Getting up at 4am for a flight is fine if it's on time. Still sat at the airport at 9am when I really should be fast asleep on the plane is not so fine. Still, they did give us free breakfast and there is wireless so can't really complain.
Mugabe, cholera, insane inflation, rigged elections, political violence, food shortages.
I'm sure there's plenty more to Zimbabwe than all the negative press. I'm really intrigued about what it will be like and quite excited now I'm (almost) on my way. Spent 3 hours in the bank yesterday waiting to get some dollars to travel with. Mental note never to go to the bank at the end of the month again. There is a ticket system for queuing. My heart sank somewhat when I saw there were 68 people infront of me in the queue...
It takes 8.5 hours to fly from Dakar to JoBurg. South Africa is soooo far away!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
On the road again
Am writing this in the car on the way back to Dakar. There’s not much to look at in the way of scenery and have done this journey so many times, thought I’d make use of the time! The land is really flat and dry and you can see for miles across barren shrubland with just the occasional Baobab tree to break the monotony. It’s hard to imagine but my colleague was telling me it used to be forest all along here but the trees have gradually been cut down for charcoal. Apparently the soil is still fertile but as the rains have become shorter and rarer in recent years, nothing much grows. You come across occasional patches of green where communities have erected an irrigation system, but other than that it’s pretty dusty and orange.
What else is there to see… this is the main road from the 2nd city (Thies) into Dakar so the road is dotted with frequent settlements – a mix of traditional huts and breeze block housing and plenty of semi-completed construction. Then there’s the rubbish. It’s almost as if black plastic bags are part of the landscape. Caught up in shrubs, attached to twigs, blowing across the edge of the road. A constant stream of non-biodegradable waste with nowhere to go. Every so often, at the edge of a village, you come across an open rubbish dump. The land turns from orange to multi-coloured as piles of plastic, tin and packaging are left to heap up. It’s a bit of a sorry site.
The other splash of colour on the otherwise dull landscape, is the site of women traders on the approach to a village. It’s mango season now so there are women everywhere in colourful pagnes with bowls of mangoes on their heads, and stall after stall lining the road selling the same fruit and veg.
Have just driven past an accident. An old estate peaugeot, known as a sept-place (1 seat in the front, 3 in the back and 3 in the boot), which is a popular type of public transport here for long distance journeys– more expensive than the bus but cheaper than a taxi, must have lost control and rolled off the side of the road and down a bank. It’s upside down and there’s a huge crowd around the car. People talk about dangers of malaria and getting sick from some strange tropical disease when you say you live in Africa but I def think road accidents are the biggest risk. The roads are in good condition here but people drive so fast, vehicles are overloaded with passengers squished into every available space and huge piles of luggage – everything from sheep to chairs, balanced precariously on the roof. Stark reminder of the dangers of travelling by road. I feel thankful that I can relax in my car from work.
We’re coming into the traffic hell that is the approach to Dakar. It can take 2 hours to move about 30km when traffic is really bad. One road in and out of the capital city is not the best example of urban planning. In between the cars that inch slowly along the jammed road, are gendarmes, whistle in mouth, with the nightmare job of controlling buses (with the conductor hanging out of the open back door), taxis, horse & carts and battered vehicles that look like they’ve come straight from a car graveyard. Then there’s the vendors, selling everything from tissues, newspapers, oranges, sunglasses, nuts, phonecards – who chase after you to grab their change as you buy something from out of your window and your car moves on.
The use of the horn takes on a whole new meaning here too. I’d estimate every 15 seconds our driver beeps and am at a loss most of the time as to what he’s beeping for.
What else is there to see… this is the main road from the 2nd city (Thies) into Dakar so the road is dotted with frequent settlements – a mix of traditional huts and breeze block housing and plenty of semi-completed construction. Then there’s the rubbish. It’s almost as if black plastic bags are part of the landscape. Caught up in shrubs, attached to twigs, blowing across the edge of the road. A constant stream of non-biodegradable waste with nowhere to go. Every so often, at the edge of a village, you come across an open rubbish dump. The land turns from orange to multi-coloured as piles of plastic, tin and packaging are left to heap up. It’s a bit of a sorry site.
