Monday, January 28, 2013

In Search of Mangroves

Monday has come and gone. 

·         We read the guide book,

·         found the dot on the map way south of Dakar where there are supposed to be mangroves (Palmarin),

·         got a taxi from our B&B to the transportation “hub” in Dakar behind the pompier,

·         negotiated a price as the only two people on seven-person collective going to Joal-Fadiot (two for the price of seven, great negotiator),

·         switched taxis on the northern border of Joal for the 3 km cross-town-trip to office of tourism and the pedestrian bridge to Fadiot,

·         had a great guided walking tour of Fadiot where there are lots of mangroves that we did not bother to explore - many to come near Palmarin,

 

 

·         and lots of Christians – 90 percent of the 4000 inhabitants,

 

·         and lots of pigs, the first we have seen in Senegal,

 

·         negotiated a taxi ride to a campement right on the beach in Palmarin,

·         went 33 km cross country, off road in the taxi,

 

·         but taxi  driver took us to a different/wrong but nice campement (CALAO) 100 yards from the beach,

·         gave up and decided to stay at CALAO.

 

·         Total travel time, 8 hours. 

·         We went to the beach.

 

·         Terry had a nice dip in the Atlantic, being bitten by only one very hungry crab. 

·         No mangroves and accompanying wildlife to be seen.  We’ll search them out tomorrow. 

·         We are in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

·         Had a wonderful dinner of local seafood and Senagalese style onions (yassa).

·         It’s peaceful and quiet except for the breaking waves.

·         The sky is big!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Senegal, It’s Like a Foreign Country

We’ve been in Dakar, Senegal for three full days plus the Thursday afternoon/evening we arrived.  It’s like being in a foreign country, really.  They speak foreign languages (only), Wolof and French, they use strange money, the CFA (…franc) which is used by 7 West African nations, and they eat food and drinks we have never had.  Overall, it’s challenging and lots of fun.

On arriving at the airport, we discovered that I had written the wrong phone number for our B&B and we could not find the fellow from the B&B, Ishmael, who was supposed to be waiting for us.  Many cab drivers offered to take us where we were going, one fellow pressured us to buy a phone SIM card from him (we did), offered to help us, offered to take us by cab to an Cyber café, and that’s when we decided to try something else.  It all got sorted out in about half an hour when we finally found a security guard at the airport who would let us use his laptop to find the website and phone number of our B&B.   A phone call or two confirmed that Ishmael was there but we were looking for him in the wrong place.  Not a great way to start but live and learn.

Well, the learn part comes hard for us apparently.  Next morning, Friday, our first full day in Dakar, we walked to the beach about half a mile away and got thoroughly lost when we figured we could get back on that road right next to the one we got there on.   Oops!  When we finally figured out that we would never find our way home alone, we hailed a cab, showed him the address and he proceeded to drive around for 15 minutes looking for the house, never finding it.  We were always within ½ mile.  We got him to stop when we realized he was never going to find the place.  We then walked in circles a bit, looking for a familiar landmark, and we found many – everything looked the same.  A second cab driver had about as much luck as the first.  Of course, he assured us that he could find the place, but he never did.  We finally got to the B&B when the owner’s son, Jonathan, talked to the cabbie on the phone (for the third time) and determined where he was.  He told him to stay there while he ran to meet him.  He ran, but the cabbie figured that he knew where he was going, so he went on.  Five minutes later, by chance, Jonathan saw the cabbie stop in an intersection of the very narrow streets and he almost tackled the cab on the run.  We were saved.

That afternoon, we took a 4 hour driving tour of Dakar with Ishmael as our driver and Sineta George, the owner of the B&B, as our guide. Dakar is a big place with far less poverty showing than Kenya, even, Nairobi.  There are some amazing monuments and buildings that we will have to explore in the coming week.  There is even a brand new three-story underground mall which Sineta took us to - complete with bowling alleys.  We will skip the mall when we are on our own.

 

I guess I lied when I said everybody speaks only Wolof or French.  Ishmael speaks self-taught English (quite well, actually) and Sineta is from Florida originally.  She and Jonathan, her 16 year old son, speak English.  Jonathan and Ishmael have turned out to be very valuable to us because they both speak Wolof and French as well as English.  Although Sineta has lived in Senegal for 14 years, her French and Wolof are limited.

On Saturday we took drumming lessons in a place in town called N’Gor, on the shore.  Sixteen folks drummed for just about two hours under the tutelage of Ibo.  All but three of us used djembes.  Sandy was on a djembe and I had a bougarabou.  They look and sound pretty much the same.  We were both great, of course. 

We had lunch at N’Gor as part of the drumming class experience; then we took a cab to a huge new monument celebrating the renaissance of Africa.  It was fabulous.  The three figures, man, woman, and child, are made of copper (over a superstructure) and stand 52 meters above a steel and concrete base which is on summit of a rock some 198 steps above the surrounding hill.  It’s a long way to the top!  The museum inside the steel and concrete base had many works of art and exhibits celebrating the contributions of black men and women to civilization and society from the dawn of man until today.  This is a monument well worth seeing.

