Falling upon luck

This one starts from the end and goes back to the beginning. I've finished my holidays now and am back in Dakar, feeling kind of blue. But something cheered me up. I just went out into my silent street- everyone has gone back to their village to celebrate the muslim festival of tabaski- and found that my evil downstairs neighbour who I've been having a feud with for 18 months, had tied her ram to my rubbish bin.

Tabaski is the festival of (let me just Google this) Eid Al-Kabir, which celebrates when Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice to God and as a reward had it replaced by a ram. Every family in the country buys a ram and slaughters it on the morning of tabaski, this year, on new year's eve. My downstairs neighbour had tethered her huge great ram to my new rubbish bin, an oil drum which was lovingly turned into a bin for the street by Now in an attempt to educate people in responsible rubbish disposal, and I wasn't best pleased. But letting it pass, I went to the bin to put a piece of rubbish in it. At that moment, the ram looked up from its hay munching and took fright, leaping off down the street with the oil drum still tied to it and all the rubbish all over the road. I could hardly contain my giggles and think it is so far the best tabaski ever. One of the street guardians went off after it and when I last checked, the oil drum was back in its rightful place, but the ram was not. Maybe it has met an early death.



I spent Christmas on this island, my favourite place in the whole world. There are a lot of desert islands in the world, but Carabane is particularly special. A Senegalese person, who I don't know, has a small round house there and three of my friends live and work in it. To suppliment their income they rent out rooms for next to no money, on the arrangement that guests can help if they want to, around the house. It's right on the beach, it's full of animals, and there is a silent peace which is only broken by the wind in the trees and the sound of the waves crashing in the front garden.



This year we had a gang. My friends from Dakar, Cecilia and Jo, plus the three men who live there, Lulu, Pierre and Neba. Because it was Christmas and they are Catholics, they made quite a fuss over it and we all went to midnight mass and then Pierre's sister's house for Christmas lunch. After mass on Christmas eve, we piled out of the palm-decorated church to the large tree behind, where the spirits of the island live. We all stood around in the warm night and drank palm wine from a jug, and poured some out for the spirits too. Afterwards we went to a disco and danced to reggae all night, before walking back across the beach to our home. Christmas day involved chicken, couscous and beer, and then a trip to the middle of the football pitch to pick up the island's only phone reception to speak to people in England.



We had wonderful food all week, lots of fresh fish, a sea snail the size of my head (which was saw caught and killed but refused to eat), rum and lemon cocktails. It was almost too perfect, too beautiful. Wednesday morning brought with it the boatman, who came to take us back to Ziguinchor. We felt miserable to leave, and worse as the day wore on. By the time we arrived at the house, all I could do was lock myself away in the bathroom and enjoy running water, even if cold. Thursday morning we got back on the ferry to go back to Dakar, and all waited earnestly for the moment when the ferry passes the island. we knew we wouldn't be able to see much, but I think we all hoped that there would be a signal from shore to let us know that paradise hadn't forgotten us.

"I rather imagined that the boys would be on the beach waving a flag for us," said Jo, visibly disappointed.

Suddenly Cecilia screamed: she had seen a flash of white. Sure enough, there on the beach outside the house, was someone waving something white, a speck in the distance but enough to make me feel buoyant and revived. We pulled off our scarves and waved back, and everything felt better.

Arriving in Dakar, I discovered that not only is there a gas shortage in Dakar, but that my gas bottle had run out. Half way through my carrot soup, I had to go out and lug my gas bottle around the tiny shops in the neighbourhood looking for gas. To soften the blow of telling me there was no gas in the entire city, each shop owner simply told me I could get it at the next shop. I understand it was an act of kindness, but it meant by the time I had given up and flagged down a taxi, I was exhausted and my arms hurt. But I fell upon luck. The taxi man, a young guy in a red fez, drove by and said,

"Oh, Lady, you look so tired. Get in, and just give me what money you want."

He drove me from shop to shop, swerving across the road and pulling up outside every time he saw one.

"Hssssssss!", he called out. "Any gas in your shop?" he asked, before driving on. Finally we found some, in the gas depot of course, and he took me home.

Happy new year to you all. May your 2007 dreams come true.

An industrious weekend

For the first time in a month, since I started my new correspondent’s job, I had enough energy to go out and listen to music this weekend without worrying that it would use up valuable drops of energy that I couldn’t spare. Playing at Dakar’s best live music place, PenArt Jazz, was Diogal Sakho, a Senegalese folk singer who I wrote about for fRoots magazine about three years ago. It was my second ever music article, and I had gone to Paris to write it, managing to spend less than the £67 I got to write the thing, on 2 days including the Eurostar. Seeing Diogal again brought back vivid memories of a time when my life was quite dramatically different, when I dreamt of living in Senegal, and of writing full-time for a living.

PenArt is a small bar, with clusters of comfy seats grouped in U-shapes around the room. It’s always hard to see people when you first go in there because it’s so dark and it takes a while for your eyes to get accustomed. But when you do, there is always someone you know who will shuffle up to let you sit down and watch the band, and even the people on the same seats as you that you don’t know will shake your hand or say a polite “bonsoir”.

The stage is about three by seven metres long. It’s not actually a stage, just one side of the room with a piece of carpet down to define it from the rest of the room. The ceiling is low (one bass player I know has problems not hitting his head on the ceiling while he’s playing) but the atmosphere is magical. When I listen to music at PenArt I always feel lucky to be living in such an extraordinary country, where music is made by real people and where people know how to listen to it properly.

After the concert, which was mellow and quite touching, and after the die-hard Diogal fans had left, Diogal, his manger and friend of mine, Soline, Diogal’s musicians and the bar’s manager, Kisito and I all sat around having a drink. At about 4am, a guy in his mid-twenties ran in to the bar and said, “where’s the concert?”. We all looked at eachother sideways and said, “it finished an hour ago”. The guy stood with his head in his hands and started to explain how he had tried for four nights in a row to come to Diogal’s concert, but each time, for some reason, he’d missed it. This was the final concert before he went back to France and he’d missed it again.

“Give him a thousand francs (£1) and he’ll play you a song,” joked the drummer and started to get out the guitar. Diogal is incredibly shy, almost painfully so, but he tentatively took hold of the guitar and sat waiting for the guy to name the song. The fan sat there with his eyes closed and then named the song he wanted, and Diogal started to play. It was delicate, and moving, a very tender song with Diogal’s exceptional voice quietly spilling out across the table around which we all sat entranced. The fan put his hands over his face to hide his emotion, before singing along for the rest of the song.

In other news, I have spent two days sewing.



I have an apprentice, Now, and he's good although yesterday we had a disagreement because there were four hands trying to work out how to get the lining (pictured) into a patchwork bag. In the end I had to tell him that too many people in the kitchen spoiled the fish and rice. He toyed with the idea of getting up and leaving, but he stayed and was here all day yesterday cutting squares for a patchwork (I can't say Patchwork-What because the person who's Christmas present it is reads this blog). Both presents are now finished and I am very pleased. My sewing machine, newly bought from a man who imports old ones from Switzerland and re-conditions them and sells them out of his shed, works, which is a miracle in itself, and it's good and sturdy. Now all I have to do is finish my patchwork bedspread, which I wish I had now because it has suddenly got cold. It's all very well wishing it was cold, but when it comes, it's best to have blankets and jumpers on hand, not in squares in the sewing basket.

Counting Fuula Style

There have been some interesting advancements around Now’s shop recently. One evening, when I had been inside all day writing reports on treasury bills issued by the nation of Niger, I went out to have my evening chat with Now. He eagerly showed me the blisters on his hands where he had been gripping a spade and then said, “haven’t you seen what I’ve done?” He took me around to the side of the shop and low and behold, there was a newly erected trellis, the trunks of small slim trees wedged and concreted into the ground next to the frangipani tree, a network of smaller branches criss-crossing overhead, and the foliage which creeps over from the airfield teased along the branches to provide shade. He was so proud, and rightly so. It looks lovely.



For weeks, Now and I have been talking about getting a bench for everyone to sit on. At the moment there are two tiny little stools (which I had actually had made for my nephew but which had been a disaster so I donated them to the shop), a drinks crate, the bottom (and seat) of which has collapsed, and a backless chair. When Naomi and I come along, the boys spring up to let us sit down but someone is always standing, and those who are sitting are not exactly doing so in comfort.

On Friday afternoon, on returning home from town, I saw Laye, our friendly local carpenter. Now and I told him exactly what kind of bench we wanted, and using Laye’s arms (which he knows how to hold out so they are exactly one meter- I know because I found a tape and measured it myself!) we ordered our bench.

Then came the discussions over price. He wanted £10, which I thought was reasonable for a 1.5 metre long bench, but I knew it was too much and was expected to fight him down, so I sucked my teeth and put my hand over my mouth as if he had thrown the most heinous insult and looked at him sideways. Eventually, when I had got over the faux-shock, I said, ‘Laye, am I not your friend?’ to which everybody cracked up and he protested loudly, explaining that it was the price of wood, you see, and everything was just so expensive now. We settled finally on £7 and I decided I would pay him a little more if he did it in the time he said he would- bizarrely, by the next day. In my dreams, I thought.

