Teepee For My Bunghole

I cruised the shallows or our melifluous language the last time I wrote. Even going so far as to massacre the ‘ek sé’ factor by substituting the ‘e’ with a little cap with an ‘e’ with an apostrophe. Let me this time vary my delivery with higher regard for the correct use of words. We shall sail into the deep blue ocean of eloquence.

There is big difference between me now and me after I will sail to Cape Verde. I don’t know what the difference will be but I am at the cusp of finding out if there is a lifestyle I wish to adhere to or pursue to some sort of degree. There is a perspective to be gained from being a speck in the mighty ocean and I will be forever after have a different appreciation for the physical elements of our existence. How this will effect me, and my philosophies on life, I don’t know – but I’m want to find out.

For someone who is as terrified of something so boringly inevitable as death, those of you who only approach the outer edges of marine life, will wonder how I managed to engage such a dangerous venture. But those of you who have been out sea (literally, I mean, of course), know that it’s only our comfort zones that hinder such ventures. Our cordoned imaginations blinker all things new.

We sail soon. The day after tomorrow is the latest departure date and I already have the exit stamp in my passport to show our seriousness. But I’ll add a day because that is often the reality when sailing. I’ll try to staunch my deathly fear of a salt water accident and take my new camera out of my bag and it’s triple wrapping and take some pictures.

Now’s a good time to wish me Bon Voyage!

Ja, ja, I’m still in Dakar – la dee daa – se mase ma. Okay, so the last sentence had a bit of Akrikaans slang so I’ll throw in a bit of French commé ça. Notice how I managed to get the ‘c’ with the little beweging at the bottom in there. I finally looked around and found it on these French keyboards. Only took me all of 9 fucken months.

But the off-shoot of this is that, much like a raver, I also figured where that elusive ‘é’ is. This means that I can throw in an ‘ek sé’ [ek sé = I say] or two, of hoe? Yep, things can get real slangy around here, ek sé. I could also gooi [throw] in a ‘jy jou ma se…’ [‘hey you, your mother’s…] but I leave that for my nightime dialogue with the mosquitos.

I had a point I’m pretty sure but it got lost in trying to throw in a swearword to tick my mother off. It’s pretty hard to throw in swearwords because I hardly swear nowadays. Every Capetonian misses swearing a bit when he travels, I’m sure. Nothing quite like Kaapse slang to vloek some baastard out, ek sé.

Yesterday I went sailing. It was my first time as crew. It was good to hold the tiller, scramble around for winching sails and pulling on ropes and doing all the stuff you don’t notice as passenger. I still have a lot to learn but enjoyed the buzz. I need to get the feel of the tiller and be able to check the sails out for the best position for catching wind and such goede. Also this switching tack thing seems to always catch me by surprise.

And it’s hard to watch what the other guy is doing when you’re missioning as well. I either need eyes in the back of my head or more experience. And actually… mmm… I don’t know which would be cooler.

[By the way, my new digital camera arrives tonight inshallah]

I wrote something a couple of days back and lost it due these wonderful internet connections we have in Africa. Not that it was a good post. I had nothing much to say and just felt obligated to write something. Much like this post.

It did have a great title though but I think I’ll save that for a post that doesn’t waste a few moments of your life.

Life goes on here in the Hann Plage, CVD. After painting and also fixing the fibre of the hull we got the boat into the water but there’s quite a bit still to do. We have to put the new cross beam thingie on the mast and also put back a lot of winches and other fittings. The inside needs a slight redesign so we’ll be cutting and fitting some wood. There’s some other little stuff do to but also stuff we’ll (or actually they’ll) be leaving for a later time.

Like the engine. I just found out today that we’ll be going to Cape Verde without the engine working but apparently that’s not a biggie. I also found out that the toilet on the boat doesn’t deal well with toilet paper. Guess which issue gives me sleepless nights.

The day of our departure keeps being put back but I’m okay with that since I’m learning new things working on the boat every day. Lipfi put his Motorbike in the paper so we’re leaving later to give him a chance to get it sold. Lipfi and Mina’s mission has been to drive a car down from Europe and sell it in Africa. They sold it in Mali and then bought motorbikes to sell in Senegal. Lipfi says he made money on the car but lost on the motorbikes. The next part of their mission is to fix the boat and get to Cape Verde and sell the various clothes and beads they’ve been gathering along the way (things from all over Asia and Africa). Also run a sushi restaurant on the boat.

