Utterly tangled by thoughts and ideas I left my hellish workspace and went to Goree Island. My mind was still in unproductive knots when a man approached me at the ferry terminal to tell me that the next boat wasn't for half an hour. It was Mamadou, the man who had been our most excellent guide last year when I led the Songlines tour, and who I needed to do some work for me this week. It was a stroke of luck, and a great pleasure to see a friendly face, someone I can be myself with and chat about interesting subjects.

Mamadou invited me to his house to drink the Senegalese tea that I dread. It is strong and vile, but it passes the time. His two rooms are in an old colonial house, the kitchen painted dusky blue, the living room a calming green. The sunlight, so strong on this sandy island, poured in through the door as Mamadou boiled and poured the mixture at a hypnotic pace.

Mamadou is a nervous man, shy perhaps, and reserved. He asks few personal questions but is pleasingly relaxed and forgoes the interminable inanities which can dominate polite conversation, and which with some people you never break through. He told me how he had met an African-American in 1994 who had paid for him to learn English at the American Culture Centre in Dakar. He went there twice a week for three years, hence his excellent English, and now he scrapes by working as a guide.

"Some people in this world are very kind," he said and showed me the letter from his friend typed on headed paper, along with a copy of the cheque which had been sent to the centre to pay for his lessons.