A pile of goats and the fish are finished

Bienvenue au Senegal! I write to you from another world.  I'm sitting on a plastic chair on the beach, overlooking Senegalese youths playing football, watching the ball periodically dart into the sea, swiftly retrieved, then put straight back into play.  Up and down this vast coastline, people are selling fish, grilled on curiously wonky barbeques atop makeshift legs which punctuate the beach.

I'm sipping Coca Cola and water and have been chatting with the vendor about her business selling grilled fish.

The transfer to my guesthouse last night was eventful - we were more than two hours late leaving, then the baggage took more than an hour to make its way off the plane and onto the carousel.  I was worried that the driver I had arranged to collect me from the guesthouse might give up on me and go home, and I wouldn't have blamed him.  I had sent a message to the owner of the guesthouse but it was 3am by then and perhaps not the most social time to receive a message.

The palpable relief when my trusty orange tortoise in its large cosy black soft-shell (the rucksack which has been faithfully strapped to my back for twenty years - not continuously, obviously, that wouldn't make me very popular on commuter routes) glided towards me on the conveyor belt (amongst a million other pieces of luggage, most of which were awkwardly shrink-wrapped for some reason), was beautiful, as was the sign clutched by the driver, Marcela, I soon found out, when I finally emerged from the 'Nothing to Declare' channel - 'Byrant - Helen Beacher' - in this situation, any combination of words which look even vaguely like my name is totally acceptable.  He had been waiting for me for over four hours by this time.  I also hadn't given much thought to how far away the airport is from the city - it's 'in Dakar' in the way that Heathrow is 'in London'.  Someone profound once said, if God had wanted us to fly, he'd have built the airports closer to where people live.  I hasten to add - there are obvious exceptions to this, and there isn't a whole lot about air travel in the Bible, or about the moon-landings, but that's a whole separate blog for another time.

Marcela waited even longer for me whilst I tried to persuade an angry AGM to cough up from CFA for me, which was a bit of a struggle.  I figured that after waiting four hours, another few minutes wouldn't make too much more of a difference, and he seemed to be ok with that.  

We chatted for ages as he drove, swerving gigantic long lorries, the likes of which you only see in Africa, along with horse-drawn carts piled high with goods, plying the endless road to the early morning markets - there were no lights at all, so I fear a full risk assessment is yet to be completed.  My French language skills gradually came back to me - I just don't speak it often enough, save for the occasional French person I come across, most of whom are called Julie.  

I did my best to stay awake for the most part of the journey, I think.  I don't like the phrase 'it had been a long day', because all days are the same length, but this really had been an exceptionally long day, due to two lots of plane delays, the potential though not actual disappearance of my baggage, and general confusion over the time difference.  Senegal is one hour behind Morocco, meaning that Marcela had waited even longer than I thought.  Whoops.

At one point, Marcela was saying 'Madame, nous sommes ici' and before I knew it, the Italian owner of the guesthouse was being roused from his slumber at 4.30am and was ushering me to my room.  I swiftly untwirled the mosquito net thoughtfully positioned above my bed, rummaged through my bag to find my pyjamas, tucked the net in, then fell asleep in about four seconds.      

I spent the day acquainting myself with the surrounds.  I'm staying in a basic but very friendly guesthouse in a place called Yoff.  It's moments from the town and moments from the beach, which was bustling with people this evening - from families enjoying vast picnics, tiny children playing in the sand, to young men playing football, people wandering around selling their wares, plus there were hundreds of people in the sea, presumably trying to escape from the heat.  There are all sorts of shady areas which people can pay to rent and enjoy some beach-time.

I spent the day wandering and doing perfunctory things like finding the bank.  I walked past what looked like a huge pile of depressed goats.  I know a great deal about goats you know - did you know that goat is the most popular meat in the world? I once wrote a poem about eating goat, as anyone who went to LaSERIO may remember - 'the knee-cap of the billy goat might get stuck inside your throat / so be aware and take great care / eat the meat and not the bone / or else your stomach shall surely moan'.  It went on to explore the exciting statistics around goat meat, which unfortunately didn't stay with me, although I do remember that 80% of meat eaten worldwide, is goat.  Or at least it was then - this may have changed since the vegan revolution.  Although I'm sure someone somewhere has developed vegan goat.  

Anyway, these goats didn't look too happy, and looked even less happy when I tried to converse with them, in French - a goat is 'un chevre'; I remembered this slightly too late - I addressed them first with 'Bonjour les chevaux' which, awkwardly means 'horses', so I accept that this may not have helped the situation.  You only get one chance to make a first impression in this life. 

Or maybe goats just have miserable faces.  Who knows.

Evening came and after a siesta it was time to find some dinner.  I went to a quirky restaurant I'd seen on the beach earlier; plastic tables and chairs with parasols shading the patrons, plus long deck chairs for relaxation.   I made some friends, chatting at length about Senegal, London and most other topics.  

I ordered some fish, only to be told that 'the fish are finished'.  How the fish can be finished when we were next to the actual sea, is beyond me, but they guaranteed something equally tasty; my French is still fairly rusty but they gave me an elaborate francophone description which led me to envisage some huge, probably angry (judging by the goats), crustacean being presented to me on a giant plate.  Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when a plate with two tastefully arranged large shrimps appeared, who, although abundantly dead, were still smiling.