What my mission is, I don’t really know. My aim has mainly been to get to Cape Verde and take it from there. I might end up pitching in and helping Lipfi and Mina and making some money (I might be doing Japanese massage if the market presents itself and I learn the skills in time). I might end up getting a ride on a boat to Brazil (I have one open offer with some Swiss people already for approximately the week after I arrive in Cape Verde). I might end up living in Cape Verde and just chilling there for a long while.

I dunno. But a life without aim isn’t always aimless.

Eid al Adha is the Muslim celebration of the pilgrimage in Mecca tied into the time God ordered a guy to sacrifice his son and he was about to and then God changed the guy’s son into a sheep at the last moment. Here in Senegal it’s called Tabaski.

Normally you can sacrifice a sheep and one third has to go to you and one third goes to your family and one third to the poor. Here everyone eats mutton for Tabaski (rams) and I dunno if it’s the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, but there sure were a lot of them around as I walked about the day before Tabaski. I was expecting to have a quiet day the next day – maybe go to mosque and then back work on the boat but, as Lipfi and I walked around, we ran into a guy, Cedou, that he you knew and we were invited around for Tabaski lunch. I took the opportunity to use Lipfi’s translation skills and find out what time Eid prayer was the next morning. Did I have a bubu? No, I replied, is it a must? Promptly I had an appointment to meet Cedou the next day at his house, get a bubu and go together to mosque.

The next morning I was in my bubu certain that I was depriving a circus of its tent but stoked to be in traditional wear nonetheless. Like the Eid salaah in Mauritania after Ramadaan, the gathering was outside in a clearing rather than in a mosque. It was nice, invigorating experience and went back to Cedou’s with him feeling… well, high on life.

Back at Cedou’s, he told me that its time to change back to my other clothes and we chilled for a bit and Cedou went inside to do something. Well, I thought to myself, the bubu is off so that must be it, that was great and I now I can go back to the boat. Cedou came back in and made me realise that I needed to respect the day and that I absolutely ccould not go work. So I chilled, wondering why the day was so important but we had our bubus off.

Next time Cedou stuck his head in the room he motioned me to follow. We came to the lane where two guys were holding a sheep, whose throat they had just slit, over a pit for its blood to drip into. The first sheep had already bled most of its blood out and was lying to the side. Cedou motioned for me to take the hind legs and suddenly it dawned on me why I wasn’t wearing the bubu.

Yep, next we hung the sheep up from a tree and Cedou, me and another guy skinned it. Then it was chopping off the legs and putting the meat parts into one bucket and the insides into another. Next sheep, same thing.

Then the other guy went off to butcher the meat pieces and and me and Cedou were put on intestine patrol. If I ever have to butcher a sheep myself I’ll just throw the intestines away. Believe me it’s a shit job to clean the insides and I mean that literally. Luckily, I just had to pour water over his hands every time Cedou finished cleaning a part but I did have to dodge droplets of all sorts of stuff lots of times. Even more luckily, we got called away for the first of meals and I sorta avoided the rest of the insides story.

The first meal was the ribs barbecued. The second meal was little delicacies of liver and kidneys. The third meal was legs. The fourth meal was a meat and onion stew. Of course there breaks in between of tea and other people coming around and the ladies and kids doing their hair and getting all flamboyantly dressed up and Lipfi, Mina and Hugo arriving and teenie siestas. I’m glad I didn’t stay for the night meal because according my calculations we’d run out of the less freaky parts of the sheep to eat. Anyway the family was getting all primed for going around visiting the neighbours (and eating more mutton) in their finest.

It was a good day. That night was New Year’s Eve and some boat people had a supper at CVD that I ran into because I needed to get to shore to take a shit. A comparatively Western pleasantly bland experience but they did have fucking good chocolate cake and other desserts.

Then it was off to bed again, wondering what the new year would bring because last year was special and I hope this one is too.

Sleeping on a boat you get lots of new things to think about that never occurred to you before. Like the rafts. Because if you’re anchoring off the coast of someplace, the only way to get to land is to swim if you don’t have a raft and the water around Hanplage is so dirty you don’t even want to piss in it. But I do, off course. Off the back of the boat into the water right where the raft is supposed to be. Because the boat I sleep on doesn’t have a raft.

It doesn’t have a toilet either, which happens to be mostly why I piss off the side of the boat. It’s a bit sketchy in the daytime when the water taxi and neighbours are about. Though boat people rarely hang about the top of their boat too much.