On saturday evening, as I lay on my sick bed watching Fawlty Towers DVDs, Now came into the house excitedly and said, "Sokhnaci (lady), come see the bench". We ran out to look and there was the new bench, 24 hours after it had been ordered, sitting proudly in the street. It's a bit high, comically high infact, but Laye's going to fix it. But it does mean that we can all now sit down in comfort. Next, Now and I are getting an oil drum and introducing rubbish bins to the street.

Another change in the shop is the new shop-keeper, Now’s nephew, Ali. Now brought him from Casamance when he last when down there and the quiet shy boy has been selling every morning before Now gets there so that Now can have a bit of a rest. I didn’t know that Ali doesn’t speak any French or Wolof so when I went to buy 3 eggs for my steamed pudding last week, we had something of a communication breakdown.

One egg costs 85 francs. 3 should then cost 255 francs. But while I was working this out, Ali did some calculations on the calculator and showed me the number 51. I gave him 300 francs, thinking 51 must be the change. But then it seemed weird that something multiplied by 3 should come out with a one in it, so I tried to tell him he had made a mistake. He refused to believe me, but gave me 45 francs back as change. I walked away shaking my head, wondering what on earth was going on. Behind me stood Now giggling. He had been watching the whole exchange, without me knowing. He asked Ali to do the calculation again on the calculator.

“Seventeen times three equals fifty one,” said Now as we watched Ali tap away on the key pad. “You got the correct change, so there’s no problem, right?”

“Explain to me where the 17 comes from,” I asked Now, bewildered.

“One egg in Fula is 17” he said, and laughed, because he knew I would never understand what he was about to explain to me. “It’s Fuula money”.

Now, and his nephew, and everyone else who hangs out at the shop except for Naomi and I, comes from the Fuula ethnic group where they count money in divisions of five. So one egg of 85 Senegalese francs, is 17 when counted in Fuula. So three eggs in Fuula cost 51. Times it by 5 to get the Senegalese price, 255. Shopping will never be the same again.

The Terminator

Just as Now and I were passing a very nice afternoon of bicycle maintenance outside the house, along came this man in a peaked hat carrying a display case of poisons. He must be the exterminator I had spent Friday waiting at home for, but who never came.

Naomi and I have a cockroach problem, which I think is quite normal here, but even I, who has a pretty high tolerance to cockroaches, feel a bit squeamish when I come into the kitchen at night and turn the light on and find a hundred little cockroaches scuttling out of the just-washed-up washing up.

So with the help of Now and £7.50, we called in the terminator.



We established that we should take all the plates and cups out onto the balcony, and then left him to his work. When I had to come back in for a screwdriver, I couldn't breath, and when I tried, my heart raced uncontrolably.

But we seem to be free-ish of the little mites, and we had a lovely evening of cooking fish for friends and, joy of all joy, eating steamed chocolate pudding.

I have become something of a master at steamed pudding, mostly because we don't have an oven and as an ex-baker, I feel I have to get some kind of rising action in my life every now and then. Last night I made a cracker. First I took it out when it was only half cooked and watched ut collapse onto a plate. Then I tried to put it back in the steamer but ripped the tin-foil so that all the steam could get in and water soaked through the pudding which it was on its second bake. The result was a slightly wonky but incredibly moist and gooey pudding which we all agreed was the best I have made yet.

I had brought some Bird's Custard Powder back from England and Cecilia and I spent 15 minutes lovingly stirring it in the kitchen, watching it thicken up, talking about how it made us think of home and all things good. Went to taste it. Spat it out. I'd mixed up the sugar with the salt. It's been a long bloody week.

Some bicycle maintenance

Sparks alive

My last post was a bit desolate. Right after posting that, stuck on the floor in a corner of Casablanca airport, the only place I could find a plug to charge the computer, I met John, a Canadian reporter who I took under my wing and showed around Dakar. So my first weekend back was actually filled with: swimming in the warm waters of the Piscine Olympique, my second home; music- a whole night of music on Gorere Island plus another gig the next night; good food in roof-top Ethiopean restaurants; and best of all, wall to wall electricity. No hint of "what am I doing here?" at all.

Thanks to the comment made by a regular Senegalese reader about the issues of racism on the last posting, I was going to reply about that and what I am doing here (since he/she asked). This post was going to be full of all the great things about Senegal. But right now, at one in the morning, all I can think to write about is how great, how truely wonderful, magical and glorious, is electricity.

The reason I am sitting here at one in the morning, still writing (I started at 8.30 this morning but have only just produced anything of substance), is because today, my first day back at writing since September, I got up early to prepare for the productive day ahead, only to find at 11am that the power had cut. It didn't come back until 7 this evening. But did I go to the swimming pool and wait patiently for it to return like someone sensible? No, I went about town looking for a generator, then having found one and negotiated a taxi to bring it back home, went off in the other direction to my friend's bar where they have power and internet so that I could charge the computer and get my emails. It took me 1.5 hours to travel the 3 miles there and back because of traffic, and by the time the electricity had come back at 7, I had written a grand total of 9 words (which I later lost when my Word programme crashed).

However, I now have electricity and have had for 5 hours. So, I was able to listen to the Archers while I cooked, eat under the cool breeze of a fan, then retreat to my desk, print things, email, Skype my family, sort out my council tax in London, listen to excellent music, upload photos of my holiday for my sister-in-law, listen to more music, check out what time my friend's flight gets in tonight, write an article and a CD review for a magazine, find a flight for my mum, and eventually write my blog. I can also drink cold water, see one foot infront of the other, find the matches to light insect coils. I can do whatever I like, damn it, because we have power.

When I lived in Ziguinchor, I never even noticed when the electricity was cut. It went out very rarely, Zig being a small town and the system needing only to support a small number of people, and I was always outside anyway, and there was never much in our fridge. Music came from drums and guitars, not iTunes.

But now that I live in Dakar, that I have to be on-line most of the time, that my job and income rely on having battery and internet, I just can't survive when it goes out. And it goes out every day (but not on weekends, apparently). And in our neighbourhood, it stays out for most of the day. It is the most futile feeling- there is nothing I can do anymore, workwise, which doesn't involve my computer. My interviews are transcribed onto Word, my radio production is done on the computer, my camera is digital, even my phone numbers are stored on my computer's address book. When it goes out, I simply can't function.

But when it comes back on, it is the most glorious and exciting feeling. There is radio and work and emails and friends and cold, cold water in the fridge. There is music. I try not to let the almost constant fear that it will cut again get in the way of enjoying one of the most wonderful inventions ever.

Back to Dakar, once more

This week I was on the 295 bus, Fulham-bound. I was going to have my teeth drilled. Just as the red double-decker turned down towards Battersea, two Somalian women dressed in long head coverings got on the bus, showed their bus passes, and went to walk towards the seats at the back of the bus. I heard the bus driver say something to the women which made them stop by the driver’s cab and say, “What?”, “Are you alright? I don’t think so”, “What’s you problem?”. The women sat down infront of me and grumbled about what the driver had said, apparently something like “Go and sit down” but with a hint of sarcasm. Whatever he said and in whatever way he said it, there was a tension- and it was colour-driven.

I sympathised with the women, smiled to let them know that the bus driver shouldn’t talk to them any differently than he did to me (he just ignored me). I was embaressed that he should be mocking them, felt ashamed even that people can’t get on the bus in London without having comments made about them.

And then I had a flash of what it’s like getting on the bus in Dakar. It’s the same thing. Toubabs (that’s me, white people) are treated differently, sometimes we are charged more, sometimes we get special treatment, sometimes we are teased, sometimes abused, sometimes proposed to. But rarely treated as everyone else is.

I am used to it and I excuse it to myself by saying “I’m a white person (or a foreigner) in someone else’s country, of course I will be treated differently.” Other people, Senegalese people, excuse it saying that it’s not racist, it’s not malicious, it’s just that the Senegalese are used to identifying foreigners as somehow different, whatever their colour and wherever they come from. If I say I don’t like people calling me Toubab as a name (“Oi! Toubab, pass the bus fare”), I am told, “but, it doesn’t mean anything…”. In short, I am, as a white person, never allowed to voice the fact that I am treated differently because of my skin colour. And the reason? Because I am white.

While I was in Europe this Autumn, I had some interesting experiences and conversations with black people about prejudice and racism. During one conversation, in which I was sympathising with a black friend about racist treatment he had received in Europe, I tried to express what it was like being a white person in a black country. I made it quite clear that I didn’t feel our experiences were the same (as one Senegalese friend says, “the difference between you and I is that people treat you differently in Senegal because they think you’re rich, and people treat me differently in France because they think I’m a thief!”). But the fact is that I am judged and treated differently, sometimes negatively, because of my skin colour. The response of my friend shocked me. He refused to let me speak, to let me voice the fact that I too experience racism daily. Because apparently, being white, I wouldn’t know anything about it.

But it seems to me that in England, political correctness is so strong that in general, most white people I know would be scared to even say the word ‘black’ to describe someone. It’s ‘Black-British’, ‘of Nigerian extraction’, ‘with Jamaican parents but brought up in England’, but rarely ‘Black’. If someone says anything that might be perceived as a judgement or assumption on someone’s ethnic origin, a hush will fall. But watch a white person get on a bus in Dakar and watch her be called ‘White’ and told she must pay twice the price because of the fact that she is white, and then watch her be told by her black friends that she’s not even allowed to feel anything about it, because of the fact that she is white, and well, it doesn’t make sense. For centuries, white people have been in control of much of the world’s resources and ruled over much of the world’s population, and done so with brutality, but that has nothing to do with me. I just want to have the freedom to feel something about it when I, too, am judged by the colour of my skin.

