I breakfasted at the quirky guesthouse which had been home for three happy nights. The proprietor's wife sat with me for a bit, explaining how to get to Saly, my next destination, then a newly-arrived French girl came and sat with me - we conversed and I understood the bulk of the conversation, I think. Then I chatted to two newly-arrived Spanish backpackers who had overheard and had assumed I was French due to my excellent accent. Methinks the accent is there - it's the words I struggle with and they are what constitutes the conversation really, although in every training I deliver I find myself telling the trainees that the bulk of what one says comes across in one's body language - I'm not quite sure how that works when one is struggling to remember how a word translates - the body language then is entirely of frustration, regardless of the topic.
Awkwardly, I was telling my new French friend all about my early travels in Africa as a naïve 19-year-old gap-yearer, doing my best to explain how my perspective has matured since then, only to discover that she was now me - first year of university, a student intrigued by the world. I can't believe that those first travels of mine were 17 years ago - seventeen!!
Africa gets inside you, in more than a malarial sense (although hopefully my trusty stash of Doxcycline from Herbert Road will take care of that); something drew me to Ghana in 2002 - that was my first experience of this land of culture and friendship, intrigue and difference. Go into the travel section of a bookshop, then find the Bradt Guide to Ghana - look up 'Women Travellers' and you'll find my blurb. I don't think I realised how uncommon a lone female traveller would be then, and it still seems to be now.
I chose to study at Leeds University because they offered a semester's study in Uganda - so I completed part of my theology degree at Uganda Christian University. Then Ethiopia called, then Namibia, South Africa, Rwanda, but West Africa will always have a special place in my heart, so here I am.
After checking out of Ker Jahkarlo, I headed to the gare routiere where a kindly man walked me to a 'sept place' which was bound for Mbour, close to Saly. 'Sept place' literally means 'seven places' - these are rusty Peugeot 505s which ply the various routes across West Africa. I had a touching nostalgic moment as the first family car which I remember, aged about 6, was a Peugeot 505 and this model was exactly the same, albeit with the steering wheel on the other side and the ceiling gently peeling away to reveal a curious cross-section of cladding which I'd never contemplated constituted the roof of a car.
I quickly made friends with the man sitting to my right, who was cradling a 2-year-old who was sweet but had a terrible cough; an angry young woman sat to my left, who looked away as soon as I greeted her - give me a chance, I thought inside, all I've said is 'bonjour' - that was clearly enough for her and she wasn't going to engage further.
I was in the 'back-back' of the Peugeot, as we used to call it when I was little, as opposed to the 'back' which is the first tier of seating behind the driver, or the 'back-back-back' which others might more traditionally call the 'boot'.
I chatted away with the man sitting to my right with the coughing 2-year-old for the first hour or so, then when he started telling me about his family, it transpired that the angry young woman to my left who had blanked me, was in fact, his wife! Awkward. I think perhaps she was a bit narked that he'd chosen to sit next to me, rather than to her.
Every time the vehicle slowed, hawkers would quickly emerge, keen to sell their wares to whoever might slow even a flicker of interest. There were huge bags of nuts (I'm EpiPen-trained you know), packets of chewing gum, water in tiny plastic pouches as well as plastic bottles - the European plastic obsession is far from a consideration here where the tap water is not potable), fruit drinks, hats, kitchenware including drying racks and utensils - when better to kit out your kitchen than in an African bush taxi?
To me, there is never a good time to go shopping, hence having a Tesco Fairy who appears each Thursday (if I am there, I always give them a treat, usually a KitKat - strangely the same Fairy rarely returns). However, the traditionally-built lady in the middle seat in the back-back decided that it was a good time to buy a huge multi-pack of biscuits from a hawker, just after the vehicle had started to move away after waiting for what looked like all the cows in Senegal, to cross the road.
It was surreal - the girl gently increased her pace as the vehicle picked up speed; a fellow hawker produced a black carrier bag into which the traditionally-built lady put the multipacks of biscuits; the actual transaction consisted of the traditionally-built lady rummaging in her oversized handbag to find some scrunched up CFA notes - we were doing around 10mph at this point, with the poor hawker having to pick up speed - unfazed and just chuffed to have made a sale, she grabbed the notes and nonchalantly made her way to the next vehicle of potential biscuit-buyers.
