The Royal Visit

Leaving behind the inane world of French couples on holiday, Linda and I hired a boat and got as many miles between Cap Skirring and ourselves as possible. Our boat driver was called Paul, he came from a village about half way along the Casamance River system so on our way to Carabane, we dropped in to his village to say hello. We met a painter who designed t-shirts in a thatch hut (see photo) in this village that has water only in the rainy season and no young people. During the dry season (now), the young people leave the island to go to Ziguinchor or Dakar to work. A dry, barren village on the banks of a tributary of the Casamance River, no road, no young people, just the odd old lady cracking nuts with a machete under a tree and another one boiling oysters that grow on the mangrove roots that line the river banks. Despite that, and apart from Linda and I deciding that of all the places in the world we could live, this would be the last, it had a pretty spectacular view down-river. Some of the t-shirts had a condom design on the front as an advery for safe sex. I wish I had bought one. A mad old rasta with a pretty god message.

Between this village and Carabane, Paul picked up a beautiful young woman and her tiny daughter who were paddling their dug-out to another village. We stopped to give them a lift, attaching a rope to her boat and speeding along with them laughing and chatting behind. We dropped them off and quickly picked up some old mamas who were waiting with their goods to sell by the side of the river. They might have been there for days. We took them to Elinkine, a largish village opposite the island of Carabane.

I first went to Carabane Island with Hermione two years ago. We had a perfect four days on this road-less, car-less sandy island, sleeping in a room metres from the water's edge. We lay in hammocks and listened to music at night and swam a great deal. It was one of those trips where I thought if I ever went back, it wouldn 't be as wonderful as it had been the first time. I approached it up the river with apprehension. What if the owners of the house we had stayed in were no longer there, or didn't remember me? I couldn't even remember their names.

Paul, Linda and I saw the house perched on a tip of land at the far end of the island and slowly moved the boat around a sand bar until we could go no further. I saw two figures watching us draw near and as I waded ashore there were smiles and hugs from Medoun and Louis, the two men who live and work in Carabane's eco-guesthouse.

The bedrooms are now even closer to the water. The island is fast being swallowed up by the rising sea level and when you lie in the old rope hammocks that swing between the wind-swept trees that shade the round house, high-tide will wash beneath you. Medoun estimates that in five years time his house will be under water.

During my last visit with Hermione, I had been pre-occupied by work. This time I had nothing to do and so I went about with Medoun as he worked about the house and garden. About a mile away is the well and in the morning we carried 20 litre containers across the mud-flats to fill them up. Near the well is the organic garden, a paradise in this fresh water-starved, salt-water encroached land. Coconuts, avocados, lettuces, hibiscus (for drinks), courgettes, parsley, bamboo (for roofing), all organic, all lovingly watered every day by Medoun and Louis. We picked Cashew fruits (look at the pic!) which grow wild around the garden, filled our water containers, looped the ropes around our waists and dragged the water back along the mud-flats. The rope cut my skin and my shoulders ached from drawing water from the well. it was hot, sweaty, hard work and I loved it all. When we got back to the house we dived into the sea and I instigated under-water swimming races.

Racing against men who do physical work all day long and live their lives by the sea is not a good idea if you want to win. I could swim half the distance they could. We discovered that I am buoyant: my head goes under the water but the rest of me floats to the surface.

After that Louis and I went fishing. Well, I watched and squirmed as the fish were left to suffocate on the sand. He took a circular net strung together by some weights and ropes, held the centre in this teeth, crept into the shallows like a cat on the prowl where he could see a school of fish and flung the net out, releasing the ropes from his teeth at the same time. The net tightened like a purse around the fish and there was dinner, plus food for his family and Medoun's.

It was Medoun's dream ever since he was at school to live in an environmentally-sound house. He is the first Senegalese person I have ever met who even has any awareness of the pressures we put on the earth. Senegal is the land of the plastic bag, but Casamance, with its endless tributaries and mangroves and sleepy languid waters, as well as its bright clear coast and beaches, feels so far away from the rubbish tips of Dakar. Pretty much wherever I am in Casamance I wake up in the morning and feel something akin to magic around me. Medoun has carved out a magical place within that, a solar-powered living-off-the-land haven on the banks of the river that is probably right now my favourite place on earth.

One afternoon Medoun came back from the village with a small boy called Abdoul Rahim. He was about four years old and had seen Medoun in the village and asked if he could come to spend the day with us. he had never been this far across the island and it was a real adventure for him. We played in the hammocks and when it came to going home, I carried him on my back the two miles along the beach to the village. He was so sad to go home. I like how Africans borrow children and it never occurs to their parents that something bad might happen to them, even in Dakar. There is an amazing trust in other people because everybody knows that no one would hurt a child.

So the Royal Visit over, I think I showed her a good time. Linda seems to get what I am doing which means a lot to me. We had power cuts every day in Dakar and she made out it was a real adventure and didn't complain about anything, ever. It's the only way to get by in Africa, not to be bothered by things, something I could learn more of.