Another patchwork project

My latest collection. Orders can be made through me.

Thinking of giving up journalism for needlework.

Go on, aren't they just the prettiest?

Speedy photo update ending in a perfect Yorkshire Pudding

hi hi,

I've been rather slack. Moving home, elections, two trips to Mauritania, a visit from Dad- blogging got left behind.

Dad and I had a great week together, lots of going out till all hours then two relaxing days in a tree house. Yes, we slept in trees. And here is a view from mine,



followed by dad in his.



Some amusing conversations were had, generally, over Scrabble and other family activities, but my favourite was when the Belgian owner of the hotel puffed along and said, what would an Englishman know about wine?

After that, let me see, what happened next? After that I went back to Mauritania for Songlines magazine to interview the wonderful singer-politician Malouma, who you will be able to read all about in the next issue, plus soon on my website when I load her live private performance of singing the desert blues.

Remember how a while back I wrote that really smug entry about travelling and how staying in nice hotels and taking planes was a cop-out? Well, guess what? I was wrong. Taking planes, dare I say it, is much better than travelling in sept-places, and anyone who's ever done it, will agree. A sept-place, otherwise known as a bush taxi (and also otherwise known as death on four wheels) is a car that in theory takes 7 people, plus the driver. That's how we get around in these parts, unless you have money, or are trying to do jobs where you hope to make at least some small profit, if not break even.

I left Dakar at 5 in the morning on Monday, and 12 hours later I was in Nouakchott. But despite the length and heat, that journey was relatively easy, a friend came to pick me up from the Mauritanian border, and it was the first time in a while I'd done something like take a 7-place, so the novelty factor over-rode the fact that I was in intense physical pain wedged in the back between two very large men.

But two days of tough work in the desert (Nouakchott is a city, but it's really just a largish collection of dwellings that have been plonked in the desert. I also found out that this city that houses one third of the population, has no fresh water. Something went wrong when they were planning Nouakchottout). Yes, two days of working in this place, plus being hassled by the (Senegalese) guy who worked in the guesthouse (no water, scared to put feet on the 'carpet' for fear of contracting caroet bigs, are there such a thing?) to the point that he actually came banging at my door and I had to get my stern-looking Mauritanian friend to take him aside and tell him I was his (my friend's) fiance. Yes, two days of that and I was ready to get back to Dakar.

Oh, except Dakar is 12 hours away, and real life or not, that's 12 very hot, very uncomfortable hours across the Sahara.

Rosso Mauritania, and the beautiful Senegal River at 7am,



and that was the best bit of the day. From then on it got progressively worse, until I arrived in Dakar with a dehydration headache so bad that I had to be laid down in a dark room until I was well enough to put some food in my stomach. Painful, horrible, should have taken the plane.

But I did enjoy myself. Malouma was an absolute inspiration and radio-journalist's dream, and the cloth market was good too.





Mauritania's a fascinating place, I'd recommend it to anyone, if you have your own car.

Now since then I've written my article (Sunday morning 8am start), and celebrated Easter Monday lunch with my favourite English girls and Senegalese boys.

Cecilia and I have been talking about this roast beef and Yorkshire pudding lunch for a week now. On Saturday, after a post-traumatic 7-place stress episode in which I woke up in tears on Saturday morning and neither stopped crying nor got out of my pyjamas all day, I did manage to get down to the shop and buy my joint of beef, and ingredients for the Yorkshire Pud, or Yorkshire Biscuit (for its special crispy texture) as it's known in my family.

After much internet browsing for recipes and roasting times, Cecilia produced the most perfect YP ever



crispy (but not burnt) on the bottom, just the right chewyness, and it went wonderfully with gravy and cabage and great roast potatoes, followed by steam chocolate pudding and Birds Custard (my contribution), much enjoyed by all.



All the English girls agreed that for a few minutes, it was like being back home.

All the Senegalese boys agreed that we are the best cooks ever, and then went back to their ernest discussions about music.

New Home!

Back from the Sahara, feeling better for my camel milk, but disturbed to find out that perhaps my illness was brought on not by some hard-core desert bacteria, but by the air-conditioning.

There have been requests for pictures of my new flat. It's hard to take photos inside, I discover, especially every time I step back I knock into a wall or door.

The living room, also the bedroom, also the sewing room, looking out to balcony number one.



The famous sewing table, complete with diamante-studded bobbin-drawer knob.



Bookshelves, and Rama, Mave and Aminata, the three African ladies of the house. Beware, wrong-doers.



And some old-school draining-board action.



Here's our favourite neighbour Zal, making the cathedral look rather peaky,



And favourite neighbour number 2, Cecilia, organising a first-day-in-new-home lunch.



Happy as a bee...

