vachement intelligent

‘Vachement’ was popular, figurative and untranslatable slang for ‘cool’ or ‘great’ when I was in Aix-en-Provence many years ago.  Literally it means cow-like, but that doesn’t really help understand the usage.  But the cows on this coastline seem the coolest ones I’ve ever seen.  They know the beach is cooler, and move down to the water line during the day to chew their cud and maybe even to enjoy the view.  They’re often more numerous than people this year as it’s a particularly bad year for Senegalese tourism given the elections.  The cows, however, don’t seem bothered by much of anything, and they leave the beach at night for the scrub forest nearby, I’m told.  It rather changes the connotations of the word- bovine.

Running on the edge

While I tried to describe my run along the corniche in Dakar earlier, my runs this week feel even more difficult to capture.  I’m accustomed to the perfect morning temperatures of Senegal in February- 60’s at dawn rising quickly to 70’s.  The sun is warm, too, but not as searing as later in the day.  Running in shorts and t-shirt feels perfect nearly every day, so much so that I don’t really notice it anymore. There’s no gauging the temperature and layering appropriately as Minnesota requires.

But running on the beach constantly amazes.  Unlike the chaotic images of Dakar, the essential simplicity of the boundary between ocean and land defies description.  The strip of hard, dark sand between waves and the row of shells extends to the horizon.  It’s a clear, straight path.  Yet once I leave Senegal crossing into Guinea Bisseau, a border with no sign beyond the apparent end of habitation, I’m suddenly absolutely alone.  Low sand dunes roll on the shore as waves roll in from the Atlantic.  After reaching a point covered in gulls, the coastline arcs inward creating a shallow bay to the next distant point.  Knowing how every 100 sq meter patch of sand in Spain has a six story apartment building filled with retired Brits, and how Morocco’s and Senegal’s coastlines sprout ostentatious new hotels or villas, this sudden expanse of perfect and perfectly empty beach seems baffling.  In fact, I’ve often wondered when the moment passed, some second Turner thesis, the closing of world beaches to all but the rich, occurred.  Who was the last teacher to buy a house on some ocean coastline?  When did that moment pass forever?  Clearly legal and political differences somehow protect this property. I cynically doubt it’s protected intentionally.  And if I could buy a piece, I couldn’t afford to come and visit it.  Omar, the native Guinean who runs a little resto/bar on the beach (and bears a passing resemblance to Omar in “The Wire”) said Guinea Bissau is known for drug trafficking and makes border crossing difficult.  I guess that might help explain the emptiness

At first, such an empty beach feels almost spooky.  Today I turned to check a shark’s head and noted a white pickup behind me.  Pickups here seem associated with government functions, and I assumed some border patrol and readied my ignorance.  Should I speak in English?  Play just arrived tourist?  I remember I have the phone number of Mamadou’s brother, the mayor of Ziguinchor, in my room with my passport.  But neither will help me if I get picked up by a Guinean border patrol speaking Portugese.  When the truck passes it has Senegalese plates, pulls a boat behind, and soon turns to launch it from the sloping sand.  With vehicles crossing the border unofficially, I relax knowing a runner was below the radar.

And so I continue southward running from one country to another along suddenly empty edge of this large, overwhelming continent.  I hear my daughter’s voice wondering if this will satisfy my wanderlust, recognizing the power of that wandering that brought me to Senegal, that disregarded the warnings about Casemance’s rebellion, and now crosses national boundaries to run on this stunning empty beach.  Clearly, this is the end of my trip, the farthest point from home, the most stunning landscape.  This destination, the one I’ve run to twice and hope to reach twice more in my remaining days, feels like some marker, some extremity, some sign.  The emptiness, the unmarred coastline, the perfect arcs of water meeting sand, the white gulls rising and swirling spiritlike into the sky.  Even the ethereal voice of Bon Iver singing about Wisconsin winter fields seems oddly apt.