The other splash of colour on the otherwise dull landscape, is the site of women traders on the approach to a village. It’s mango season now so there are women everywhere in colourful pagnes with bowls of mangoes on their heads, and stall after stall lining the road selling the same fruit and veg.
Have just driven past an accident. An old estate peaugeot, known as a sept-place (1 seat in the front, 3 in the back and 3 in the boot), which is a popular type of public transport here for long distance journeys– more expensive than the bus but cheaper than a taxi, must have lost control and rolled off the side of the road and down a bank. It’s upside down and there’s a huge crowd around the car. People talk about dangers of malaria and getting sick from some strange tropical disease when you say you live in Africa but I def think road accidents are the biggest risk. The roads are in good condition here but people drive so fast, vehicles are overloaded with passengers squished into every available space and huge piles of luggage – everything from sheep to chairs, balanced precariously on the roof. Stark reminder of the dangers of travelling by road. I feel thankful that I can relax in my car from work.
We’re coming into the traffic hell that is the approach to Dakar. It can take 2 hours to move about 30km when traffic is really bad. One road in and out of the capital city is not the best example of urban planning. In between the cars that inch slowly along the jammed road, are gendarmes, whistle in mouth, with the nightmare job of controlling buses (with the conductor hanging out of the open back door), taxis, horse & carts and battered vehicles that look like they’ve come straight from a car graveyard. Then there’s the vendors, selling everything from tissues, newspapers, oranges, sunglasses, nuts, phonecards – who chase after you to grab their change as you buy something from out of your window and your car moves on.
The use of the horn takes on a whole new meaning here too. I’d estimate every 15 seconds our driver beeps and am at a loss most of the time as to what he’s beeping for.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saly
My week of slightly surreal Senegal experiences is continuing. I’m spending a couple of days at a place called Saly, which is on the coast. It’s the country’s main tourist centre, known here as Senegal’s Riviera. We’re here for a proposal development workshop – it’s easier to bring everyone together from different offices around the country to work intensively from early in the morning till after midnight for a few days to get the project designed and written up.
The place we’re staying in is beautiful. Bougainvillea, frangipani and coconut trees surround the lush gardens of the mini villas. It’s so green compared to outside the resort; it feels more like the Caribbean than the Sahel. There is a peacock wandering round the outdoor restaurant and there are the most incredible birds everywhere, with black heads, red eyes and metallic turquoise bodies that glimmer in the sun. I normally freak if I’m anywhere near a bird but these are so far-removed from their minging pigeon relatives, even I can’t fail to be impressed!
It’s off-season so it’s pretty quiet. Apart from us, there’s a delegation of civil servants here for a workshop on good governance, and then there’s a big group of retired French people. Older French men in swimming trunks with their pot bellies wobbling as they play petanque on the lawn, and women (long past an acceptable topless bikini age), wandering around the pool, their skin the deepest of leathery tans. It’s quite a comedy sight! Still, I’m not complaining. There’s not many times in my life I’ve been checking budgets with sand between my toes, watching the sunset (and listening to Phil Collins pumping from the poolside bar!).
I went for a little walk along the beach today after lunch, while everyone else was praying. The sea is calm and an inviting turquoise blue, busy with a bizarre mix of traditional fishing pirogues, jet skis, swimming tourists, and a group of local boys washing a sheep. I was disappointed at the debris though. Where the sea should be lapping the golden sand, bits of dead fish, tree roots, beer cans and plastic bags line the edge. In such a fancy tourist resort I was surprised that the coast wasn’t spotless.