Shifting Sands

Mauritania is a special place, a cross-roads for Sahara trade which goes back centuries. For hundreds of years, people have been coming here from all over the world, settling, then moving on again. The result is that if you took a random cross-section of people here, you can bet that you'd find faces resembling every nation on earth.



Check out my website for more pictures

In the last couple of days I've been struck down with a fever and a chest infection, so I've been stumbling through my interviews and trying to put out stories, all the while feeling terrible. This afternoon though, perhaps the relief of the elections being over, I felt a little better and went out to the edge of Nouakchott, only a mile or so away, and watched the shifting sand dunes.



Nomads come here for a few months a year, bringing their camels with them, and sell camel milk by the side of the road. So as a Sunday afternoon treat, we stopped by and sat in our old-school Mercedes and drank a warm bowl of milk, fresh from the camel.



It is strangely delicious and I feel better now than I have in days. Although of course the local remedy for a chest infestion (which Mauritanians get a lot, because of the sand in the air,) is warm camel milk.

Shop improvements

One of the only things that went wrong during the move was that I lost my camera cable. So none of you will be able to see the beautiful view through the French doors until I find the damn thing.

A while before I left Mamelles, Now made improvements to his shop.



He extended it backwards for more shelf space, opened up the side with a large window, and created a lovely little garden. We found planks of wood and balanced them on rocks to make a bench, and planted some plants to keep the frangipani tree happy. Not only does he now sell things like cake and local milk, but it has also created a lovely space in the street for people to come and relax in, lying on the mat under the shade of the trellis, or sitting on the benches and making tea. Everyone agrees that it's the nicest shop in Dakar.



The bread is still delivered in the same way though.



I miss Mammelle and Now but life changes and this life is good too.

In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow and I will be 28. When I was 27, 28 seemed so old! I seem to remember I was getting unnecessarily concerned by my lack of partner, but I was confusing that with something much more important: friends. Now that I have a lot more wonderful, reliable, funny friends here, I feel as happy as a bee.

Moving home

There is a way to do things and there is a Senegalese way to do things. I have never hired a removal van before, in any country, so I’m not sure I am the authority on how removal vans should be packed, but I will attempt to describe the way in which packing a house up is done in Senegal.

First of all, you send someone you know and trust, a man, and a Senegalese, to walk up to random strangers who happen to be driving along in, or sitting in, or sleeping in, truck-type vehicles (this could extend to four legged powered vehicles). You get their phone numbers, and then on the night before you are due to move your entire belongings to the other side of town, you get that same friend to start calling them, ploughing through the “this number is not available at this time” messages until you find one who has given you a number that works. Then you tell him what you need, and you tell him how much you can pay.

This pricing arrangement does not of course work with people who have unlimited funds, like I do. If I paid “as much as I have” every time I was asked to, I would be long broke. But my trusty companion Now took charge of the whole process and he said he had £15, and so that is what he arranged, for two trips from my old house by the sea to my new house in town, on Friday morning.

By Thursday night the flat was dirty, empty-looking, and very sad. Luckily the witch who lives downstairs was clanging away, her screeching voice reverberating through the tiled building, and it acted as a necessary reminder as to why I was moving from this lovely neighbourhood where my friends were literally on my doorstep from morning to night, to another part of town where people probably don’t say hi to each other in the street.

I sat in the shop on Thursday night with Now and I made tea. At the beginning of this talk of moving, months ago, Now had protested (but understood), loudly. Now that the move has arrived, he says nothing, but the silence is deafening. My silence says I feel the same way.

Before the sun had risen on Friday morning, I was at the telephone company office paying for the transfer of my phone line. By the time I got back, the van had arrived and Now was giving the driver, a young man who said very little, breakfast of Nescafe and powdered milk from an old margarine tub cup. When Naomi had moved her belongings and the horse and cart that was to take them to her new place out of the way, we started loading the van.

Now had brought his room-mate George along to help. George works as a security guard and used to be the guard at one of the houses in our street. He was the one who removed the frog from my plant the week I moved into my flat, a year and a half ago. George had been at work all night and was on his way to bed when Now cornered him into coming to help. He made out it was just what he wanted to be doing after a night standing out in the cold watching someone’s house.

Little by little, the plants, the boxes of jam-jars, the bags of shoes and boubous, the endless cushions, and then the bigger things- the teak table which takes three men to move, the bed, the bookshelves, they all came down the stairs, and no one complained, they all made out they were having a whale of a time. The driver got inside the van and lumped the boxes around, as I winced and asked my self what I would do if my Mexican olive-oil pourer got smashed, and then the driver took everything out again and the baskets went in, then they didn’t fit either so the table went in, then the baskets, then the boxes, and after an hour, every single one of my belongings minus the fridge and bed, had gone inside this tiny little van, and there was not an inch of space, not one tiny little crack of air left, and it felt pretty much like a miracle had taken place.

