A return to Ziguinchor, after a year away. Nothing much has changed. The baggage handlers at the small airport are still the same, the crooked old man still struggling under the weight of vast west African suitcases carrying unidentified cargo and nylon chinese blankets. There have been the usual rounds of marriages and deaths, it seems, including one friend who got married and had a baby, but forgot to tell me, but is not living with his wife, and declined to say more. Likely that the girl's father found out and arranged a wedding quick-smart.

At the house, mama came to greet me with a jug of water on her head, pumping my hand voraciously while looking straight ahead, popping her chin forwards and back to keep the jug balanced. The children were at school, and at midday they came running round the corner and leapt into my lap, chanting, "Rose now-na" (Rose has arrived).



Daba, who a year ago was more prone to rolling around in the dust fighting with the neighbours' children than showing any kind of affection, has started wearing dresses and being very loving. She has turned into a proper little girl, leaning calmly on my knees as we sit outside under the trees, and no longer determined to break everything she touches, instead begging me to play drum-kit on her back, and wriggling around in fits of giggles when I do.

The others are much the same, but bigger, although there is one who has not grown in the three years that I have known her. She has stopped crying at least. There is another little girl in the house now, the daughter of one of the brothers, and she is now the one who spills things all over herself and shrieks instead of speaking. Perhaps all the new recruits go through it; it is quite a daunting place to be, so many self-assured people in one small space.

This afternoon, the band, still going, it seems, went off to Bissau in a bus.



The bus arrived late in the day, and three swarthy-looking boys climbed out of the insides as if appearing through a narrow cave opening. They started hauling speakers and keyboards from inside the house onto the roof, while the children all helped wheel the musicians' suitcases through the dust and bring pieces of the drum kit alternately to the back of the bus, and then back inside the house again.



I thought about going in the bus with them, since i am off to Bissau myself tomorrow, but it's possible I will arrive after them anyway. The bus looked like it might need a bit of TLC along the way.

Snakes, wild dogs, large fish...the Senegalese are afraid of nothing. Until it comes to the humble, harmless gecko which, by Senegalese lore, is the most dangerous of all poisonous beasts.

I have already written about the black lizard which appeared one morning, uninvited, in my bedroom. At 1 this morning, I was brushing my teeth when I heard a crash. I went into the kitchen and saw a small pile of dirt lying just beneath the chimney which runs from my ceiling to, presumably, the roof. And I was just in time to see a large white tail disappear under the fridge; I slammed the door and stood in the hallway wondering what on earth I was going to do.

Eventually I went downstairs in the dark and found Phillippe, our large guard who sleeps across the door at night and looks like the kind of man who couldn't possibly be afraid of anything. I told him the situation, he looked unsure, but not wanting to appear fearful, I suspect, grabbed a wooden broom and said, "come on". We took the lift upstairs and I hid outside while Phillippe crept into the kitchen, broom in hand.

There was silence. Eventually he called me in and said, conspiratorially, "he's hiding under the fridge. I don't want to make him come out. If those things even get anywhere near your skin, it will make you very ill. Better wait till morning and ask Cisse."

Cisse is the day guard. He was the one to fish the last lizard out. He is in the kitchen now, thumping items of furniture around and giving the occasional cry. I wonder if the gecko will come out with Cisse in its hand?

Morocco notes

At Bounia, 25 km off the Midelt road and in the middle of the plain, the weekly souk was in full swing. Some fields on the side of the small town had been given over for the market and in one of the fields nomads, one man to one cow, were gathered for the cattle auction while other men, the buyers, checked out the beasts. The whole place hummed with muttering voices, while snorts of cold air hurrumphed from the nostrils of cows, a pair of them humping to one side.



The main market was divided by its products. Here, spices, next door, tupperware. To one side, handwoven cloaks, to another, olive oil. Fruit and vegetables took over a half of the space. Someone selling dodgy goods, no doubt stolen, had a crowd of onlookers and keen bargainers cloaking him as he palmed off old microwaves and other electricals. We of course were looking for Berber rugs, but no one much had any to sell, so I bought a litre of olive oil from the back of a van, a litre which eventually came to a nasty end in a square in downtown Fes.



At a van selling dried fruit and spices, we were given some tea while we tasted and eventually bought almonds, prunes, dates and bags of red yellow and orange spices.