Chatting to one of the staff at the hotel and things became clearer, although even more worrying. With the sea rapidly eroding the land further up the coast (which people blame on climate change), one of the hotels was finding their part of the beach was starting to disappear into the sea, each year becoming smaller and smaller, which was discouraging tourists from coming to their resort. To combat the phenomenon the hotel paid for a sea wall to be dug deep into the sea-bed to change the direction of the tide so as to stop it taking the beach away. Fine as a concept in itself and had the desired effect for the hotel, but the effects of this meant that the beach at the resort next door was doubly affected by the erosion power of the sea and their beach started rapidly disappearing. They therefore paid for a similar wall to be dug on their patch.
Gradually, resort by resort followed the same pattern so that now all the resorts along this stretch of coast, have these walls. The hotel I’m in is the last one before the village.
6 months ago the beach at my hotel was 45m wide, with palm trees and space for 4 rows of sunloungers.
Now it’s about 4m wide.
The beach has simply disappeared into the sea, taking the coconut trees with it. It’s a pretty frightening concept. The change in the natural direction of the currents is also apparently what’s causing rubbish from elsewhere to be dragged in and washed up on the previously spotless beach.
The hotel I’m in has a tough choice. If they don’t build their own wall, the clientele will stop coming to their resort as there really is no beach anymore, and their livelihood will be lost. If they do build a wall, this will have a devastating effect on the village further along the coast, whose inhabitants don’t have the funds to build their own protective wall to save the small stretch of beach left, used for launching the village fishing boats.
It just highlighted to me how it's all very well talking about protecting the environment and effects of climate change, but when it comes down to decisions that affect your life in a major way (in this case, the hotel's decision to build a sea wall that will damage the environment - and the local village - but save their business), it's pretty hard to ask people to put the environment before themselves, even if there are negative consequences.
The place we’re staying in is beautiful. Bougainvillea, frangipani and coconut trees surround the lush gardens of the mini villas. It’s so green compared to outside the resort; it feels more like the Caribbean than the Sahel. There is a peacock wandering round the outdoor restaurant and there are the most incredible birds everywhere, with black heads, red eyes and metallic turquoise bodies that glimmer in the sun. I normally freak if I’m anywhere near a bird but these are so far-removed from their minging pigeon relatives, even I can’t fail to be impressed!
It’s off-season so it’s pretty quiet. Apart from us, there’s a delegation of civil servants here for a workshop on good governance, and then there’s a big group of retired French people. Older French men in swimming trunks with their pot bellies wobbling as they play petanque on the lawn, and women (long past an acceptable topless bikini age), wandering around the pool, their skin the deepest of leathery tans. It’s quite a comedy sight! Still, I’m not complaining. There’s not many times in my life I’ve been checking budgets with sand between my toes, watching the sunset (and listening to Phil Collins pumping from the poolside bar!).
I went for a little walk along the beach today after lunch, while everyone else was praying. The sea is calm and an inviting turquoise blue, busy with a bizarre mix of traditional fishing pirogues, jet skis, swimming tourists, and a group of local boys washing a sheep. I was disappointed at the debris though. Where the sea should be lapping the golden sand, bits of dead fish, tree roots, beer cans and plastic bags line the edge. In such a fancy tourist resort I was surprised that the coast wasn’t spotless.
Chatting to one of the staff at the hotel and things became clearer, although even more worrying. With the sea rapidly eroding the land further up the coast (which people blame on climate change), one of the hotels was finding their part of the beach was starting to disappear into the sea, each year becoming smaller and smaller, which was discouraging tourists from coming to their resort. To combat the phenomenon the hotel paid for a sea wall to be dug deep into the sea-bed to change the direction of the tide so as to stop it taking the beach away. Fine as a concept in itself and had the desired effect for the hotel, but the effects of this meant that the beach at the resort next door was doubly affected by the erosion power of the sea and their beach started rapidly disappearing. They therefore paid for a similar wall to be dug on their patch.
Gradually, resort by resort followed the same pattern so that now all the resorts along this stretch of coast, have these walls. The hotel I’m in is the last one before the village.
6 months ago the beach at my hotel was 45m wide, with palm trees and space for 4 rows of sunloungers.
Now it’s about 4m wide.