I haven't been to Africa for a while, so haven't seen this typical buying behaviour recently, but it made me smile, reminding me of the time I waited eight hours for a bus to fill up at Sunyani in Western Ghana - I was heading to Bui National Park, but unfortunately it transpired that no-one else was. That day, I brought all sorts through the window of the bus, sitting in the gradually filling bus - biscuits, water, nuts, fruit, batteries for my ailing torch, a handkerchief to mop my sweating brow. I wrote a whole radio play about that village and entered it into the BBC African Writers' competition - I didn't win, due to not being an African writer. Let me know if you'd like to read it. I've written three plays and sent them to the BBC - they routinely send me a 'thank you, but don't bother in future' postcard which is, I suppose, very marginally better than nothing.
Oh wow - I never thought I'd write this - I have just seen a border collie riding a quad bike up the beach. Yes really! My train of thought has totally gone now - what would #DogFriend say?! (On closer inspection, it's possible that there were human hands on the handlebars - or were there?)
Anyway, the sept place took me to Mbour, then the father of the coughing child and husband of the angry woman instructed a passing boy to take me to the place where I could catch another vehicle to Saly. Now, I figured that Saly isn't that big, so I was bound to spot my next accommodation easily, right? Wrong.
Once the other passengers had departed (got out of the vehicle, rather than died), I asked the remaining passenger and the driver if they knew of the place I am staying, anticipating a hearty 'oui, bien-sur!', meaning 'yes, of course!', but the answer was 'non' which sort of translates itself.
The poor driver than spent half an hour driving down every tiny backstreet in this twisty-turny place asking every person in Saly if they had heard of it. Hang on - I was thinking to myself - it's on Booking.com, it can't be that remote, surely? Wait a minute - what if it doesn't even exist? What if it's all a conspiracy? What if Booking.com is a conspiracy?! I only booked through Booking.com because it generates a donation for 1st Chislehurst Guides through easyfundraising (likewise, I booked the flights through Expedia - that donation will pretty much complete the India fundraising!) - anyway, I felt a bit bad taking him off his 'quatre place' route, but he kept saying he didn't mind. Eventually, we found the place and I paid him a substantial amount for his trouble.
Fast-forward a few hours and I have happily checked-in - the place definitely does exist and they were expecting me. I've paid in cash before it gets spent on something else. This is another basic guesthouse, right on the beach, with hammocks, comfy benches, a tiny swimming pool (currently containing a couple who look like they are doing what most couples would usually do in a room), plus a plethora of hungry-looking cats meandering around. The palm trees are bending in the breeze and there are all sorts of children and young people playing in the sea or playing football.
I wandered along the beach earlier and found a quirky restaurant where I enjoyed another fish straight from sea to grill - this time I had sole - cue the jokes: always good to explore your soul / no longer a sole traveller / pas seulement moi (that one won't work if you have no French, and it doesn't really work written down in French, or at all to be fair, so you'll just have to imagine I'm saying it to you).
Awkwardly, I was telling my new French friend all about my early travels in Africa as a naïve 19-year-old gap-yearer, doing my best to explain how my perspective has matured since then, only to discover that she was now me - first year of university, a student intrigued by the world. I can't believe that those first travels of mine were 17 years ago - seventeen!!
Africa gets inside you, in more than a malarial sense (although hopefully my trusty stash of Doxcycline from Herbert Road will take care of that); something drew me to Ghana in 2002 - that was my first experience of this land of culture and friendship, intrigue and difference. Go into the travel section of a bookshop, then find the Bradt Guide to Ghana - look up 'Women Travellers' and you'll find my blurb. I don't think I realised how uncommon a lone female traveller would be then, and it still seems to be now.
I chose to study at Leeds University because they offered a semester's study in Uganda - so I completed part of my theology degree at Uganda Christian University. Then Ethiopia called, then Namibia, South Africa, Rwanda, but West Africa will always have a special place in my heart, so here I am.
After checking out of Ker Jahkarlo, I headed to the gare routiere where a kindly man walked me to a 'sept place' which was bound for Mbour, close to Saly. 'Sept place' literally means 'seven places' - these are rusty Peugeot 505s which ply the various routes across West Africa. I had a touching nostalgic moment as the first family car which I remember, aged about 6, was a Peugeot 505 and this model was exactly the same, albeit with the steering wheel on the other side and the ceiling gently peeling away to reveal a curious cross-section of cladding which I'd never contemplated constituted the roof of a car.
I quickly made friends with the man sitting to my right, who was cradling a 2-year-old who was sweet but had a terrible cough; an angry young woman sat to my left, who looked away as soon as I greeted her - give me a chance, I thought inside, all I've said is 'bonjour' - that was clearly enough for her and she wasn't going to engage further.
I was in the 'back-back' of the Peugeot, as we used to call it when I was little, as opposed to the 'back' which is the first tier of seating behind the driver, or the 'back-back-back' which others might more traditionally call the 'boot'.