We did not get lost on Saturday.  We ate dinner at a small local halal restaurant close to our B&B.  Lunch was good.

Today, Sunday, we did not get lost again.  We went to the island of Goree, about ½ mile off the southern coast of Dakar.  The island is known most as a former slave debarkation point from Senegal as slaves were sent across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Americas and to Europe.  We have seen a similar, though larger place in Zanzibar, and both gave us an uneasy feeling, to say the least.

 

On a brighter note, Goree is an artist colony as well as a place full of folks trying to sell just about anything from wood carvings to jewelry, to fabric and clothing, to paintings.  There’s a lot of junk that makes the good stuff hard to find.  But find some we did – not for sale - an exhibit of commissioned sculptures, installations, and photographs celebrating progress of Africans from slavery to modern times, right there on Goree.  We have never seen art or spirit like this in Kenya that we can recall.  Africa is not the same all over.

Tomorrow, Monday, we are off on a “collective” (taxi, sort of) to the mangrove swamps just north of The Gambia if all goes well.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Shawn is Gone

Yesterday we spent the entire day preparing for and witnessing a Kikuyu ceremony on a very small shamba just outside Nyahururu.  This was a traditional ceremony celebrating the importance of uncles in the Kikuyu culture; specifically yesterday, John, the uncle of Mary (the mother of David, our friend and guide) was venerated.  Thirty or more years overdue, the ceremony needed to be completed before Mary, 72, or John, 64, dies.  In fact, John is already a stand-in for his older brother who died recently.  John and his deceased older brother were both Mary’s uncles from her mother’s side of the family and are substitutes for uncles she never had on her father’s side of the family – wow.  All quite complicated.

The day started in Nyahururu where David met us for a 40 km drive up country to his mother’s house.  We arrived to see Shawn (our name for him) the ram tied up in the yard with other sheep and goats.  Mary, David’s brother, Julius, Natasha, Julius’ wife, and Queen Ann, Julius’ daughter all greeted us with vigor.  After much milling around for a few hours and some tea, Julius and a helper tied Shawn’s feet, put him in a corn sack, and loaded him in the rear of the van atop the spare tires, about two hours behind schedule.

 

Now, Sandy and I, David, his aforementioned family members, and Shawn, backtracked to Uncle John’s shamba about 4 km the other side of Nyahururu.   There, more family members joined us throughout the afternoon.  Shawn was allowed to graze on the end of a 15 foot tether.  Tea was served with chipati at around 3 PM to tide empty stomachs over the hump.  Still, Shawn survived, at least for a few more minutes.

 

Why cook Shawn and/or others rams like him?  It’s a long-standing Kikuyu tradition.  For Kikuyus, meat (specifically rams) is a symbol of plenty and of passing that plenty on through the generations.  I am told that other tribes have similar rituals and symbolic food – the Luhya have chickens, the Luo have fish, the Samburu, the Masai, and other pastoralists have milk and/or blood,  Akamba have special vegetarian dishes, etc.   

When as many Kikuyu family members as possible have gathered, particularly those on the niece’s side of the family, the uncle slaughters the ram with the help of other family members, butchers it, and gives some of the meat to the women to boil with onions and spices.  The women prepare side dishes of rice, cooked coleslaw, and chipati to go with the boiled ram meat.  Meanwhile, the men boil specific parts of the ram and then roast some of these over an open fire if a special kind of wood.   The boiled lungs are shared with anybody who happens by.  Sandy tells me they taste like chicken gizzards.

 

 

 

While the ram roasts all gathered family members consume the meat the women have boiled as well as side dishes until all are sated.  The table is cleared.  This is part of the celebration but not part of the ceremony, which soon follows.  The uncle brings heaping plates of roasted meat to the table – nothing else.  He sets aside the right front foreleg to present to his niece, Mary (who supplied everything for the feast).  This is called “giving a hand”.  Uncle and others gloat over the pile of roasted meat before it is cut from the bones and passed around with the roasted intestines and boiled stomach.  All but the ribs are consumed.  The ribs are reserved for last after nearly every other scrap of meat is gone.  The boiled neck is taken outside to the young boys (who have not been circumcised).  Each adult must then eat meat from the ribs.  The niece, Mary, is given part of the stomach to eat and she also takes some home with the right front foreleg.  The leg and stomach will be shared this very evening with members of the family who were unable to attend.

Darkness has fallen upon us and we now listen to a discussion (in Kiikuyu) of family issues – those who have died are remembered, those who are facing challenges are acknowledged and advised, and those who provide for the entire family are thanked. 

All this took about two hours and was followed by a closing prayer (Catholics all in this family) and fond farewells before we departed in the pitch black night over local roads and ruts.