The beach has simply disappeared into the sea, taking the coconut trees with it. It’s a pretty frightening concept. The change in the natural direction of the currents is also apparently what’s causing rubbish from elsewhere to be dragged in and washed up on the previously spotless beach.
The hotel I’m in has a tough choice. If they don’t build their own wall, the clientele will stop coming to their resort as there really is no beach anymore, and their livelihood will be lost. If they do build a wall, this will have a devastating effect on the village further along the coast, whose inhabitants don’t have the funds to build their own protective wall to save the small stretch of beach left, used for launching the village fishing boats.
It just highlighted to me how it's all very well talking about protecting the environment and effects of climate change, but when it comes down to decisions that affect your life in a major way (in this case, the hotel's decision to build a sea wall that will damage the environment - and the local village - but save their business), it's pretty hard to ask people to put the environment before themselves, even if there are negative consequences.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Cakes and soldiers
It’s strange, I’ve only been back in Dakar 4 days but even after 6 weeks in the UK, it feels like I never left. So far, so good. My flat is still in one piece (apart from lack of Internet); my colleagues were so welcoming (if a little too honest in their kindly-meant comments on how much I clearly ate while back home); sweet Senegalese tea is even better than I remembered; and summer is finally here, which, given that we are not that close to the equator, means brighter mornings and longer evenings – a bit like home really. Well, sort of.
I spent the weekend catching up with people and pottering about. My quartier has been a hive of activity all weekend with its own mini version of 4 Weddings and a Funeral.
Friday there was the funeral. I arrived home after the burial to find the whole street packed with people sitting and eating couscous, with more and more huge trays of food being carried out of one of my neighbour's houses. After several attempts at polite refusal, I accepted the invitiation of a group of elderly women to eat with them.
Saturday was a wedding. My neighbour made the wedding cake which somehow ended up in my fridge to look after (quite brave of her given my tendency to make any desserts in my vicinity disappear pretty quickly). Five round cakes in descending size, each with a hole in the centre and covered in cream, coconut flakes and green blobs of icing.
Sometimes things that seem so normal at the time would be so random if taken out of context... Picture 9pm on Saturday night, myself and 4 guests from the wedding each with an identical, cream cake in hand, traipsing down the stairs of my flat, out into the street, down an alleyway, across a dimly-lit road dodging taxis, stray dogs and potholes until we reached the reception, with Yvette, my neighbour, leading the way with a huge pole covered in tin foil in one hand and a plastic minature bride and groom in the other. Not the most risk-free way of getting a cake to a wedding!
The reception was outdoors and was packed, mainly with women in beautifully vibrant and intricate outfits, eating and dancing. Yvette proceeded to mount the cakes one by one onto this aluminium-covered pole which wobbled precariously with every gust of wind.
The bride, in a tasteful lacy meringue dress, with her eyebrows drawn on in purple pencil, stepped up to pose for the classic cake-cutting photo with (I presumed) her husband. I commented to a guest that they looked a lovely couple (thought it would be polite to make conversation as I'd been given a plate of food to join in the celebration).
‘Oh no, that’s not the groom’, the guest replied. ‘C’est le faux-mari’ (the fake husband).
Seeing my slightly bewildered look, the guest explained that often the groom doesn’t come to the party. He attends the ceremony but the party is more for the bride and her friends (hence the disproportionate number of female guests) and the groom waits at home for the celebrations to finish and the bride to return. That in itself didn’t seem that strange as I know weddings vary so much from culture to culture. What did seem a bit odd was that the bride was wearing a Western-style dress and attempting to follow a typically Western cake-cutting ceremony - a concept that to me, doesn't quite work unless you have both the bride and groom present...
Apart from weddings and funerals, I also went to the beach with my neighbours and their children. It’s not exactly paradise, but for a city beach, it does the job: clean, lots of shade from coconut trees and a view out onto Gorée, the old slave-trading island. (Best to focus on that rather than the industrial port to the right and the barbed wire of the French military camp behind!)