I chatted away with the man sitting to my right with the coughing 2-year-old for the first hour or so, then when he started telling me about his family, it transpired that the angry young woman to my left who had blanked me, was in fact, his wife! Awkward. I think perhaps she was a bit narked that he'd chosen to sit next to me, rather than to her.
Every time the vehicle slowed, hawkers would quickly emerge, keen to sell their wares to whoever might slow even a flicker of interest. There were huge bags of nuts (I'm EpiPen-trained you know), packets of chewing gum, water in tiny plastic pouches as well as plastic bottles - the European plastic obsession is far from a consideration here where the tap water is not potable), fruit drinks, hats, kitchenware including drying racks and utensils - when better to kit out your kitchen than in an African bush taxi?
To me, there is never a good time to go shopping, hence having a Tesco Fairy who appears each Thursday (if I am there, I always give them a treat, usually a KitKat - strangely the same Fairy rarely returns). However, the traditionally-built lady in the middle seat in the back-back decided that it was a good time to buy a huge multi-pack of biscuits from a hawker, just after the vehicle had started to move away after waiting for what looked like all the cows in Senegal, to cross the road.
It was surreal - the girl gently increased her pace as the vehicle picked up speed; a fellow hawker produced a black carrier bag into which the traditionally-built lady put the multipacks of biscuits; the actual transaction consisted of the traditionally-built lady rummaging in her oversized handbag to find some scrunched up CFA notes - we were doing around 10mph at this point, with the poor hawker having to pick up speed - unfazed and just chuffed to have made a sale, she grabbed the notes and nonchalantly made her way to the next vehicle of potential biscuit-buyers.
I haven't been to Africa for a while, so haven't seen this typical buying behaviour recently, but it made me smile, reminding me of the time I waited eight hours for a bus to fill up at Sunyani in Western Ghana - I was heading to Bui National Park, but unfortunately it transpired that no-one else was. That day, I brought all sorts through the window of the bus, sitting in the gradually filling bus - biscuits, water, nuts, fruit, batteries for my ailing torch, a handkerchief to mop my sweating brow. I wrote a whole radio play about that village and entered it into the BBC African Writers' competition - I didn't win, due to not being an African writer. Let me know if you'd like to read it. I've written three plays and sent them to the BBC - they routinely send me a 'thank you, but don't bother in future' postcard which is, I suppose, very marginally better than nothing.
Oh wow - I never thought I'd write this - I have just seen a border collie riding a quad bike up the beach. Yes really! My train of thought has totally gone now - what would #DogFriend say?! (On closer inspection, it's possible that there were human hands on the handlebars - or were there?)
Anyway, the sept place took me to Mbour, then the father of the coughing child and husband of the angry woman instructed a passing boy to take me to the place where I could catch another vehicle to Saly. Now, I figured that Saly isn't that big, so I was bound to spot my next accommodation easily, right? Wrong.
Once the other passengers had departed (got out of the vehicle, rather than died), I asked the remaining passenger and the driver if they knew of the place I am staying, anticipating a hearty 'oui, bien-sur!', meaning 'yes, of course!', but the answer was 'non' which sort of translates itself.
The poor driver than spent half an hour driving down every tiny backstreet in this twisty-turny place asking every person in Saly if they had heard of it. Hang on - I was thinking to myself - it's on Booking.com, it can't be that remote, surely? Wait a minute - what if it doesn't even exist? What if it's all a conspiracy? What if Booking.com is a conspiracy?! I only booked through Booking.com because it generates a donation for 1st Chislehurst Guides through easyfundraising (likewise, I booked the flights through Expedia - that donation will pretty much complete the India fundraising!) - anyway, I felt a bit bad taking him off his 'quatre place' route, but he kept saying he didn't mind. Eventually, we found the place and I paid him a substantial amount for his trouble.
Fast-forward a few hours and I have happily checked-in - the place definitely does exist and they were expecting me. I've paid in cash before it gets spent on something else. This is another basic guesthouse, right on the beach, with hammocks, comfy benches, a tiny swimming pool (currently containing a couple who look like they are doing what most couples would usually do in a room), plus a plethora of hungry-looking cats meandering around. The palm trees are bending in the breeze and there are all sorts of children and young people playing in the sea or playing football.
I wandered along the beach earlier and found a quirky restaurant where I enjoyed another fish straight from sea to grill - this time I had sole - cue the jokes: always good to explore your soul / no longer a sole traveller / pas seulement moi (that one won't work if you have no French, and it doesn't really work written down in French, or at all to be fair, so you'll just have to imagine I'm saying it to you).
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