But what do I see?  What have I found at this farther point of my trip? What’s beyond the sun’s glare and ocean’s haze?  Ahh, if only, right?  If it were a real sign, what would I find on the perfect beach?  What vision would I faint before?  What stranger would appear from the dunes and what would he say?   Of course, there’s no answer yet.  I’ve read the values of journeys appear after you return, and I hold to that comfort now.  Certainly, I hope the message wasn’t borne by the thin, bronze white haired Frenchman who rounded gull point clad only in tiny bikini and red beret as I was leaving.  One of those retired colonists or children of colonists  (does the make them post-colonists?) who live or retire here in luxury afforded more easily than in Paris.  Is this the message,  my own Francophile fate?  Am I to end up out here on the edge of a continent, and do I have to wear one of those French bikinis (on looking at the picture below taken the next day, the word ‘thong’ seems more apt) even smaller than the ones the Québécois wear in Maine?  I look down at the sand as I round the corner and pick up my pace as I head back. 

Gilligan's Island

I couldn't help thinking about that damn TV show when I saw these palms leaning over the water.  Really, who's been colonized?  But of course these places are not empty like that island was.  And yesterday I took a pirogue tour around several islands on the inland waterways behind the beaches at Cap Skirring.  

Mamadou, our guide

 Before that, however, I started my day early, thinking I’d get out for a run on the beach before leaving for the trip.  However, I was too early (no surprise there), up and out before the sun had really started rising at all.  In fact, if I ran south, I really couldn’t see my feet.  Going north, the two lights from Club Med created enough reflection on the damp sand to let me see the ground. So, with coffee an hour away and my running shoes on, I started out in the pitch dark on the damp edge of Africa.  Of course, running blind is plenty disorienting, and although I trusted the flat sand, it also felt particularly odd as I turned south once I’d reached the rocks and headed toward Equitorial Guinea with palm trees slightly silhouetted by the rising sliver moon on my left and the pounding waves on my right. I still don’t quite know where the border was as it was too dark to see any signs.  I turned around when I reached the point and soon had enough light to move more comfortably.  I never quite warmed up however, and I tired soon, no doubt more from strange disorientation than from effort.

 After breakfast, I took a day-long pirogue trip among villages and islands in the mangrove swamps and rivers that drain coastal lowlands into the Casamance river.   I went with two French people and two locals as guide and driver, which made for a leisurely day without feeling too touristy.  Like the boundary waters, you move in a Kevlar canoe hand made pirogue from through green landscapes that start to blur after awhile.  I’m assuming mangrove is the only thing that can grow in the salty marshy soil, as there’s absolutely nothing else in the low areas.  Some coastlines or islands rise above the swamp, and the soil there grows the palms, baobabs and the few other plants native to or scratched out of the sand here.  

Of course being part of a group of three toubabs with guides doesn’t mean we move unnoticed through these little Diolla villages.  Of course, these aren’t the kinds of places readily visited without pirogue and guide.  I was struck by the fact that having water everywhere doesn’t change the villages.  The salt water isn’t useful for watering, of course, and the soil seemed as sandy and deep here as it is elsewhere.  Still, as the first picture shows, there’s a sort of tropic paradise look to some of these places.  They seemed more open, cleaner, and more organized than villages elsewhere.   One was a Malian village, populated by a Malian family for generations.  According to Mamadou, they have a fetish tree they make sacrifices to, and bury their dead on the mainland as the ground here won’t accept bodies and spits them right back out.  Clearly, the Malians have a bit of a rep here.   

On another island we visted an abandoned Breton style church and graveyard from the 1890’s, and a maison des esclaves that served as a transfer station like the one in Goree.  This one was much larger, however, and unrestored.  ‘The door of no return,’ as it’s always called, where slaves were herded onto boats, had the same ominous feel however, despite or perhaps because of the children walking outside of it.

As internet is hard to find here, I don’t expect to post again until I get home on Friday.     

a la plage

(This was written a couple days ago.  Less wifi here than I thought).

Et quelle plage!  Both drumming and the surf work out different beats from the beach, and once again I’m find myself asking- why do I live in the Midwest?  From the boat coming in this morning, we watched pelicans roosting along the shoreline and river porpoises playing in the wake. 