******

It’s always a surprise to me when some part of my life changes and I discover that I am not the totally self-sufficient Superwoman that I imagine I should be able to be. Last night, lying in bed with the parrot squeaking away in the beauty salon three floors below (“Better a parrot than that hell-fire witch-face downstairs from you in Mamelles,” said Cecilia), and the roar of the city outside the French doors, I felt like I had been severed.

It’s true that it is hard to live alone in Africa. There has to be a small team of people around you who can help clean the ever-pervading dust from everything you own, who can find you an oven when you want to buy one, who can put you in touch with the man at the electricity company who will connect your flat up without delay, who can find you boxes, get you vegetables, tell you where to buy an ironing board, find you rice at lunch time. Because nothing is straight forward here, you don’t fix things by going to the shop and replacing them, and life takes a lot of energy.

When I moved to Dakar from Ziguinchor permanently, I barely knew anyone and certainly not people who knew where to find, and how to bang in, masonry nails. But Now’s boutique, and the people around it, provided me first with practical help, and later, solid rewarding friendship. Somehow, despite coming from totally different cultures and educations and upbringings, Now is one of the tiny group of people in Senegal who I could tell anything to, and expect an understanding response. And now it feels like he is a very long way away.

*****

But settle in I am starting to do. This morning, Sunday, despite being out till 6am, I unpacked the rest of the boxes, and arranged a little furniture. From where I sit at my table, through the balcony doors I can see the imposing white cathedral (about 100 metres away) and hear the choir singing. I can see the ministry of information just across the way, and look down into the American Embassy. There is a cool breeze and although I can hear traffic, I can’t hear my neighbour screaming, for which I am truly grateful. There is a very nice feeling in the flat, which I sensed immediately that I came to look around. I think I will be happy here.

Pictures to follow...

High winds and high seas

Senegal has been hit by a tremendous storm, its most recent development being that Dakar is cold, with a biting wind whipping sand through the houses and along the streets. I was in the south for ten days or so, initially working and lying by the pool (at the same time) while I checked through the internet what the situation in Guinea looked like. Then I went off for a week to Boucotte, a village on the coast of Casamance, where I thought I would have a lovely relaxing time.

It was quite clear by the first day at Boucotte, when I had already finished two books and was the only person staying in the campement, that I hadn't brought enough to read or to do. I am not someone who can sit down and do nothing, I get fidgety and need to be usefully employed if I am to be relaxed. The young guy working at the guest house felt sad for me, I think, and while the wind whistled through the empty buildings with the sea roaring on the other side of the trees, I ate in silence while this guy sat on the other side of the solitary table and stared at me, just to make me feel less alone. I did try explaning to him that I wanted to be alone, that I had things to think about, but he just laughed, unsure, and carried on staring at me.

By day 2, I was ready to get out of there. I walked the 6 km or so along the totaly deserted but clear white sand beach to the nearest town, Cap Skirring, thinking I would find somewhere to stay in town. But when I was abused on the beach by rastas who accused me of being racist because I didn't feel like hanging out with them (and eventually handing over money or completing marriage vows), I decided enough was enough. I would go anywhere, just as long as it wasn't there.

When I eventually got back to the hotel I saw my escape route: a 4x4 truck which had brought a group of French tourists. After a painful night in which I was made to sit alone with my back to the group, like a naughty school child, by the young guy who clearly doesn't have a clue how to run a friendly guesthouse, I managed to get a lift with the group in the morning. Being being tourists and impressively excited about everything, the first stop was a village school. Across the sandy yard, a fierce wind was blowing.



We sat in a class while the corrugated iron roof rippled and roared in the wind, and the teacher, in a suit made from colourful African wax print fabric, told us how tough it was to run a school in a rural area. Every day, he said, parents would come to the classroom and ask for their sons and daughters to come and help them in the field, planting or harvesting rice. If the teacher refused, the child would never be allowed to come back to school. When an entire generation grows up illiterate, never experiencing school themselves, it has detrimental effects on the next generation.

Luckily the teacher seemed to be ahead of the game, and although the state has failed to provide the class with any books, he had bought one himself and would write up on the board any reading exercises that needed to be done so that they wouldn't get behind. And when he had first started there, 95% of the school were boys. Thanks to going from house to house and asking parents to let their daughters come to school too, that figure is now roughly half and half.

I made some friends at the school while we played around the tree which has the school bell attached to it. It's made out of an old car wheel and gets banged with a stick to call students to class.










Really cool girls with lots of funk.

