full hand over hand from a deep well. My suggestion of constructing a pulley over the well, with a demonstration of how to support their tomatoes with a stake, falls on deaf ears.   The mask of tradition win’s out every time I suggest any improvements to make their working lives easier.   It confirms to me that there is not the remote possibility of an African becoming so cosmopolitan that traditions will not apply in the long run. Whether you like it or not, you are part of Africa long-established cultural ways.

Fanny befriends Hassin Qusseynou Ba one of the gardeners who greets us each morning with a joining of his hands and a small bow under our Acacia tree. He is a shy man who’s gently spoken words finds a poetic justice in his onerous life.   Long into the night, he plays a simple one-stringed violin instrument (a small Gourd) producing a mosaic of sounds that float in the air, like the dancing tongs of fire.’

.By week three is it time to visit Dakar thirty kilometres by road or fifteen by the seashore. The city name in Wolof means tamarind tree. Built on a twin-pronged peninsula called Cap Vert it boasts Africa most westerly point Des Almadies.

Setting off early morning we opt for the road route.   Rufisqua/ Dakar. Half the village bumming a lift too different drop off points. Our Legionnaire arms us with a secure place to park in town.   Police barriers are neutralised by our mixed bag of passengers perched in and on top of Williwaw.   Our bibles, West Africa Rough Guide and Africa Lonely Planet describe Dakar as one of the capitalist capital of West Africa. They are not wrong. A melting pot of poverty, wealth and crime, it attracts the usual syringe of toxic human behaviour found in all big cities. A pleasant surprise if you have arrived overland from the north.

Our secure car parking is the Hotel Lagune II where for the price of a beer your car is watched over by the hotel parking attendance’s, for the duration of your stay. A service we later abuse staying over for a weekend on Ile de Goree.

Dakar is a nightmare to get into never mind drive around in. Each and every crossroads, roundabout, has its Rayban cop with Williwaw attracting more than her fair share.

With the normal shores completed, a wad of CFA currency treats us to an excellent lunch before visiting the British Embassy. We arrange for them to accept an envelope on our behalf > Some liquid funds.

(TIP: Credit cards, Bank drafts, Traveller cheques, all have their uses. The Bush bank, however, operates in cash. I had a small safe deposit box welded up under the back tyre mudguard painted black.)

After a futile talk on our proposed route, we exit the Embassy security gates to find we have a puncture. With the Spanish spectacle in mind, I have the changing of a tyre down to a fine art so it is not long before we are once more into the fray.

Dropping off our passports with visa applications at the Mali Embassy, we take a taxi from the parking lot of the hotel to the port to visit Île de Gorée the jewel of Dakar. Afficher l'image d'origine

It is from this small island that many a dark soul walked out of the gates of no return to be sold as a slave in the cotton fields of Alabama. Only one out of four ever reached the age of forty. The freedoms they left behind are to eventually shape the constitution of the USA and the freedoms they learnt to destroy Liberia their reward.

With the port hassles over we board a small sturdy ferry that slip out over the oil slick water of Dakar harbour to Île de Gorée.   The passage to the island is short less then half an hour but in the pre rains humidity, the sea breeze is fodder from heave.

From its small sandy beach swimmers clamber aboard and dive off the side of the ferry. The jetty is thronged with waiting return passengers but there is an air of tranquillity. In front of us a painters pallet of flaking pastoral coloured housing, narrow stoned streets dripping with bright hanging tropical flowers, make all of the harbour restaurants and bars erotically appealing.

Île de Gorée, unlike Saint Louis, has reaped some benefit from its UNESCO halo. Originally a Dutch colony named after an Island of the Dutch coast it has had a chequered history. British 1663, Dutch 1664, French 1677, British 1759, French 1763.

Catching the last ferry back we are booked into a small new hotel for the following weekend.   There is no easy way out of Dakar.

Collecting Williwaw we battle with the fumes, dust, potholes, and the police.   Not forgetting the great unwashed that weaver with total disregard to the dangers of the moving wheel, to escape the city.

Arriving at the finishing line for the Paris-Dakar race, which is on the southern end of Lake Rose, unlike the Chief parched end we find banana plantations and causuarina ironwood trees, we stop for a Biere la Gazelle. (Insert Beer label)  We watch the sunset turn Lac Rose into a deeper pink-purple colour that we have not seen to date.   Hard working bacteria discharging iron ore oxide into its waters are the cause of its colour moods. Behold an African evening when you can almost feel the earth revolving on its axis.

The waters of the lake I am told are as salty as the Dead Sea. Our trip home past the salt mounts, and out over the salt flats that subs up as the football pitch. Williwaw collects her normal load of highly relieved stragglers for a roof ride home.

Awaken by a downpour we learn that the village has gone down sick. Not good news as round two of the football league is only a few days away. We are drawn against Gorom, a Wolof village and every able body will be required both on and off the pitch.

That night I am invited by Ngom my hunting partner to visit each and every household to explain the necessity to boil the water. Our night journey over the dunes starts under a sky of immense beauty. On the distant horizon lighting punchers, dark clouds lit up by a red sunset.

“Don’t stand on that snake or that thorn-bush”, it takes hours, most of the night to visit all. The rains have begun.

By the next morning, the village is awash in more ways than one. Old and young are washing.   Breasts are released from cross your heart and hope to die western brassieres. Bums large and small are glistening in the early morning sun; modesty had gone out the window.

Later in the morning, one more washed body is found on the beach. A young Wolof man drowned.   At which Josef the village chief takes one look shrugged his shoulders and walked off “C’est pas grave “it’s not serious it’s only a Wolof “Tribalism the basic political illness of modern world and Africa> Nothing that a few hundred-year wars never mind two World Wars or the coming Soccer match won’t resolve.

That night the football committee meets under the stars. Voices rather than faces identifying each speaker. Each is allowed to summits their tactics without interruption.

It is an earnest business without much joking. The referee sets out the perimeters of fair play. I am commandeered to get the VIPs Awning and chairs and because I am viewed as a rich man when next up in Dakar I am to purchase a new football.

I point out that due to the village sickness we are weak in the back and that perhaps a little Irish fair play would not go astray.   I suggest that on the day of the match that the village grazing cattle behind our goal could be herded by their cattle dogs onto the pitch when we come under attack. Not a foul as it would be the cows that blocked the goal, not us.   Once understood there is an outburst of knee-slapping; laughter and shrieking that has every sleeping baby in the village-wide awake.

(TO BE CONTINUED)  Don’t miss the football match. Make a donation.

R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

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