*****

A lighter part of my trip to Europe, a walking holiday with my brother in the Appenine Mountains of Italy.



*****

I am on my way back to Dakar. I feel suddenly afraid, desperately wishing a friend was picking me up from the airport, wishing I had something steady and stable to go back, to like a job where I am expected to be from nine till five, under the watchful eye of someone. As it is, I am going back to the freefall of my work, where I am the boss and the worker, and I only work as hard as I make myself.

I’m afraid of the darkness of my street, memories of my mugging coming back. I’m afraid to be so far from my family, from my dog who is sick and I may not see again, afraid that the people I love I may not see again. When I went to London, I didn’t marvel at much. The choice in the shops was exciting for a day or so but that then became commonplace. What surprised me was how much I rely on, and love, my family and friends, and how unhealthy I now feel it is for me to be far from them. I feel like distance is so fragile- so much can happen and so quickly, and it’s best to be close by.

Paris

I’ve had nothing but miserable visits to Paris.

The first time I went, I was 20 years old and had just returned from Australia. I was as miserable as could be but thought that the anti-dote to my sadness, sadness of being away from my first love, sadness at being alone, was a visit somewhere else, alone. Predictably enough, I had a miserable time. I stayed in a hostel, ate in cheap student restaurants, stood on the Champs Elisee and telephoned Australia. I prayed that being alone would get better.

Five years later, I wanted to move to Africa. But not having the courage to do so right away, I decided that a good medium might be to move to Paris, where the African music scene is far more developed than London and where there is a very good African dance school. I went for two weeks; I had a terrible time.

First of all, the people who said, "yeah, if you ever come to Paris, come and stay", well, they didn't mean it. So in fact I ended up staying in a hostel in the Marais district where I was surrounded by people, but somehow not the people I wanted to be surrounded by. I went to dance school every day, and I ate falafel. But the rest of the time I wandered the streets wishing I wasn't alone, wishing there was someone I could travel with, wishing I wasn't in such a beautiful city feeling so damn desolate.

Well, third time lucky. First up was an interview with two of the most delightful and down to earth (not to mention extraordinarily talented) musicians I have had the chance to work with. If you haven't yet seen the page on my website which tells you about the best music to go out and buy, then click here and find out about Senegalese diva Julia Sarr and her French musical partner, Patrice Larose.



In this song, Julia, backed by the flamenco-inspired Patrice, sings 'Yo lai xarr' which means, 'I'm waiting for you'. It's a very moving and slightly comic song about how frustrated she feels sometimes when she thinks about the fact that only fate, or God, will bring the right man to her, and that she can do nothing about it. I have loved this album for months and had a commission from a magazine to write about her, and got my chance to meet her in Paris.

Julia, Patrice and I met in a brasserie near the Seine and ate very good steak in a smoky but cosy conservatory restaurant. We talked about the music, about the fact that Senegalese rhythm and flamenco rhythm are in 6/8 time, hence the wonderful collaboration between the two cultures. Then we ate lunch and talked about immigration and France and politics and I had a great feeling of being amongst people who get it, who get me. It was a rare feeling to be having in what was to me always a desperately lonely city.

Julia is just beautiful. I don't know why I had any doubts- I've never seen her in concert but whenever I've talked to people who have, they simply rave about this angelic-like presence and voice which permeates the air she breaths. And the album, which in my opinion is one of the best things to have come out of the Franco-African world, is spectacular- complex, intricate, lyrical, challenging, and very very sweet. So to meet her and find out that she is also funny, talkative, stunningly beautiful and incredibly normal at the same time, well, it was an honour.

Saturday started slowly, but began properly with lunch in the 16th, near the Bois de Boulogne. I sat at a table on the pavement, the waiter brought me a jug of water and a table cloth, and I ate excellent quality and flavour food. It cost me 15 euros. How is it that even in the capital city, ordinary people with not-huge incomes can afford to go out and eat good food at a reasonable price? there are lots of things that aren't right with France, but their respect for the social event that is eating out without a song and dance, is enviable. Lunch led to Monet's waterlillies at the Marmottan Museum (free for journalists), followed by an amble in the woods.



Coming back into Waterloo this morning was pretty tough. One weekend of good food, art, music, interesting people, friends, reminded me of all the reasons I wanted to move to Paris in the first place- except it hadn't worked out and luckily I ended up going the whole hog and moving to Senegal instead. But I think if the power cuts, the mosquitoes, the crappy taxis, and the utter frustration that I feel on a daliy basis in Senegal becomes too much, then Paris could do nicely.

Africa v. London

God knows I’ve bitched about travelling on public transport in Africa. I’m even about to buy myself a car. All that sitting in stuffy uncomfortable dangerous vehicles with livestock and no loo-breaks, well, it’s no longer my idea of getting about. But neither is paying £30 for a train ticket (that’s US$55) and the train breaking down 10 minutes later, and my journey of 1.5 hours taking 3.5 hours, and having to also endure: drunk tattooed skinheads who can’t lock the loo door while they piss, all over the seat; husband and wife fights over who should have listened to who about which train they should or should not have taken; gangs of rugby spectators bellowing rousing anthems on the train platform while they rip open cartons of warm beer; the inability of the English to bond in any way in the face of rail malfunctions.

On this train journey (which I am still on as I write, by the way), there is no live-stock, no coloured outfits, no baby-faced children, no men trying to sell me false teeth, no religious students patrolling up and down the aisles singing angelically for alms

But there are grey-haired men, fat men, drunk men, all singing and chanting “oooohhhhhhh…..weeeeee-heeeeeeh!”, oh, I can hear, “yeah, fucking Eng-a-land, champiooooooons….” And “fuckin’ hell, run out of beer”. I really really really despair of people who have nothing, and I mean nothing, better to do with their Saturdays than get drunk, so drunk that they fall off the train and onto the platform while trying to have a sneaky fag at the station.

The girl next to me is eating salt and vinegar crisps and she didn’t even offer me one. I’m not idealising Senegal, but it really does happen, I know it happens, that when 7 of you are travelling to a town in a sept-place car, and someone has bananas, or someone has oily cakes, or dry old raisins- nothing that you actually want to eat- they offer them around the car. I long for that warmth and generosity and to be surrounded by adults who know how to behave in public.

Having said that, I have just spoken to Naomi, my flat mate, who recounted a tale of arriving back in Dakar, and the person who has the door keys being not where he should have been, and her having to wait 6 and a half hours outside the flat and then having to pay for the guy with the key to come over and deliver the key, but he taking 6 hours to do so, because he used her taxi fare to go to another meeting first. It reminded me that Africa, for all its vitality, is not perfect.

The final posting: Dakar-Goree Challenge

It's very early on Tuesday morning and I am about to set off for the airport, and London. I have been out at a concert and for some reason have enough energy to stay up and write, instead of getting a couple of hours' sleep.

I've been full of energy, infact, since Sunday, when you will know that I did the Dakar-Goree challenge, and completed it. The adrenaline, perhaps, or the thrill of going back to London and seeing my family, have sped me through the last hours and I am happy to report that my body doesn't even ache.

It was a sunny day, even though I prayed for cloud, and Now and I set off with a bag full of peanut butter sandwiches, arriving at the starting beach at 11. I had already got myself greased up with sun cream, and then friends started arriving and someone started taking photos.



There were really a lot of people there, and lots of kids. Not just strapping 17 year old kids, of which there were many, but tiny 8 year old kids who, many of them in their knickers, appeared to be getting ready for the race too.



They milled about on the beach, occasionally glancing out to Goree Island, shimmering somewhere in the distance, while I lathered myself in more sun cream and tried to gulp down as much water as possible before the start.

But start we did, not before Peter (Monsieur Ambassador), had ralied the British (and Danish) Team and staggered us in colour co-ordinated positions, much to the amusement of the Senegalese.



As we all moved along the beach to some unknown destination, suddenly someone was shouting and we were all off, hundreds of people splashing into the warm ocean and launching themselves horizontal in the hope of finding a few cubic centimetres within which to move the arms and legs.



Much as the Senegalese have no sense of spatial awareness when it comes to moving vehicles along a road, so, it seems, it is in swimming too. At one point, with a foot in my face and another coming in from the side, a little boy swam from behind and when he was right on top of me- and I mean he was actually weighing down my legs and much of my lower back- he carried on going until I shouted, heh, attention! He didn't even look up and so I put down my feet and waited for the little minnows to zoom by. It was only after a kilometre or so that I could even start putting my head down in the water, for fear that I was going to get a foot in the face.

Well, one kilometre followed another, and then it started to get a little boring. Luckily the support team of Cecilia and Zal, Now and others were on the boat and gave some good cheer which spurred me along, but it was only really when I hit the raw sewage slick that I really got inspired to finish the damn race.

There was one bizarre moment when a French man in a canoe paddled by. I was hanging on to the 5th buoy, and looking at the island and thinking how tiny it was and how damn thirsty I was, when he called out "do you want some raisins?".