Now the really intuitive of you will be wondering how I manage to take a shit on the boat. Hugo (whose friend’s boat this is) is a bit of a night owl so it was a couple of days before I managed to coordinate my onboat-time with his and introduce the subject of defecation. He introduced me to the blue bucket with the rounded edge comfortable for sitting on. Err… I don’ think so. I can just picture a water taxi coming past as I pour a bucket of shit into the sea. And doesn’t toilet paper float?

So now I get up every morning  and piss where the fucken raft is supposed to be and then blow on the fucken horn so that the water taxi can hurry the fuck up so that I can get to the shore and shit in the CVD.

Changes your point of view on life (and life’s luxuries), doesn’t it?   

Safely ensconced back here Dakar at the CVD in Hanplage. The CVD is the place all the yacht people hang out at so it’s a bit like Europe with a definite sea dog subculture. Like any group on the edge of society, the CVD has a fair amount of characters that hang out here. Think of all the sea dog stereotypes in your head and then multiply it. Also add in a fair number that break the stereotype.

Yesterday I went out with a French/Madagascan family and some other people to Ile de Goree which is a beautiful island just off Dakar that is very touristic but well worth a visit anyway. Especially if you anchor off it in a nice size yacht and go in by raft. The family whose yacht is was, live on the yacht, including kids. All permanent like. (By coincidence, the energetic 7 year old was born in Cape Town quite close to my house. I think he had a couple of days on land and then it was onto the boat.)

I sleep on the smaller yacht of a friend’s friend. Sleeping on a boat is a novel experience all on its own. The boat that I will go to Cape Verde on is smaller still and I’ve managed to put in some hours work but the holidays are playing havoc with our working hours. Looks like we’ll be going some time in the new year. Meanwhile it’s work, socialise and talk about boats here in the CVD. [Maybe at this point you need to reread this paragraph again just to let the coolness of my situation sink in.]

Happy holidays everyone! Have a safe and enjoyable festive season.  

I’m here now in Cap Skirring, which according to the Lonely Planet Guidebooks has some of the ‘best beaches in Africa’. Since I come from Cape Town I wasn’t expecting to be impressed but had to see it for my myself. It is pretty fucken nice – a pity about all the tourists and people pestering tourists though. But let me not look for faults, let me rather say that aside from that, this is some of the nicest beaches I’ve seen with some great people in the fishing village near it. Not better beaches than Cape Town but just as good (with warmer water).

Also according to the guidebook, I am sitting in the best internet cafe in Senegal. Absolutely not true if you compare it a spot I was in Dakar but it does beat any other cafe in Senegal I’ve been. Pity about the cheesy music and the cost. Its 1000 CFA an hour which is like… a lot in real money.

Other than that I’ve been to Ile De Carabane for a couple of days and hope to go to the north of the Casamance region near Gambia before I head back to Dakar. Spend some more days on the beach for I get down to some boat cleaning and such stuff. Besides that I’ve been travelling for along time now and increasingly way out ideas are starting to come into my head. Current things are to study film in Cuba or to go Cape Town to Cairo on a scooter. Anybody wanna tag along? I can promise you it’ll beat the fuck out of sitting at a desk and reading my blog.

I’m now staying in the Campement Villageouis (spelling?) of Ousayee in the Casamance region of Senegal. These camps are a great idea and there’s one at most of the interesting villages around here. They’re mostly on the outskirts of the village and have running water and at the very least oil lamps (the one I’m at has electricity). They have standard prices and regulated quality and the money goes to the village. Good stuff. Gotta go, the internet is expensive here…

Some pictures! Well only four but that’ll have to do for now. They’re all of when I was staying on Hydrobase beach in St Louis, Senegal. I was there for almost 3 weeks!

Photos are courtesy of John (and his camera), with whom I have been travelling since I arrived in Senegal. It just turned out that our schedules are in synch, we get along pretty well and we can save some money doing this.

John is a Kiwi (that means he is from New Zealand not Australia) but I try not to hold that against him, or rather, I try not to hold sheep against him. I would do more Kiwi jokes but he could just bring up rugby and make me cry like a little baby… again.

Anyway, check his blog out. It’s everything this blog is not i.e. detailed, informative and lots of pictures. You’ll even get some idea of the budget we’re spending. (In fact, it’s so detailed that you’ll probably have to wait a few days before he catches up to 3 weeks ago where I come into the picture).