More Morocco notes

Not even the cold of Fes prepared me for what was to face Jenni and I when we hired a car and drove south. Snow, and plenty of it. In one of the towns along the way, where we fancied we might stay the night, we asked at the town hotel if we could see a room. Only afternoon but already bitterly cold, a scraggy-looking man peeled himself away from his coffee to show us where we might sleep.

The room smelled of decay, and when Jenni pointed at a colonial-period radiator and asked if it worked, he shrugged unconvincingly and said, "yes". We decided that between the road winding through the snowy mountain range between us and the next town, and a night in a cold, damp room above a cafe, we would take the high road. So off we set, me nervously twiddling my hair as I tried not to think of a night by a roadside while wild barbary apes rattled at our windows, teeth bared.

With dusk falling, we emerged across the Middle Atlas mountains to find a dry plain, cactus lining the roadside, the ground yellow dust and the rare buildings we came across made from the same sandy stone. It looked from the inside of the car as if it would be scorching hot outside, but it was, at 1500 metres above sea level, the same bitter freezing air that had followed us across the snowy mountains.



Up ahead, like a film set backdrop totally incongruous to the arid landscape we now found ourselves in, was a line of magnificent peaks that continued to belittle and inspire me throughout our whole stay.

Morocco notes

Safron-yellow, poppy flower-red, indigo-blue. Standing on the roof tops of Fes's ancient Medina, I felt like a visitor to another era. Down below, men dipped cow, sheep and camel skins in vats of dyes, or sprayed the dye over the prostrate skins, just as they did centuries ago.



This was the first day of many in which we were almost run down either by load-carrying donkeys ("ATTENTIO!" their drivers shouted as they ploughed at speed through the narrow alleys), or by bread-carrying children, late home for dinner.

Every morning, I take 600 francs and walk down to the corner to buy my newspapers. If the paper I want has run out, he unpegs one of the papers off the washing line and gives it to me, not yet faded by the hot sun. If I have money left over, I go down a few meters and buy croissants with the change.

It took two months and involved a trip to England, but I finally got some photos back, real ones, from my trip to Ghana. In no particular order, photos of all things cocoa:


Our friend Elias, the village recorder, walking to work in the forest, stool in hand. Early morning.


A cocoa pod, the raw deal.




Members of the cooperative split pods deep in the forest. Elias is the only one with his own stool, the other sit on segments of palm trunk. This is where I ate the most delicious banana of my life.


We walked kilometres into the bush to see a farm belonging to a 90 year old man who was still working his own land. This was one of the houses we saw on the way, and typical of the kind of architecture in these parts. At 6am, the light was magical.


In the village, cocoa beans are laid out to dry. They are turned throughout the day, and covered up with palm leaves by night, for 8 days.




They rustle, dry, under the fingertips.


The cooperative cocoa truck comes to town.


Elias sits at his desk at dusk, a long day of weighing sacks and loading trucks, behind him.





Dinner is prepared on smoky fires, in smoky kitchens. One girl, fifteen, does all the manual house work.

I was most confused to find a packet of star-shaped crisps flavoured with something called 'pigs in blanket' nestled amongst a multi-pack of ready salted Hoola Hoops yesterday. But since the wise people at Hoola Hoop central have started making something they call 'Wholewheat salt and vinegar Hoola Hoops' but which taste like acidic rings of sawdust, nothing surprises me anymore.

"In our country, there are rules, and the rules have to be obeyed. This is how it is in Africa."

Of course I needed reminding. I always forget myself, and think I am in my own country where I can do whatever I like. In my own country I would have got away with refusing to pay what amounts to a bribe, so silly me for thinking I could do the same here. Luckily there were a few people lined up to remind me that I have been bad.

All of this because I went to pick up a christmas present from the post, a box of shoes from my sister with the value $35 written on the customs slip.

The first day, I spent an hour there, chatting with the various men behind their counters, begging in my cutest wolof phrases and fake smiles for the man at ticket desk 4 to go and ask the man in 5 to come to his desk, so I can have my papers stamped. I went through the whole cringe-making ordeal of having to suck up to these people who have something I want (and is mine), only to fall at the final hurdle. When met with the douanier, the man who decides on the import tax fee, I lost my rag.