"Yes!" I gurgled.

"Then come over here," at which point I thought, maybe this is a trick. I'm going to go over there and he's going to kick me back into the water, or worse, under the water, and make away with my goggles. And to answer an earlier question, yes, ingesting too much sea water does play with your sanity.

But raisins I got, and some cold coca-cola, and no, he didn't throw them to me and expect me to catch them in my mouth. I ate them in the normal fashion- mixed with sea water.

He also told me that it was only 1km to go, but that was a lie. It was at least 2.5km but then another French man came along, a swimmer this time, and said, it would be such a shame to give up now. And that was all it took, and I was away, across the channel of strong current that divides the first half of the course from the island. After two and a half hours, I arrived, 142nd out of a few hundred, and half an hour under my predicted time.

The first thing that happened was that someone had to pull me out of the water. I couldn't actually get up the beach, I was so dehydrated and hot, but someone thrust a bottle of water and a sandwich into my hand and I went off in search of shade. About half a second later a little boy appeared and said, "toubab, give me your sandwich". Is there no respite?

The boat carrying Cecilia and Now and Zal arrived an hour or so later, alongside the British-Danish team, and then we all climbed aboard and had champagne. I have no idea if I'll do it next year; someone is talking about Goree to the Madeleine Islands, which is 7km, but I think they're mad.

Next report from London. Where I hope it's freezing cold.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 28

It's the night before the big day. All I have managed this week in the way of swimming is a piddly half hour at the Ngor hotel. My cover's blown there- I lied about staying there and now they know I'm an imposter. Anyway, it's not swimming which is going to get me across there now, it's pure adrenaline and stubborness.

What I am doing right though is not going out tonight, which is tough because I have a brand new beautiful pair of hand-made shoes, designed by me, for me, which I am gagging to wear. But it's Saturday night, almost 11pm, and I am listening to Angolan ballads and about to go to bed.

On Friday afternoon, Ceclia and I were on our way to the swimming pool when a lady called tp say her son had been playing in an abandoned building near my house and had found my bag with my keys and press card, and phone number, inside and would I come and meet her to get it.

I went along there with my friend and neighbour, Julie, who has a car. When we arrived, the girl sent her son off to the house, where he had found the bag, to bring it to me. But when he came back empty handed and said that a man who was there said I have to come and get it myself, both Julie and I had a bad feeling. but we had no choice so we went along, into a lonely-looking area of half-built houses beside the airport fence, and were led to a shell of a house where a few people were sitting around inside. The boy brought me my bag, damp, the handle snapped, but showed me all the H and M receipts, keys, soggy business cards, which he had carefully folded up and put inside. We said our thankyou's and went on our way.

But as we were leaving, a crazy-looking man who was standing on the roof and had been watching us, shouted that we should wait and he came down to where we were standing. He was short, with eyes bulging out of his head, a pot belly falling over his low-slung trousers. He looked angry, drunk, or mad, I wasn't sure which. He came storming over to where I stood holding my bag and ripped it out of my hands, reeling around and shouting at the others who were standing around watching this spectacle. When he grabbed my bag, it was like it was all happening again. Out of the houses and streets came 20 or 30 people, all thorougly interested in what was unfolding, which was a total mystery to Julie and I. For the next twenty minutes people shouted at eachother, shouted at me, stormed around, all the while this little black patent leather bag sitting in the hands of a young girl, the daughter of this aggressive man who was apparently trying to get his cut of the money I had supposedly paid the girl who had called me about the bag in the first place.

Eventually, I got my bag back and Julie gave me the keys of the car- by this time I was so shaken up, breathing uncontrolably and having to do everything in my power not to cry- and I just ran and locked myself in the car. And we drove, very fast, away.

Neither Julie nor I could understand it. It wasn't a misunderstanding; it was clear cut. The bag belonged to me, I had behaved in the proper way, thanking everyone who helped me, yet this enormous and unneccesarily aggressive drama bubbled up out of nowhere and left me feeling absolutely wasted, a shivering shaking mess.

I always thought that if someone attacked me, I would fight them with all my strength. But this has effected me more than I could have imagined. Today I screamed when someone came near me on a busy street in broad daylight, and then when Now came with me to the shop, 50 metres from where I live, to buy eggs, I jumped into the verge when a young guy looked at me for more than a second. Now assures me this will pass, and I hope so, because life's a bit tricky when you're afraid to go out of your house.

One of the interesting things about this incident is seeing who comes to the rescue. The people who have been most sympathetic or helpful are people who I might have overlooked as friends. And some of the people who I trust most, have let me down. I have seen that people here have seemingly unending quantities of generosity, that people who you know just in passing, will go to the ends of the earth to help you if they can.

But I have also seen that people can be full of distrust, they can hold grudges and never confront you about them but just let them go on and on, torturing them and your friendship. I have seen that people just wnt to be your friend for what they can get from you and that when you need a little tenderness, they are nowhere to be seen. That you can put your confidence and trust in people over a long period of time and when it comes to the crunch, they, for some reason I just can't fathom, turn their back.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 25

Only 4 days to go. Last swim: Saturday. Today: Wednesday. Mental state: borderline

Still suffering from the closure of the Piscine Olympique, I have taken my way to smiling my way into hotel swimming pools. My lastest was the Ngor Hotel, which has a beachside rectangular pool of 17 metres. I went on a saturday at midday and joked with Johnny the life-guard that I was going to do 2.5km, that's 150 lengths. Ha ha ha, we all laughed.

But then the idea was in my head, and suddenly I was at 50 lengths, then 100, and then I just had to finish it up. So after 2 hours of midday sun and 150 lengths, I was dizzy from all the turning around, tired, and incredibly sunburnt. I cycled home in a near-coma, at which point Badji, my neighbour's guardian, remarked: "You're all red!" and I knew it was going to be bad.

That evening I was invited out by my friends Mr Ambassador and his wife to dinner and a concert at a garden restaurant (which actually has a pool, but too many steps, which I might knock my teeth on). I had already chosen my black linen dress with the low cut, cross-strapped back. Which had been to the cleaners and come back again, my only ironed piece of clothing. But when I put it on, all you could see was a red and white Speedo stripes effect going on, along with a swimming bonnet mark across my forehead. But there was nothing I could do, so with my body temparature somewhere around boiling point, I went off to dinner, drank a lot of wine, then went dancing until 4am to Orchestra Baobab (live), taking a few turns with an old salsero in a straw hat.

The next day, and the next, and the next, I was incapable of anything, swimming or otherwise.

Which brings me to why it is now Wednesday, four days to go, and I haven't been swimming yet this week.

Last night I went out to a new bar, called Chic et Fast, which when said by a Senegalese sounds like 'Chicken Fast'. There was a band playing and I was taking photos for my seminar in Sweden. Cecilia, who you may remember is my swimming partner, got out of her sick bed to accompany me (she has been sick since the goat hair incident), and we passed a pleasant evening talking about other people's boyfriends. She and another friend gave me a lift home, and dropped me at the end of my road so I could walk the short walk home to my house.

Just as I got out of the car and it had driven off, I rounded the corner of a little restaurant and there was this young man who made a bee-line straight for me, at which point I knew I was in trouble and started to run, or run backwards, i can't remember which. But he caught me and grabbed me by the back of the neck, then held his fist in the air and started jabbing it towards me with his imaginary knife. But of course, there was a power cut and I couldn't see whether he had a knife or not so in the confusion, I thought the worst. It must have been ten seconds for him to get my bag off me, maybe less, but in that time I had the following thoughts:

1) He's going to stab me in the throat
2) They say that if you're being attacked, you should do one of two things: scream, or not scream
3) I know that one of these things will make the mugger run away and that one will get me killed. But I can't remember which.
4) I'm screaming. What if it's screaming that gets you killed?
5) So, if I'm doing the wrong thing and he stabs me, is a Senegalese hospital going to be able to save me?
6) No: therefore, I'm going to die
7) That will break my mum
8) And there's lots of people who love me: they'll be really sad too
9) Damn, he's got my phone, camera, £60, press card, driving license, bike, house and post box keys, and my first ever handbag, which I love dearly.

That's almost one thought per second. Impressive. I really thought I was going to die, I thought he was stabbing me because all I could see was this hand going up and down towards my throat. but what was suprising was that the sound that came out of my mouth wasn't a sound I had heard my body make before. it was like this deep primeval gurgling which retched ad bubbled from the core of my body. It was the cry of someone who really thought they were going to bleed to death with a slit throat on the sandy road at Mamelles.

When I realised what had happened, that he had got away and that I was OK, I started calling out for someone to help me, and a sleepy guardian appeared from behind the wall of a house, and let me into the compound. Then his boss, an Italian man in boxer shorts (who was wearing the same ones when I went round this afternoon to thank him for looking after me) appeared and brought me a chair. By that time I was hyperventilating and terrified. Then all these men appeared, and I thought one of them was him, which sent me into a further panic, but they were just guardians from the surrounding houses. They walked me home, giving me a good dose of sympathy, the Senegalese way:

"You're so stupid to walk alone at night"
"What were you doing, carrying all that stuff in your bag?"
"Why didn't your friend drive you to the door?" etc.

Enough enough.

