Teepee For My Bunghole

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 emailing from the internet cafe on Nelson Mandela Street in The Gambia. I just ate a late lunch at the Alles Klar Cafe. I suppose these South African sorta names should make me feel more at home but it doesn’t. That’s okay because it… well, I am not at home, am I?

Maybe one of these reasons I’m sitting here writing this and not spending my one afternoon in The Gambia (don’t you think the ‘The’ is a little much?) exploring is because I don’t want to get too attached to it like the last place I was in. Yeah right, I think it’s because mostly I had such a great fucken time in Kafountine that I have to get it written down before I get back to Dakar and it becomes too distant a memory.

It was my birthday last week and since I did fuckall to celebrate it I headed up to Kafountine the weekend after for bit of a jol. I arrived with a Rasta called Papice (which is short for ‘Peace and Love’ which he does actually get called now and then) and met up with some Canadians (Sarah, Steph, Walter) that I had prearranged to meet in Kafountine.

So for my birthday we first cooked up some fish on the fire at Papice’s campement near the beach, listened to him place some djemba (he is a musician that does workshops as well) and then stumbled along 3km in the dark through the forest to the reggae party in the village where they played an awfully large amount of

Lucky Dube. Birthday congratulations was called out thrice over the mike at various stages of the evening and once it even seemed to sound almost close to my name. Funky reggae party.

Lucky Dube. I knew he was big in this part of the world but I had no idea he even had so many songs. Even the Canadians are fans and they’ve even seen him in concert in Canada! I plan to look the brother up when I get home.

It’s weird how sometimes I have long periods of travel that seems so bland and then I have these short spells that are just incredibly vivid and intense. Kafountine was like that. I met great people, listened to great music and ate some great food. I didn’t like the 3km walk through the forest to the village and the cow shit area on the beach, but yeah, it was brilliant. The festival due to start next week in the village next to Kafountine (Abene 6km away) looks like it’s going to be amazing. I’m sad I’m going to miss it. Next time gadget.

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).

Did I mention that the Casamance region had some ouens fighting for independence so this is War Zone Number 2 for me (Western Sahara was number one). Well, ex-War Zone to be exact because here too the fighting has calmed down in the last year or so.

The previous ferry here from Dakar had been bombed (the Joola trajedy) so that thought kept my adrenaline pumping for all of five milliseconds on the 19 hour ferry ride before I realised that it was just a long ride on a boat with all the vibe of a dentist’s waiting room.

The sea was too calm, I was hoping to get in some sea legs practice for my Cape Verde voyage but to no avail. The black on black 360 degree view of the ocean at night was especially uninteresting.

Ziguinchor (the capital of Casamance) doesn’t look like there’s been any more strife around here. In fact, it’s quite a nice city. Good people, nice vibe. It’s up the river a long bit from the ocean and there’s lots of trees and stuff. [That last sentence was a sorry attempt at a description – don’t worry I’m working on getting some pictures. In the meantime, I’ve put a picture of my niece up] 

Okay, so I’m in Dakar center right now and and I did get hassled a little but I didn’t get mugged, I didn’t get shot or stabbed. What I did get, ladies and guzzies, is a wee bit of a plan.

Up to now my plans were kind of sketchy. I had the rough idea that I wanted to get to Ghana but without enough time and there were all these other countries I had to consider and maybe cross. Mali, Guinea Bissau, Burkino Faso, Guinea. All a little confusing for little ol’ me. I figured I wanted to stick to nice coastal parts because I’m more of a water than a desert person. Even more confusing is when someone wysed me of the Cape Verde Islands which seemed right up me alley.

But since it is islands (duh), it is surrounded by water (double duh) and getting there was looking to be a bit tough. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I just spoke to someone today who gave me the idea that I could go with them in about a month. I even get to help them fix the boat up beforehand. Double extra super dooper stoked!

Now I go off to buy a ferry trip to the Casamance region of Senegal for another week or two on the beach, after which I return here to mould myself into a sea dog. This is going to be fucking great!

I finally got my arse out of St Louis. Went a couple of days to Zebrabar which is a Swiss run camp in one of the bird parks near St Louis and then missioned here to Yoff this morning. Yoff is just outside Dakar.

People said we should stay outside Dakar because its busy, crime-ridden and generally just better to avoid. Anyway, I need to do some stuff there so I’m starting my missions in tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be on my way outta here by Friday night.

Well, that’s it really. Nothing interesting to say, just wanted to make you wys that I’m travelling again – oh, there’s the possiblity that I might acquire a camera here – and well… I just did that.

Err…

Erm… I think here’s the part where you think insignificant thoughts about awkward silences.

Err…

Well, at least the next post should be more interesting. If I don’t get slaughtered in Dakar, that is.