Punching numbers into a calculator, seemingly randomly as far as I could see (since he looked neither at the customs ticket nor at any kind of papers on his desk), he came up with a number which amounted to $30.

"A little mouse has been in your box," he said creepily, scattering the shreds of wrapping paper which were stuck to the everything. He was trying to make a joke of the fact that time after time, customs men at the post office had ripped open my present, taped it up with 'Senegalese Post' tape, and passed it on to the next person, only to be ripped open again. I said nothing. He repeated it, hoping, I suppose, he would get a smile out of me. I did not feel like smiling.

I told him I didn't see why I had to pay almost 100% tax on my christmas present. He said, his belly hanging over his trousers, that this was the rule. Knowing that it was only the rule for foreigners who are stupid enough to try and extract their own post rather than send their person, I left the office in disgust, and then, tears.

Day 2. I had to go back. How could I explain to my sister that I had left her gift at the post office? I could have got away with it by giving the guy a pair of shoes, but I wasn't sure what size he was. But this time I was armed. I had my friend, a man, and a Senegalese with me. Nothing could stop us now.

I waited outside the post for a while, hidden behind a tree, till my friend arrived. He did, and he went inside to try and sort it out. After 40 minutes he came outside and said that the man knew I was outside, he had seen me, and he wouldn't settle it until I had come inside myself. He knew I had come back with my tail between my legs and he was going to milk it for all it was worth.

I was dragged into the office like a naughty school girl. I was presented to the office of the customs man, another one, and told to sit down. He turned to me, stamping papers as he went, and started to tell me how things were done in Africa. My friend had told me to be nice to him, so I nodded as much as I could bear and muttered the odd, 'you are right'. Inside I thought of the number of ways I could put him through a similar ordeal in London. Perhaps make him wait in the que at the Lavender Hill post office for 45 minutes, only to find that parcels are collected next door, but only on Fridays.

When he had finished he told me that the man I had dealt with yesterday wanted to come in and talk to me. I told my friend that the point of me coming back was to get the shoes and leave. If I had to go through hours of humiliating lecturing infront of a room of people, then I would rather leave the shoes to their fate as permanent prisoners of the Senegalese Post. But my friend told me to stay. The customs man then said that he would do me a special favour. Because my friend had told him how much I love his country, he was going to let me off with just a $10 charge. He said it in a way that told me I should be very grateful.

I spoke for the first time. I said I was happy to pay any money, if he could show me the rule where it said it stated the percentage I should pay.

He pointed to a ridiculous scrap of paper stuck to the grubby wall behind him, handwritten, saying 45% import tax. I pointed out that I had previously been asked to pay 100%. He turned to me and said, as if I was incredibly stupid, that the person who sent the shoes must have been lying when she wrote out the customs form. These shoes were clearly worth a LOT of money.

At this point I just wanted to get out of there. I had had the most humiliating dressing down of my life as a stupid foreigner. I paid the money and made to get my parcel off the desk. Oh no no no. There are other fees to pay. Please go to ticket desk 5.

A hefty 'storage fee' later, plus an admin fee, I was allowed to have my parcel. My friend asked me to thank the man graciously for all he had done for me. Wearing my glasses so that I wouldn't have to go through the further humiliation of him pointing out to any bored person who will listen that the toubab was crying, I told the man how kind he was and walked away.

Crossing the road outside, I seriously considered throwing myself, and my shoes, under an oncoming bus.

Returning to Dakar airport after an 8 hour wait in Casablanca airport, which had been stuffed full with pilgrims returning to Mali from the Hajj, I was exhausted and fractious. It was 4 am by the time we got our suitcases off the slow conveyor belt. I had rung Sow, my friendly taxi man, from Casablanca to tell him I was coming at some point during the night, but wasn't sure when. He said I could go ahead and ring him whenever I landed and he would come and get me.

As we hauled our suitcases onto a trolley and made for the parking lot, a pack of people waiting hungrily at the gates which are now stopping people from approaching the airport, but which in fact makes it a lot worse when you finally are met with the outside world, I rung Sow to ask where he was and if he could come and get me. He sounded sleepy.

"I'm in the car park at the airport," he said. He had been asleep in his car all night, preferring to spend the night there and wait for me to arrive than sleep at home and be late to pick me up.

What a nice welcome home.