Badji, my friend and guardian in our street, was happily on guard at Ann's house and came out to hug me and take me to my flat, where I struggled with matches, trying to get candles lit whilst unable to breath properly. Then my neighbour, Doudou, came to sit with me while I shivered and put on jumpers (and he sat sweating in a vest).

Every time I tried to sleep, I would close my eyes and see this young man coming out from behind the building and running towards me. Consequently, there was not much swimming, or work, done today. I did go to the office, where I had to borrow money because of course I have nothing and no way of getting money, and bought myself an amazing tarte au chocolat for lunch. That cheered me up.

Well, it's a sad day for me and Dakar. I always felt so safe here, and I let my guard down. Now it's taxis to and from the door, until I can buy a car. And a sad day for swimming, because right now, it's the last thing on earth I want to be thinking about.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 20

I wonder if something happens when people are confronted with a terrifying challenge, and they go into a kind of denial and start doing things that will jeapordise their prospects of succeeding? Because I haven't swum all week and even worse, I stayed out all night last night, creeping sheepishly home at 9 this morning in the midst of a blissful rain storm. So now I have no pool to go to, and no energy to go to one even if there was one.



I have a new project on the go. This here is my friend Now that I talk about all the time. If I was 11 I would say he was my best friend. He owns the boutique in my street, the little blue shed he's sitting beside. We've decided he needs to make some changes to it, and he's applying for a loan to expand it plus pick it up and turn it 90 degrees so that he has more room for people to sit there. Because a corner shop (which is the British equivalent) is much more than somewhere to buy a baguette. It's the community centre, neighbourhood watch, club house, place to leave the keys, and much more. It's where I go when I want to eat my meal with friends, it's where I go when I need someone to translate a song for me for an article (because at Now's boutique I think there are about 7 language groups represented), it's where I go when I need a plumber, carpenter or painter.

But the one major flaw in the design of Now's shop is that it's metal and there's no shade near it. So at the moment, in the 35 degree heat, we all hide in the shade of the wall of the house opposite and talk about how lovely it would be if there was a tree to sit under.

At the moment, my garden is blooming. On my two metre squared balcony I have all sorts of succulents and creepers and bloomers going on, plus my basil and bonsai baobab tree, but soon I'm going to be in London and there'll be no one to look after them. One of the things that bonded Now and I was the way he looked after my basil plants when they were tiny and I had gone away to Guinea. He talked to them every day, gave them water, and when I came back they had grown almost out of control. Now I know that he understands what I mean when I say "look after them"- it's not just giving them a pint of water the day before I come back so the soil feels wet when I touch it.

One of my newest aquisitions is a frangipani tree. When I lived in Australia I developed a fascination with this flowering tree and one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me was to send me a birthday present, a huge box full of gifts, the bottom of which was lined with frangipani flowers. Ever since then I've dreamed of growing one myself. Well, you can't move to the tropics and then not grow strange tropical plants so on my balcony is a gorgeous green frangipani tree, small for the moment, but growing fast. It seems happy somehow- perhaps because the leaves grow so fast that they are always a glowing green- but I get good vibes from it. When the discussion of planting the tree at the boutique came up I thought, what better than to plant my happy frangipani in my street where it will give shade to my friends and have the space to grow big and wide and bloom with flowers? And so the preparation has begun for planting my first ever tree.

Now dug the hole and together he and I went off the the man who sells plants by the side of the road, at the bottom of the lighthouse hill. He sold us a cement sack of rich soil for 50 pence but when we tried to carry what must have been 50 kilos home, the sack split and Now and I spent a very funny half an hour trying to carry the bag whilst keeping the rips face-up. Now eneded up carrying it on his back. Now we will wait one week for the soil to do whatever it has to do and then we will plant the tree.

I should say though that Now has doubts that it will give us enough shade. A mango would be better, but, says Now, mango's are very lazy trees and in the ten years of having a mango tree at his house in Casamance, he has never once seen a mango on it. An acacia would be better, but we're not sure where to find one and they produce such horrible spikes that we would surely be being pricked left right and centre from its thorns. So the frangipani it is.



Last night we got our electricity back at about 8pm so that was when I started my afternoon's work. I worked until midnight and then went to see an excellent band, Moussa Diouf, a Senegalese jazz bass gitar player who's on tour here from France. He and his guitarist sidekick, Herve Samb, have got everybody talking- it's Richard Bona meets Santana, via Senegal, and it's excellent. I'm taking photos at the moment for the seminar I'm giving on west African music and my work in Senegal at the most excellent Selam Music Festival in Stockholm in early November because I want to be able to show people what the scene's like here. This is the stage at Just 4 You, which I grant you sounds like something you might find on the front of a Korean notebook, but it's one of the best places to see live music in Dakar, with gigs every night of the week, mostly featuring from big names like Omar Pene and Cheikh Lo.

Scooting around the corner to Pen Art Jazz, another excellent live music venue, I bumped into my friend, the manager, who insisted that we go to Dakar's newest nightclub, a place called Nirvana where I was, of course, totaly under-dressed and felt like someone's Aunt. After paying about what I spend on my month's rent on a bottle of wine and dancing to 'Holiday' (remember that?), I thought we were going home (it was 4.30 am) but I was mistaken, we were actually going to Ngalam, a really old school disco where I felt much more at home in my jeans and t-shirt and danced wildly to Ivorian music. After that it was dibi, the Senegalese equivalent of a kebab shop- a hole in the wall place with guys standing around in butcher's overalls stoking an enormous wood fire and raking meat by the kilo on a grill above it. The owner, a big mama in a purple flowery dress, dealt with the drunks galantly in the only the way a mama can, and we ate wonderful grilled meat until it started raining and the sun came up and it was time to go home.

And so there's been no swimming today either and there's only 9 days to go before I have to face my demons.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 18

Not much time to go now until the big swim. But the news on that front is that the Piscine is "broken" and only the kids' pool is working. Yesterday that was an adequate excuse not to go at all, but I have since discovered that the pool will be closed all of next week for the swimming championships, which culminates in the big Dakar-Goree swim, so today I had to go.

The pool is 25 metres, and full of bobbing infants. Three weeks ago, the prospect of a 25 metre pool would have been enough of a challenge, but now only a 50 metre stretch will do it, and it has to be relatively clear of bodies. So I put in twenty minutes or so but it got so complicated and it's so damn sunny that I had to retreat to the office, and to air conditioning.

My new Voice of America boss, Nico, thinks the solution is for me to swim at the office pool, but we're not sure how long it's been since it was cleaned. It's also a small pool, tiny in fact, but no chidren in it, in fact, no one in it at all. But I'll give it a try because right now, my options aren't all that great.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 15

I’ve rearranged my bedroom so that my bed is up against the window and as I write, I can see the sea.



It has the potential to make a big difference to my life, except I don’t appear to spend much time in my bed because every day this week I’ve been out until 3 and then had to get up for something early the next morning, usually something with a nautical theme.

Yesterday was Saturday, and the day for mine and Cecilia’s open sea swim. I know I got you all excited about this last week, posting photos of our triumphant swim to N’gor island. Well people, the swim to N’Gor was much like piffling around in the bath- clear warm waters, no waves, no current. The only real obstacle was the goat hair (and we’ve both been sick since then because of it).

This week we decided to swim from Oceanium, a water sports shack half way around the enormous bay which faces Goree Island (our eventual goal), to the Savannah Hotel, on the furthest point of this bay. The problem is that I swam 2.5km in the piscine this week, (yes, that’s 50 lengths of the Olympic swimming pool) and I had grown, shall we say, a little bit cocky. I thought, if I can do 2.5km then I can do 5 right? But let me tell you, 2.5km in the pool is not 2.5km in the sea. It is not even 1.5km in the sea. It’s nothing, there is no comparison.

Well, after asking some divers if there were any jellyfish in the water, we plunged into the rather turbulent sea and set off for the relatively short 700 meter swim to the Savannah. After a few seconds we realised that this was not going to be the short little hop we had imagined, because every time we brought our heads up to breath, a wave hit us in the face. And every time I did a stroke, the current would push me back the way I’d come.

And the water was murky. We’ve had glorious rainstorms but nice as that is when you’re lying in bed looking at the ocean, it also means that the water and everything on the bottom has been stirred up and you can’t see a thing. And here’s my biggest challenge. I am terrified of what I can’t see. After a few minutes I started imagining that if I did front crawl and kept my head down as much as possible to avoid the crashing waves, sooner or later a sea monster would glide into my goggled vision. Or a big fish. At one point I even imagined a dead body would float towards me. I was, shall we say, in a state of hyper-tension.

So imagine my terror, people, when into my vision did float something dark and terrible-looking, its body rank and bulbous, it’s poison-filled tendrils reaching out to do me harm. As it brushed my arm I cried out – glggg glllgg ggggglllllllg- and tried to swim away, sweeping the water and the evil monster it carried away from me. But it was in vain, I had been touched by a black plastic bag and swimming would never be the same for me again.

The journey carried on much the same way, and Ceclia made an apt observation about half way through the first leg.

“This is the closest I’ve ever got to being ship-wrecked,” she said, and I thought about The Perfect Storm and the one where Tom Hanks grows a lot of facial hair.

