Fridges and donkeys

Well, this is my first ever blog. I hope I'm doing it right.

I started doing this a few months ago when I moved to Senegal but then I never had the right surroundings to actually post anything on it. Now I am back in London for a few weeks recovering and I happened to meet a friend, Barbara, who runs a world music festival in Sweden (www.selam.se) who said when I told her the story about the donkey that if I got my blog going, she'd link it to her website.

So this is for you Barbara.

I'm Rose. I live in a damp shed in Ziguinchor, in the south of Senegal. I built it in 5 days, not with my own bare hands, but Asso, the mason, built it out of concrete (although I wanted mud). I have lived in it for five hot rainy months, and it's never dried out. I have a foam mattress (mouldy), and now a sofa which looks uncomfy but is in fact quite good. I brought the fabric from Guinea Bissau when I went to cover the elections (I'm a journalist).

The house is in a compound of a family. There are 20-something people in this family, maybe more, I'm not sure. Also in the compund is a recording studio with a soundproof booth made from mud and a car windscreen for the window. I'll talk about the studio on another day. I have lots of adopted children, all under 7 years old. They help me cook and come into my house and put sand everywhere. During mango season I made mango jam and it was a disaster. That was back in the early days when I still had energy, before summer came.

So I live in this house, I write articles about music and economy and security situations and I try to live and cool and relaxed African life. It's sometimes not so easy.

Should I explain about the donkey?

After three months or so of living in my damp shed, I decided to buy a fridge. There was a whisper on the streets that someone was selling one on the other side of town, for £50. I went over on my motorbike and had a look. You know those fridges you see abandoned on the street in Brixton that you might put rubber gloves on to touch? i think there's a thing going on where people collect those fridges and send them to Africa. I'm sure it's an African who's doing it. This fridge has cockroaches living in the plastic door seal. I say 'has', I paid the cash and took it home.

People transport things in Ziguinchor by donkey. Salet mbam (wolof for 'donkey cart') are everywhere, a guy with a whip sitting on the cart, transporting things around town. We called a salet mbam from the road, argued over the price for taking the fridge home, then sent him on his way while I made my way slowly back via motorbike.

Now this fridge is in my damp shed. We have an electric cable that runs from the main house in the compound through their bathroom window, through mine, through the bedroom and into the living room. I hang my washing on the cable. It has a rusty fan that dangles off a wire at the back and when the electricity cuts twice a day (or when one of the kids sticks his fingers into the chinese adapter and cuts off the supply) it sighs to a halt and then bursts back to life in the middle of the night, the noise reverberating through the house and waking me up. By that time icy water has melted all over the floor (but never drowning the cockroaches) and the wet floor mats have started to rot.

BUT! We do have cold food and I got to drive a donkey.

This is a photo of me eating mangoes in the compound. And drinking Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate imported from America by my sister, as were the martini glasses and swizzel sticks. There'll be more postings once I'm back in Senegal, and maybe I'll tell the story of how I got fridge number 2 home (never underestimate the efficiency of child labour).

pip pip, Rose