So that day, in the relative luxury of a 4x4 truck, I was delivered with the French tourists to Carabane Island, my favourite place on earth. There I lay on the beach and read and when the books were finished, I wrote. For two days, because of the wind (which brought the sea up to the wall of the house, so that we were marooned on our own house-shaped island) there was no fish. So Loulou, the only other person in the house, and I made up creative recipes with onions, rice and one aubergine. At last, on the final day, the wind died down and Loulou went fishing. Within ten minutes he came back and threw the net at my feet: fifteen wriggling fish. He and I grilled them on the fire and it was, kind of, blissful.

The end of the patchwork project

I'm going to get my life back! I have finished the patchwork quilt and I can now dedicate myself to other causes, like reposing upon it.





I hope you will all agree that it is beeeeeautiful.

I have made other plans for other patchwork quilts, but you're all going to have to wait. I don't want to see a bobbin for quite some time. Which is a shame, because Ablaye has made me the loveliest sewing machine table, complete with diamante studded drawer handle. I'll post a picture of that next time.

The Patchwork Marathon

After another evening of sitting on the hall floor with Now sewing, the wadding is attached and I am ready for quilting. I'm not sure yet if the machine is up to it, but the weekend will tell. Wish me luck.

I ask myself again and again why I have let handicrafts take over my social life. I can't go out until this is finished.

C'est pas sure

It was Saturday night, we were standing outside Youssou N'Dour's club Thiossane, leaning on someone's car. It was 4 in the morning, it was cold, and I wanted to go home.

"I'm going to take you to a place you've never in your life seen before in Dakar," said my friend Aziz, a Senegalese who does indeed seem to have a store of good places up his sleeve. Mostly, post-club hangouts in Dakar are Dibis, meat-roasting shops where you order roasted mutton and raw onions by the kilo. I wasn't in the mood for that and the thought of driving all the way into town and then getting a taxi all the way out to my house at Mamelles felt like too much effort. I made sounds about getting a taxi but my friends were insistent: "You have to experience this once in your life."

Soon enough, the backdoor of Thiossane opened and Habib, Youssou's bass player came out and we all got in his car (the one we had been leaning on). Aziz is his manager and he and I have talked music quite a bit, which is why we are now friends. He is one of the nicest people ever, modest, polite and a damn good bass player, so it's always a treat to hang out with him.

We rolled down the empty streets, around the roundabout where I once nearly lost Naomi from a taxi with unsafe door catches, and up a street I know well by day time, which was now, in the dead of night, deserted. A lone beggar stood outside a door, a few cardboard boxes beside him, and rubbish in the gutter. But there seemed to be a odd amount of cars parked around, and the sound of laughter coming from inside the door.

The four of us went through the doorway, a hole in the wall that I'm not sure even had a door on it, and into the dark crumbling guts of a concrete building, perhaps once derelict, but now a hub of activity. The walls were blackened above an open fire and all around precariously-balanced crates and planks were men eating delicious-smelling meat skewers and fresh baguettes. A single blue bulb lit up the faces of these well-dressed people, as well as the people wrapped in sheets sleeping wherever they could get themselves horizontal.

We sat down, Habib (who is no small man) and I on one bench which was more like a see-saw when he then went to get up, the others infront of the drinks boy. I opted out of skewers but said I'd like some coffee. Aziz and the drinks boy at this point got into a long discussion. There was a lot of pointing going on at a collection of glasses which had been washed but were perhaps not what you would call clean, and then the boy got out his knife and starting plunging it into the top of a tin can that had once held condensed milk.

"C'est pas sure," said Aziz, indicating the glasses. "It's better if he makes you a cup."

And so, this is how I am now the proud owner of my favourite cup, handmade especially for me, in a hole in the wall filled with happy laughing people in the dead of night. The handle, the lid of the can, is wrapped in recycled computer print-outs, so as not to lose a finger.



There's something magical about being looked after so well. I feel in the constant protection of someone, strangers or friends, almost all the time. I am never allowed to walk anywhere alone, and apparently not even allowed to drink out of potentially unclean cups. It's something the Senegalese do really well.

In other news, the patchwork is finished. Yesterday, Now and I put the deep blue border on the gigantic beast and now 'all' that waits is the quilting.

Kora-making

I've been working on something special this weekend. Click below to go to my website, and then click on the link to the photos of the kora maker. Enjoy.

http://web.mac.com/roseskelton/iWeb/Site/Photos.html

The patchwork quilt

The lack of frequent blogging can be partly explained by this, my latest project:





It's my last day off work, I am slightly ill, in my PJ's, listening to radio 1, drinking PG Tips (pyramids) doing my patchwork. I didn't imagine I'd move to Africa and take up handicrafts, but, there you go.

In other news, Cecilia took this lovely picture from the house where we spent Christmas.



Happy new year everyone.

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.