Eventually, a jetty came into sight and we waited for a wave to launch us up its barnacally steps. A man was there, in goggles too, collecting mussels.

“Have you ever seen a mussel before?” he asked, in much the same way that someone on Friday night asked us after we’d been at a Cheikh Lo concert for two hours if we’d ever heard of Cheikh Lo.

“Il faut essayer, huh?” and I imagined my hands around his neck.

Well, it was a sorry sight, Cecilia and I sitting with our knees hunched up on the steps of the jetty looking at the distance we’d come and would soon have to repeat.

“I really didn’t enjoy that at all,” I said.

“I hope there aren’t any sharks here because my knee’s bleeding,” said Cecilia who had scraped herself climbing up the steps.

Neither of us had anything positive to say.

Getting back in was a laugh. The sea was crashing on the steps of the jetty and kind of sucking all the water out and then thrusting it back even harder, so we had to leap in, clearing the steps, and then swim really hard so as not to become barnacle fodder.

I got into a better rhythm on the way back, my goggles didn’t steam up so much (I have a theory about this- I think my head is particularly hot and creates more steam in the goggles than is normal) and I began to harden my mind against the plastic bag fear. We eventually dragged ourselves up to the beach of Oceanium and quickly went to get food.

“No, this is good,” said the ever-optimistic Cecilia.

“I think this has helped us to become a lot more realistic about the swim.”

And she was right. It can’t get much more realistic than this. I am afraid of the sea and everything that floats in it, my eyes produce steam, and I am no match for the Senegalese current. We had done less than a third of what we will be doing in two weeks’ time and we were broken. Not even 12 falafels could lighten my spirits.

We met later on that night and discovered that we had both had emotional and tearful outbursts after we had left eachother. I cried when the man who I paid to unblock my mobile phone accidentally blocked my SIM card, and Cecilia had a row with her boyfriend after he touched her record player.

On my way home I went to visit Pape with something of a heavy heart. I told him the good news, that my friends and family have been kind enough to sponsor me for this swim so his school can make some improvements. But what I didn’t tell him was that I don’t think I can do this swim. Pape went into an emotional silence when I told him about the money, and then he got up and flung his arms around me and promised he would come along to Goree and wait on the finishing line with peanut butter sandwiches. I didn’t tell him about the plastic bags.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 12

This morning I awoke to hear the most glorious of sounds: rain. What's more, I was cold. I thought, I've been magically transported to England, and as I lay curled up in bed listening to the thunder and rain, I thought, that was the first night I have slept the whole night through without getting up to get water, chase a mosquito out of my net, have a cold shower or check to see whether the electricity had come back on and I could charge my computer. What's more, it stayed 'cold' (ie: I could wear a vest, singlet, tank-top without pouring with sweat) until about now, 9pm, when I am back to sweating again.

Remember the sea urchin spine?

Yesterday, while i was out in the street learning Wolof with Now (we had no electricity yesterday either and once my battery was flat, there was no more working unless it was in pencil), my right arm started to hurt. The skin felt sore to touch and my fingers ached. A weird sensation. I went to town to buy a swim suit and a swimming hat. That was an experience. As I flicked through a rack of 12 tiny swim suits at the country's biggest sports shop I began to despair that I would ever find one my size, but then Omar popped his head around the rack and I knew all would be OK. Omar is the only man in the country who knows about customer care, he's the only man in the shop who says things like, "you need that in a 42? let me look'. The others say things like, "you need that in a 42? let me look" and then they disappear off to lunch.

Omar and I sorted through a lot of swimming costumes, all size 36, until we found one in my size, and since it was the only one in the shop (and therefore the country), I didn't have the luxury to stop and consider whether or not it looked good. Once we had the suit, it was time to chose the hat. Omar was concerned that the cap matched the swim suit so after trying on a lot of hats, and doing a lot of giggling, we chose the silver one. It can only make me go faster.

After that I went to meet naomi. I was sitting on a harmless-looking metal electric box thing outside this shop, and I leant my elbow on the metal grate on the window and suddenly I was flying off my seat- I had been electrocuted, but not enough to kill me, just cause me sever pain.

Well, I got over that and managed to go to a good reggae concert with a friend who's just come over from London (with 2 pounds of cheese and a loaf of organic poppy seed bread as a gift) but at about 2am I started to get a headache and I realised that the weird tingling and sore skin had spread around my head and infact all down the right side of my body. Probably cerebral malaria, I thought, and had another glass of wine. Or maybe, said Catherine, you've got sea urchin spine poisoning. Now there's something I hadn't though of, and it's true that bits of the spine were still at that point in my foot. When my head started to pound I went home.

This morning I awoke with a weird rash on my neck.

"I'm worried about you," said Naomi. Well, you know, you're probably always OK but here, people die of stuff a lot and so it's easy for a headache to become in your mind a deadly cocktail of TB-Cholera-Typhoid. Luckily we had no electricity so I could only work until my battery ran out, and since it was cold I stayed in my pyjamas all day and hung out with Now at his shop where I got loads of sympathy for being on death's door. In the afternoon, my illnesses cleared up and I dug out the remainder of the sea urchin spine and I was OK.

But of a crap ending to the story I know.

But here's something that'll crack you up. I hope to God that no one important reads this, like the editor of the Sunday Times, who was reading this very blog only last week.



We had had no power for eight hours today, and we were starting to get bored. So I decided to try on my swim suit. And then the hat and goggles followed and before I knew it I was posing for the camera. I feel I have already lost a lot of respect out there for posting the picture of me in a red swimming cap so it can't get any worse. Actually, it was Karen who goaded me into putting up there, but then, she hadn't seen it at that point. Maybe she'll think differently about it now.

Anyway, all of this is to tell you that I didn't swim today because of the cerebral malaria and yesterday because I was buying the Very Serious Swim Suit and getting electrocuted but my brother and his girlfriend Mati have now said they'll give me £50 if I do the swim and £100 if I finish it which means if I don't start some serious training very soon then I'm going to deprive the kids of £50.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 10

One of my latest articles has been on a koranic school in Dakar and the work that a friend of mine, Pape, has been doing with the children there.



The boy in the photo was sent from his home in Casamance at the age of 5 to Dakar to study the Koran at a kind of religious boarding school. Such is the culture of religious schools in Dakar ( as opposed to their village versions where the children are generally treated much better), many of the kids are sent out to beg for their food and are very often beaten for not bringing in enough money. They are usually malnourished, abused, and never get a modern education (although that being said, there are some schools where the children get a good education and are well treated).

My friend Pape, a poet, film writer and ex-NGO worker, has been working with a school in his neighbourhood of Dakar for 2 years. He has managed to build up a good relationship with the teacher and change the way things are done in the school, so much so that the teacher has now set up his own association where he and 6 other school teachers try to find alternative sources of income and educate other people about the rights of children. The children in this school no longer beg, nor are they beaten, and they now do extra curricular subjects such as French and photography as well as play football with children from the neighbourhood, which is not allowed at other schools.

One of Pape's projects is buying chairs and tents for the school, which are then rented out for ceremonies, providing a regular income for the school. This money gets the children hot food, clothes, medicine, and means they are no longer forced into the streets to beg.



I have spent a few days at the school and they are really lovely happy boys, despite the terrible conditions they live in. And I would really like to help them buy more chairs and clean up the place where they sleep, which is one tiny dirty room in a derelict house where 15 of them sleep on a mat on the bare floor.

This is where my swimming challenge comes in.

You all know that I'm doing the swimming challenge right, and now that I've done the Ngor Island swim I think I might be able to do the Goree Island swim, which is 3 times as far. I've decided to raise money for Pape's school by asking people for sponsorship.

The money will go to Pape to be spent either on chairs to rent out or on cleaning up the room where they live, perhaps buying mats, basic medicine etc. I would also like some of the money to go to Pape, who in 2 years has never received a penny for his work, despite being presently out of paid employment (although he has just had his film script accepted in Paris).

Since sending out an email to friends about this, I have raised £200, which can buy a lot of things for the kids. If this generosity keeps up, I'm going to split the money between the school and another informal project which Pape has going with some friends of his from the States, who regularly donate money. When a 13 year old girl came to his house in Dakar asking for work, he asked her why she wasn't at school. She said she had left her village to find work and no longer went to school. Pape has now found enough money to support her and another young girl through school and university.

If I raise enough money I will give this money towards supporting another young girl through her education.

If you would like to sponsor me, please email me and let me know how much you'd like to give. I will have a PayPal account set up or if you have a British bank account you can do a direct deposit or send a cheque to my address in London.

In other (swimming) news, the pool was shut yesterday so I decided to go body boarding instead. I have new flippers and thought it would be a good idea to test them out on the wild piece of coast near my house. I cycled off with my board strapped to the back of my bike and arrived an hour before sunset, beautiful clear water and only two surfers in it.

"There are sea urchins everywhere" says this guy who has to come down to the beach to tell me how to get into the water (the rocks and pounding waves evidently confusing me).

Well, I'm not going to tread on one, say I to myself, and plunge into the rocky frothy water and paddle off into the sunset (literally).

"Why aren't you taking any of the waves?" says this not unattractive surfer guy, as I bob up and down pretending I'm just happy hanging out without taking any of the waves. I don't tell him it's because the waves are 10 feet high and I'm terrified that one of them will take me on my board and dump me on the sea urchiny rocks.