  

Although the misty haze washes out the pictures, this beach goes for miles in each direction.  Just a kilometer or two south, Equatorial Guinea starts, and perhaps 20 kilometers north is The Gambia.  The mostly empty white sand beach feels endless and the longhorn cows sleeping on it make it feel African, somehow.  Fishermen in the village north of here bring in their catch all day long, and people come out to buy conch, flounder, some whiskered sort of catfish, and a few others I couldn’t name. 

On the advice of a couple French people I met in the taxi, I’ve landed well at beachfront place with a large common area for morning coffee and after dinner tea and conversation.  My room has a porch that opens onto the center courtyard.  The rooms facing the ocean were taken, but at $25 a night, I’m pretty happy.  There is a Club Med (Club Merde, the French called it) with a large manicured grounds and guards on the beach.  In town tonight, the guys who follow and befriend you here seemed more insistent and harder to shake.  Somehow, I attribute that to having a Club Med in the area, fairly or not.

Tonight I talked politics, protests and media distortion with the manager and his two friends.  They feel that the violence in this area, the Casemance, get exaggerated on the news, just as I’ve felt the protests in Dakar get exaggerated in the camera lens.  Yet watching the news on the boat coming down, even I felt the street violence Friday afternoon and evening looked worse.  In one clip, three policemen were in the back of a pickup truck watching a crowd which threw rocks and drove the policemen to take cover behind the truck.  They played it multiple times during the broadcast, and there were grins and laughter at the image each time it came on.  Clearly, there’s no love lost between the police and the people here. 

I left early to catch the boat yesterday, fearing that the protests would back up traffic near the port which is a half kilometer to the Place D’Independence where the tear gas and plastic bullets were flying again.  Yet the conflict remained pretty localized, and there was no problem moving about town.  Now getting out of Dakar feels like a good call, and I’m glad to have a few days here before heading back to Dakar and then back home.  

in the markets

Today's lack of pictures will balance yesterday's post, but I really wish I could have taken some.  It was market day here.  After a frustrating visit last week looking for fabrics, I knew I needed some local help to negotiate the negotiating.  Pape's wife, Asoou, was glad to join me, and we set out this afternoon to look for a few things.

First, we headed back to the same shop where I saw the simple woven fabric that I'd admired last week.  Most things here are very bright and colorful and much of the fabric comes from China, of course.  Sometimes that includes the objects made specifically for the tourist trade with their cliche 'African' images of animals and women carrying things on their heads.

It was a pleasure to watch Asoou work the men in the shops. We moved smoothly from shop to shop, always greeting people, chit chatting, moving on if the merchandise wasn't appropriate, and engaging in all the expected social part of the market before starting unhurried negotiations when something looked worth the time.  I quickly realized that instead of starting at half their starting price, I really need to go to a third or less.  And of course she knew what prices really should be.  So, for example, I got four fabrics for well under the initial asking price of just one of them at the first stall we visited.  

Ocaisionally, she challenged them on their 'toubab' pricing saying that 'teranga' (A strong Senegalese tradition of hospitality) required that guests get treated fairly in the marketplace.  Clearly, this was an extension of the concept entirely alien to their way of thinking.  One even went so far as to say she should let them overcharge me, and I actually agreed in a way.  A sort of sliding fee scale makes some sense and corrects some much larger economic injustices in small ways, but of course I want a deal as much as anyone.

One of the markets was a large, covered market with jewelry stalls around the perimeter and produce, spices, meat and fish in the center.  It felt ancient with narrow pathways between high stacks of baskets and shelves beneath a low, dark, dirty ceiling.  It made me want to do some food shopping and then cook dinner, but she laughed at the idea asking mockingly, "Do you know how to cook?"  I don't think she believed that I do.  Outside this market, we tucked into the Nigerian grill area, where pairs of men roast small beef brochettes over open charcoal grills.  They sell them plain or in sandwiches at about 10 for a dollar served w/ roasted onions, mustard, and seasoned corn meal.  I desperately wanted a picture of the dark, smokey scene, but didn't want to wreck the moment.  It was the kind of place I never would have found, or if I had stumbled upon it, I would have been hesitant to enter.