There was also an 'open-house' day at the French military camp, and seeing as it's next to the beach, we went along. Felt like I had stepped into another world. Surrounded by French soldiers in combats and hundreds of French families all enjoying what was basically like a school fete, with a tombola, BBQ and camel rides (instead of donkeys!). There are about 4 military bases in Dakar but no one seemed able to explain exactly what their purpose is. I think it's a historical thing and now the soldiers use the bases for training. My neigbours who are from Cote d'Ivoire were quite anti the whole French military base thing, particularly given their negative experience at home with the French army.
It's weird thinking there is this totally different reality going on behind the gates of the camp, that is so unlike the rest of Dakar. Good BBQ chicken though.
I spent the weekend catching up with people and pottering about. My quartier has been a hive of activity all weekend with its own mini version of 4 Weddings and a Funeral.
Friday there was the funeral. I arrived home after the burial to find the whole street packed with people sitting and eating couscous, with more and more huge trays of food being carried out of one of my neighbour's houses. After several attempts at polite refusal, I accepted the invitiation of a group of elderly women to eat with them.
Saturday was a wedding. My neighbour made the wedding cake which somehow ended up in my fridge to look after (quite brave of her given my tendency to make any desserts in my vicinity disappear pretty quickly). Five round cakes in descending size, each with a hole in the centre and covered in cream, coconut flakes and green blobs of icing.
Sometimes things that seem so normal at the time would be so random if taken out of context... Picture 9pm on Saturday night, myself and 4 guests from the wedding each with an identical, cream cake in hand, traipsing down the stairs of my flat, out into the street, down an alleyway, across a dimly-lit road dodging taxis, stray dogs and potholes until we reached the reception, with Yvette, my neighbour, leading the way with a huge pole covered in tin foil in one hand and a plastic minature bride and groom in the other. Not the most risk-free way of getting a cake to a wedding!
The reception was outdoors and was packed, mainly with women in beautifully vibrant and intricate outfits, eating and dancing. Yvette proceeded to mount the cakes one by one onto this aluminium-covered pole which wobbled precariously with every gust of wind.
The bride, in a tasteful lacy meringue dress, with her eyebrows drawn on in purple pencil, stepped up to pose for the classic cake-cutting photo with (I presumed) her husband. I commented to a guest that they looked a lovely couple (thought it would be polite to make conversation as I'd been given a plate of food to join in the celebration).
‘Oh no, that’s not the groom’, the guest replied. ‘C’est le faux-mari’ (the fake husband).
Seeing my slightly bewildered look, the guest explained that often the groom doesn’t come to the party. He attends the ceremony but the party is more for the bride and her friends (hence the disproportionate number of female guests) and the groom waits at home for the celebrations to finish and the bride to return. That in itself didn’t seem that strange as I know weddings vary so much from culture to culture. What did seem a bit odd was that the bride was wearing a Western-style dress and attempting to follow a typically Western cake-cutting ceremony - a concept that to me, doesn't quite work unless you have both the bride and groom present...
Apart from weddings and funerals, I also went to the beach with my neighbours and their children. It’s not exactly paradise, but for a city beach, it does the job: clean, lots of shade from coconut trees and a view out onto Gorée, the old slave-trading island. (Best to focus on that rather than the industrial port to the right and the barbed wire of the French military camp behind!)
There was also an 'open-house' day at the French military camp, and seeing as it's next to the beach, we went along. Felt like I had stepped into another world. Surrounded by French soldiers in combats and hundreds of French families all enjoying what was basically like a school fete, with a tombola, BBQ and camel rides (instead of donkeys!). There are about 4 military bases in Dakar but no one seemed able to explain exactly what their purpose is. I think it's a historical thing and now the soldiers use the bases for training. My neigbours who are from Cote d'Ivoire were quite anti the whole French military base thing, particularly given their negative experience at home with the French army.
It's weird thinking there is this totally different reality going on behind the gates of the camp, that is so unlike the rest of Dakar. Good BBQ chicken though.
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