"What, you've never done this before?" he asks, "Be careful" he adds, and looks at his friend with raised eyebrows.

Well, it was fun (I have done it before a few times, just not right there, with the rocks and the huge breakers and the spiny sea creatures) and relaxing, and a nice thing to do after a day in an office.

But getting out was a whole other deal. Feeling the eyes of the surfers on me as I start for the first time in my life praying, and paddling really really quickly, I reach the rocky shore just in time to get my flippers off before a wave comes and, crunch, put my foot down on something really quite sharp. But since my whole body was hurting, a hurt foot didn't seem like too big a deal and after having a conversation with another surfer about how my board is designed for a small child (he held up an adult one to show me how inadequaltely equipped I am- "I don't know who's going to fix your back if this board snaps mid wave"), I peddled off home.

Arriving home, (there's not much more, I promise), I find the power is cut. And it stays cut until 4pm this afternoon. So with my computer battery dead, I spend much of the day swatting flies (oh, and swimming 1km at lunch time), and only see the black poisonous-looking spine in my foot in the morning, when I also see that I can't walk. Poor Naomi is given a needle to dig it out.

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 8

Only three weeks left until the big swim.



Yesterday I endured a highly stressful day reviewing Dakar's beautiful Meridien President hotel at Almadies, Africa's most westerly point. To make sure my readers are given up to date information on where to stay in Dakar, I spent many hours testing the water quality of the pool, scrutinising the views from various parts of the gorgeous beach-side complex including from the jacuzzi, and seeing if the towels were as fluffy as they should be. I can report that all seemed to be up to a good standard. So my swiming yesterday involved about 7 lengths of the 25 metre pool, not really a 'training' day then, but so enjoyable, clean, peaceful and no pumping Senegalese pop music, which is what we get at the public pool and which makes the experience of swimming 1.5km even more stressful.

Today was the End-of-Week-One sea swim. I'm not scared of under tows, rips, currents, drowning or sharks, but I am afraid of sea weed touching my toes or of a small fish nibbling at my elbow. I also don't like swimming when the water is full of goat hair. Ngor beach is Dakar's Blackpool Beach, except there's a densely populated fishing village at one end of the bay and there they believe that the beach is for livestock and dumping rubbish, because, well, that's where they've always done it. The fact that the bay has now become a big hang-out for tourists and locals doesn't meant that villagers have stopped giving their goats baths in the water.

After staying out until 4 this morning listening to a great Senegalese-French jazz band (called Moussa Diouf), Cecilia, Alistair, Naomi and I convened at Ngor beach for our first sea swim. Alistair had been out drinking until 5, apparently, and has also done no training for it, but his enthusiasm overcame both of those small obstacles and we were very happy to have him with us. Cecilia is my swimming buddy and she was also wearing a swimming hat so that I didn't feel like the only idiot on the beach. Naomi was charged with carrying the bags across on the pirogue (which ran out of petrol half-way across so that we almost beat her across).



And so we set off, after much discussion about the best place to cross, eventually choosing the village end of the beach, and the goat-washing end. I kept my mouth well closed until we were out half way across and the water became clear and lovely.



After being afraid of the fish and the 700 metre swim, it really wasn't a big deal and only took 18 minutes. On the other side we had lunch in a lovely breezy cafe and decided to swim back as well. My gorgeous red bonnet split before I'd launched off on the return leg (even though it was only the third time I've used it), so I am now without-hat but tomorrow I'm off down to City Sport to buy a new hat, swimming costume and flippers (for my next challenge- body boarding).

The Dakar-Goree Challenge: Day 5

24 days to go until the big swim.

Here's a picture of my local hair dresser in Dakar.

Swimming for an hour somehow manages to take up four hours of my time. On Tuesday, Naomi and I braved the office of the lady who sells the season tickets for the pool. We were directed and re-directed from one door to the next, barred from entering the door we needed on the basis that the guard there had the power to bar us, until we found the Lady Who Can.

She sat at her desk shuffling through bits of paper, a fan whirring in the corner of the room. We handed over the 15,000 Cfa (£15) for ten swims and she handed us a receipt. We thought that would be it, but no, we must come back the next day to collect our cards. This all took half an hour.

So today we went back, hoping to collect our cards and never see her again. She shuffled through an envelope of cards, ever so slowly, and then looked at us over her glasses and said, no, our cards weren't ready yet. When we asked her what possibly there was to do that couldn't be done in a second, she said that each little card had to be signed by the director of the swimming pool and that he was away 'on mission' which is Senegalese speak for, gone on holiday, doesn't have time for signing bits of paper, or just that no one has got around to handing him the papers to sign.

She said we might like to come back tomorrow and I asked if the director would be back tomorrow. No, she said. Maybe Tuesday. I asked what the point would be in coming back tomorrow then and she barked that I had only had to come there once before, as if wasting half an hour trying to get past the guard and through the doors to find her office every single time I wanted to swim wasn't a waste of time.

The bureaucracy of this place is stifling, suffocating, and at times I just can't bear it. It's there to justify the existence of people like Madam Swimming Tickets and must make people like Monsiuer Director feel like he's drowning under a pile of millions of little cards.

Well, I swam a km and a half and bought myself a nice red swimming hat. Then my swimming buddies and I went out for lunch and by the time we had got back home (after taking the wrong bus) four hours had been eaten up.

Well, luckily I hadn't hoped to do any work today because yesterday my day was stressful and tiring enough and I thought I would take the day off. I was out interviewing young men about their attempts to take the wooden fishing boats to the Canary Islands, and it involved driving up and down through the swealtering suburbs of Dakar trying to find people who would talk to me about how they would rather die than stay in this country. They all told me the same thing: we need work. Not work so they can buy fancy cars, but work that will bring in just £90 a month so they can feed their families.

It was a very sobering day and reminded me of what my friend Now told me this week, that I know nothing about Senegal and the suffering of people here. I have young male friends who would be too proud to show me how they feel at not having work- we sit and drink tea and play music and it gives you the impression that everything is OK, that there's no work but there is always a bowl of rice to be found somewhere. But I saw another side, and I felt sad.

So my long-running battle with the apartment rental agency over the separation of our water meters is coming to an end- I feel the end is nigh. For the last year I've been sharing the water bill with the evil woman who lives downstairs, who is not the kind of woman to turn taps off when she's not using them. She has a washing machine AND two full-time maids (for only three of them). After many months of visits to the agency and the water company, today we received the papers which say we can have our own water meter. All we have to do is go and pay £14 to the water company to sign up.

"Plus £5 for transport," said Djibi, our rental agent as he stood in the apartment with some coiffed woman lurking in the background.

"What transport?" I aked.

"You know, transport, to speed things up..."

A bribe, then.

It's not the money, and I know first hand how slow things can be if you don't bribe, (three visits to the electricity company to get my name on the electricity bill), but I am morally against bribing and I feel cross that I have to do it. To say that everyone does it so you have to do it too is not a reason- it's just a self-serving act to serve the greedy, filling the pockets of the people who already have jobs.

So do I carry on for three more months waiting for the papers or do I pay the money and get it done in a Senegalese instant?

The Dakar-Goree challenge: Day 3

The Piscine Olympique is shut on Mondays, so we are already on Day 3, and only 5 days until the Ngor island warm-up.

I spent much of the morning on the phone to my bank in England trying to work out how I can open an American bank account so that all the useless dollars I get paid in can be transformed into something useful without having to pay $20 each time. Then it was time for swimming. I set myself 25 lengths but I managed 30, which is 1.5km. I'm going to try and do that every day plus my island swim ang hope that gets me into shape.

I am now back at the office, just getting around to lunch, and it's gone 3pm. I have a deadline looming for Thursday, and just found out I have to interview Youssous N'Dour tomorrow morning. I'm tired, hungry, wondering how the hell I will ever manage to swim and do my job and have energy for all the other stuff which takes so much time in Senegal, like finding food, moving around and paying bills.

I've been commissioned a piece by the Sunday Times to write about immigrants taking boats to Spain. I now have to find some of these guys, and get them to agree to talk. I feel nervous at the thought, but I know I will work it out somehow. I just wish I didn't have to spend three hours every day getting to the damn swimming pool, wandering around trying to find the woman who sells tickets, and then trawling up and down the pool as if I find it enjoyable.

The Dakar-Goree challenge: Day 1

It's been a topsy-turvy kind of couple of weeks and so in a effort to get myself focused on something, take my mind off absent friends and dysfunctional relationships, I have decided to go into training. In one month's time I will be swimming the Dakar-Goree swim, a 5 kilometer cross-the-ocean marathon, from the mainland to Goree island.

All of this is Julia's fault. Julia is from Norfolk, an English teacher and sports freak, who I have taken to hanging out with because she also makes me laugh, a lot. But she also apparently gets me into sporting situations I might not otherwise have found myself in and here I am, buying goggles and swimming hats and trying to source talcum powder (because all new sporting activities start with the purchasing of expensive and pretty outfits- I also now need a new bikini) and going swimming, every day.