Now that my days here feel like they're drawing to a close, I felt surprised that I hadn't discovered these markets and curious about what else I've missed here.  My morning started this way as well as I ran up the lighthouse road, a route I've passed most mornings for a month, but somehow didn't consider running up until today.  The view across the north end of the peninsula was stunning on this clear day.  Suddenly, even six weeks feels like far too short a time to begin to see, much less understand this place.

more whimper than bang

More spectators than protesters by far

The speakers on a truck in the street

 I'm mostly going to let the photos tell this story.  It feels like one I've seen too much here already. Flashy headlines and lots of buzz about a protest that lacks support and ends abruptly.  Some online comments suggest that the resistance has lost momentum.  I'd have to agree after today.

A sock seller stops to watch

A photographer works no man's land

Police line and tear gas gun

After last night's failed occupy effort, the M23 marched to the Place D'Independence. The spectators were at least twice as  numerous as  protestors.  After about 20 minutes of speeches the police used tear gas and the water cannon to disperse the crowd.

There's the water truck, again

Selling washclothes to cover your face against tear gas

The cops chased groups around side street for another 30 minutes, firing more teargas affecting many people downtown who weren't involved at all (Yes, myself included). The streets were filled with people talking afterwards, but it felt more like excitement than anger.  And given the dissonance between media coverage and participation, it feels like the passivity will allow President Wade to continue restricting opposition with impunity.  I guess the Occupy Wall Street movement wasn't much more successful maintaining its platforms for protest, either.  

economics i missed in macro 101

 Many election posters on walls and glossy commercials during the African Cup soccer tournament seem to chant the word 'development.'  As a political or advertising mantra for growth and progress, it means all things to all people. On the street, however, means improvement in what Senegalese regularly refer to as 'les difficulties' of living here- the grinding poverty of daily life.

Long ago working in restaurants, I quickly realized that the tips earned on $100 meals at Muffaletta were disproportionately greater than the tips made by waiters working the 1:00 AM drunk shift at Perkins.  It seemed sort of like a scam, somehow.  I served better food, worked shorter hours, and made more money.   Later, that general principal seemed to apply equally to careers in the finance and teaching fields, for example.  As there was so much more money moving through finance, simple proximity to the flow earned more money, whereas education always paid poorly regardless of effort.


Walking the streets of Dakar, it feels like that same basic principle defines much of the difference between developed and undeveloped world.  As soon as you step outside here, the crush of people working to make a living presses in on you, sometimes unpleasantly.  The young male phone card sellers feel most omnipresent, sometimes five in a block waving plastic sheets of recharge cards in your face, seeking your eyes, hoping you need a refill.  The older female peanut sellers, conversely, work quietly at their tables coating peanuts in melted sugar and spices over charcoal burners and silently offering them in tiny bags for 50cfa.  If you include tiny grocery stores and outdoor markets,  

it feels like most economic activity here still happens in the street with improvised shelter, minimal water and no electricity.   Sometimes the sea of hawkers feels like an obstacle course or video game to be negotiated when I try to get somewhere.  Other times, the energy reminds me how it feels to come up out of the Holland Tunnel  and feel the palpable buzz of NYC.

While some street vendors like coffee and snacks seem obvious, others defy logic.  What are the chances that this shoe salesman has both the style and size that a
 customer needs?  And why do they all line them up in straight lines instead of grouping them by gender or style?  And why not put them closer to the wall?

This tile shop on the edge of a roundabout on my running route keeps two men busy making and selling concrete tiles.  Located near the wealthy Les Almadies neighborhood, many gardeners also sell plants and pots here for gardens in the new houses being built nearby.





 


And while this nearby artist makes a large claim for a small hovel,  the 60's counterculture figure Stewart Brand suggests that the energy of  mega cities and smaller ones like Dakar embody more creative solutions than endemic problems.  Despite that hopeful reframing, the difficulty of life on the streets here feels like some sort of monstrous, unfair scam. Of course it's the same one I appreciated when waiting tables and resent when working in schools.  The same basic injustice that fuels the Occupy movement.

Part of being here is about relearning this ancient economic law one more time.  But when I mentioned in class yesterday that would be returning home in two weeks, and a sweet, quiet boy in the back of the class said, "Take me with you," it was just about more than I could bear.