This morning I went with Julia to the Olympic Swimming Pool. I swam 20 lengths, which is a kilometer, and it wasn't too painful. Tomorrow the pool is closed so I have 6 days to prepare myself for our first sea-swim, which is to swim to Ngor island, 700 metres. It doesn't sound like much but it's the sea, and there are fish, and there's no stopping after 50 metres to get the steam out of the goggles. Also, Julia has just announced that she's going away tomorrow, for a month. She'll arrive in Dakar on the 18th September. The Dakar-Goree swim is on the 17th. So she got me into it because she needs someone to experience it for her- she's not going to be here.

When she roped me into it, she told me it was 3km. I can do 3km, it's not all that bad. But today when I went to the pool I asked the life guard for some info and he left all the little kids foundering in the water to tell me about it.

"To keep in line with international swimming standards, we have changed the course of the swim- it's now 5 kilomters."

Now 5 klicks I really don't think I can do. Today I tried doing front crawl but breathing on the left hand side and I got so tired. It turns out I am really weak on that side, which poses a problem, because only half of me is fit.

"But there will be firemen and the military to pull you out and into a boat if you get tired."

That sounds better to me. Naomi and Now promise they will come along and bring peanut butter sandwiches for me, and moral support. I reckon I can do 3 klicks, and it's not a race and it's not for sponsorship or charity, so I am aiming for 3 and anything else will be a bonus.

Wish me luck!

It's a kind of magic

Last week there was a death. This week, a birth.

I’m secretly hoping they’ll name her after me but since I have only just got to grips with the mother’s name, Khady, it’s unlikely to happen. Tapha’s best friend, Ado, and his wife had a little girl yesterday morning. We went to visit them after dinner, at 11pm, and Ado was sitting outside his small house in Lindiane, practically in the forest on the edge of Ziguinchor, while Khady slept. We sat under the mango tree and shhhhhh-sh’d the dogs as they howled at eachother, and talked in Mandinka which I am now getting to grips with.

The next morning I went back to see the mother and baby. Khady was outside sweeping the mud patch infront of their one-room house, stoking the fire getting ready to cook lunch in a blackened pot. I asked her, through Tapha, is she shouldn’t be in bed resting. She had, after all, given birth just 24 hours before.

“There’s no one else here to help her!” laughed Tapha, without translating what I had said for her. So I asked her myself, in awkward Wolof, why she didn’t lie down. She shrugged her shoulders as if it were nothing. African women, I tell you, are strong.

Talking of naming, last night my family (the children of which are pictured) decided it was time I had a Senegalese name. One of the most special things that can happen to you here is that someone names their child after you. When you have their name, in some way you become them. So when Tapha sees the son of his name-sake, the man, older than him, calls Tapha ‘Father’. I have lasted five years without having to take on a Senegalese name, but about a year and a half ago, Tapha and I did do something in secret about my name so that when the time came I would be prepared. He gave me the choice of three names, one of which was his mother’s name, Siré. I said I would have it if he took my father’s name, Stephen (which cracks him up every time I say it).

Last night, the family were sitting outside in the compound, watching the TV through a door into the house. Mariam, Tapha’s older sister, was shelling white beans and his mother, Na Siré (Mother Siré), was picking the grit out of the rice. Papa was sitting smoking, wordless as ever.

“Why don’t you have a Senegalese name?” asked Mariam. “It’s time you had one. I’m going to sleep on it and in the morning, I’ll tell you what it is,” she joked.

Everyone joined in, calling out names to see what I responded to- Rokia, Rama, Aisha, Fatimata. I started to blush. Na Siré is a tough woman and I wasn’t sure how she would respond to the fact that I had taken her name. Also, I felt like a bit of a suck taking the mother’s name. I could have at least gone for a sister.

“There’s something you should all know,” said Tapha. “Rose has actually had a Senegalese name for a year and a half. Go on,” he prodded me, “Tell them what it is.”

I was racked with shyness so Tapha said it for me.

“Siré,” he said.

Before he had even finished the word, his mother, her head still bowed as she picked at the rice, said her surname, Sagna, without even looking up. There was rampant applause; it meant that she accepted and I was now, as much as we would ever be, like her.

“Siré,” said Papa.

“Sagna,” said Na Siré again, quickly.

She blushed and I think even tears came to her eyes. But perhaps as I would have done, she pretended it hadn’t touched her in the slightest and went on with the rice, her head, all wrapped up in a green cloth, bobbing in the low light.


I mentioned last time that I feel a certain element of spirituality missing from my life. Instead of bitching about it further, I decided I would do something about it and set out to find out what it is that makes Senegalese people tick.

I told Na Siré that I wanted to go and see a marabout. He is the spiritual guide, fortune-teller, healer, witch-doctor and everybody is afraid of him in some way, even if they don’t consult one. Supposedly he has the power to protect you from the evil spirits, by divining what it is you need and then writing out texts (from the Koran but also strange squiggles that look a little like maps) which you carry with you in the form of leather gri-gris. He also has the power to harm others, so it’s said, by setting the evil spirits on them, which is why you need your own marabout to protect you.

There are lots of things that people say aren’t right with the system of consulting a marabout for every ache and pain and desire for a job or a visa or the death of a neighbour’s livestock. The marabout are certainly unregulated and wield incredible power over people who don’t believe that they are in charge of their own destiny. They charge large amounts of money, often drive around in Mercedes (hence their nickname, ‘Mercedes Marabout’) while their followers struggle to get together enough for a meal, all the while promising to be able to do away with the evil spirit that’s making them poor.

They also prescribe muddy-looking water to sick people, meant to have healing powers if drunk or bathed in, and run Dakar’s music distribution network, public transport system and most big businesses. The president spent his first three days in power with his ministers at the feet of the country’s most powerful marabout, knowing full well that if he wants anything done here, then it has to happen through the marabout.

Well, of course I don’t believe in his powers. But then, it can’t hurt, right?

Na Siré gave us directions and Tapha and I went off on the motorbike, past the airport, down a little muddy road, past a mosque, past a vegetable patch where yam plants were starting to poke through the muddy soil and stopped outside a concrete house.

“Salaam aleikum” we cooed on entering the compound, and a young girl holding a straw broom showed us into the dark depths of the house.

A tiny baby chicken, the size of my fist, was narrowly avoided being trodden on as I stepped into a damp-smelling room and saw through a curtain to one side, an even darker, mud room. Again I said “salaam aleikum” and a voice told me to enter.

Inside was a tiny window, high-up, which looked out onto a pile of bricks less than a foot away. A metal bed, balancing on rocks to avoid it rocking on the uneven mud floor, stood to the left and a middle-aged man wearing a soft cotton boubou sat on a mat on the floor. Beside him was a copy of the Qur’an, some wooden prayer beads and a mat with a picture of the mosque at Mecca woven on it. He invited Tapha and I to sit down, which we did on the free part of the mat.

They started to speak in Mandinka, Tapha explaining that I was a friend who needed some protection while I lived and worked far from my family and felt particularly unstable at this time. I listened, and observed this holy-man, who was round-faced, wrinkled, and sat with one knee up, the other underneath him. They continued talking, and eventually the man pulled out a leather wallet in which were hundreds of dog-eared bits of paper with Arabic writing on them, as well as diagrams and drawings all done in black felt-tip pen. He leafed through them, eventually pulling one out and laying it on the mat.

The man asked me to think about what it was I really wanted and when I was done, to reach forward and pick up the prayer beads by one of the single beads, and hand it to him. I did so, asking that I find stability in my life in Senegal, particularly with regards to work. He took the beads, counted them and then consulted his paper.

He told me, through Tapha, that I must have a lot of dreams at night and that if I just relaxed a bit and was patient, everything would come to me. He said also that there were many people around me who wanted to use me for my ideas or to learn things, and that I needed to be protected against these people. He also said that since I was a foreigner travelling a lot, I should have some protection against bullets and natural disasters.

He told me to come back the next day and collect my ‘prescription’. On the iddue of money, because I am Na Siré’s daughter, he said, he wouldn’t charge me. But I should donate the equivalent of £10 to him, for good luck. I bargained him down to £5 and we were on our way.

The next day we went to pick up my gri-gris. We took them down to the market, three pieces of paper with Arabic and squiggles on it in the familiar black felt-tip pen, to the gri-gri maker camped out under a tin awning with his tools beside him. He is essentially a leather-worker, wrapping the pieces of paper in plastic and then binding them in leather, attaching them to piece of black string (which Tapha was dispatched to buy from the boutique) which are then tied around the waist.

For three hours we sat watching him binding and sewing, eventually by candlelight. In that time an old Joola lady came along selling mangoes, of which I bought four the size of my head to take back to Dakar, the gri-gri maker’s young son appeared, knocked over the candle and called me ‘toubab’ over and over again and I was bitten by a flock of muto-muto, a smaller and much more vicious mosquito who made a feast of my foot.

But much later, we did appear with my three gri-gris. I am now wearing them around my waist.

I suppose what I came to understand about Senegalese people from this brief foray into the mystic is that their spirituality, like everything else, is about today. It’s not about how one’s actions will effect them in the after-life, or the next life, but how the spirits rule and control the things going on now- crops, jobs, family, love, health. It’s a system based on fear- that the job is not to aim for good but to avoid evil.

As one clever reader commented on my last entry, I say that the Senegalese have no sense of the future; but maybe we Europeans have no sense of the present. I guess I’m looking for a balance.