Dakar to The Gambia to Casamance

From where I left off…I think. We went to see a music festival down the road in Dakar. It was a fairly large lineup consisting off some famous Senegalese hip hop artists (I’ve recently learned that Senegal is famous for it’s hip hop and rap artists, although Cote D’Ivoire has just pulled out in front), as well as African singers from Congo and Cameroon. One dude named Caffe (?) was a massive crowd favorite. He’s from Congo (I think) but now lives in Paris. A dance troupe from Soweto, SA drove the crowd wild when they emerged. The most fascinating aspect of the festival was the crowd was completely sober. Not a lick of drink was available, other then pop, but that didn’t stop everyone from having ball. Dancing in the aisles, shouts of Wow to the stage (which, in Wolof, means ok). I left at around 3 am and the party was still going strong. Could you ever imagine that happening in Toronto?! There’s an obsession for the human form in Senegal, mainly in maintaining the best you can have. This mostly applies to the men. All up and down the beaches in Dakar are workout stations, somewhat similar to Venus Beach in LA. People are always going for runs. It’s incredible. So there’s a fair amount of eye candy to be seen in Dakar; very lean, long, muscular young men. Who needs tv? And I got the pleasure of receiving many a marriage proposal from such men, which I’m sure had everything to do with my sparkling personality rather than my Canadian passport. Right? One gentleman treated the proposal as a type of business agreement. He thought I should continue my travels, and in the process learn to speak French fluently, as opposed to my ‘conversational’ French. All the while we would be in contact, learning more about one another. Without a doubt, he believed, we would find one another compatible enough for marriage. After I was done with my wanderlust I would the return to Senegal where we would marry and divide our time between Canada and Africa. Under no circumstances would he stay in Canada for the winter though.This was all discussed after knowing one another for about 2 hours. I politely refused to sign on the dotted line. I average on 3 proposals a week. My, so tempting. Pap invited us to see La Lute one holiday Thursday. This is Senegal’s sport: Wrestling. We arrived at the same arena where we saw the music festival to find a very different form of crowd. There was still non alcohol or drugs to be seen but there definitely was a sense of aggression in the air, an overwhelming smell of testosterone. Pap herded us through the gate while a large group of young men spurred each other on, rushing at one another, shouting wildly. It was the first time I felt concerned for my safety. I quickly learned though that this was all part of the show. The group of guys at the gate were part of one wrestlers entourage. Their job being crowd rousers, basically cheerleaders. They rushed onto the grounds just after D, Pap and I found a spot right in front of the grounds, near the press and beside the sport doctor, pumping their fists in the air, taunting the crowd. On one side of the arena was a group of singers and a mess of drummers, pounding out beats, encouraging the cheerleaders and the crowd. On the other side was a slew of cops armed with frikin AK 47s. Doing laps around the grounds were the competitors, all wearing various types of Juju (good luck charms; voodoo), warming up with their coaches and trying to psyche out their opponents. The first match finally started. The competitors were checked for weapons and sanded down. One dude was massive. He seemed to be a favorite and I was shocked when he went down, fairly quickly too. Immediately tears formed in his eyes and he slouched his way into the crowd, asking for money. Turns out La lute is Senegal’s answer to WWF! It was fantastic! A true comedic spectacle. It wasn’t until I was in Africa the first time that I learned that Rasta came from Ethiopia. It wasn’t until I was in Dakar that I learned about Baye Fall. This is a sect of Rasta, but instead of Haille Selasie, the marabout Bamba is the ‘god’. A marabout is an Islamic holy man, well, witch doctor. Politicians will go visit top marabouts for ‘aid’ in winning and election. Basic superstition. So these Baye Fall wander about cloaked in pristine white robes, wearing massive pictures of marabouts as necklaces, dreadlocks piled neatly atop their heads. Fascinating. Now I’m even more in the dark about Rasta. Throughout the world my name has proven difficult. Either people remember it or they don’t. Rarely do I not have to repeat it. Here, in West Africa, it seems Thia is a common name and everyone 1)Remembers it and 2)Can spell it! Even when I say it in French (dropping the ‘h’). There even a drink named ThiaKry, which is sweetened cold milk with couscous. Never tried it but hey, that’s cool. Teresa, Christina and I came across a wedding one day in Dakar and stopped to admire the bride and the wedding party. The photographer caught sight of us and took pictures of us gathered outside the gate. Thought it was amusing for all involved. We finally left Dakar for the Petit Cote, to a village called Joal-Fadiout. We were down to just D, myself and Christina as David and Teresa were headed down to Guinea. Fadiout is found out on a small island attached to Joal by a wooden bridge. It’s a great little community where Muslims and Christians live happily side by side, with a church standing beside a mosque, sharing land and even cemeteries. The island is composed entirely of shells that have accumulated over the centuries. Funny thing happened one night. I was wandering to the shower and stopped to talk to the manager. All of a sudden a bat ran smack into my leg, then fell to the ground. It sat there for a minute, stunned, then flew off. How bizarre. We went to The Gambia after Joal. This is the smallest country to be found on the continent, measuring 35 km across and being completely surrounded by Senegal except for 80 km of coastline. It’s famous for it’s beaches and friendly people, and we were happy to get a vacation from the French language. The official language is English. The ride to the border was long and very hot, and comprised of multiple transport including one ferry, but we finally made it to Banjul, the capital, by around 9pm. We wanted to get to Bakau, a beach resort not far. We were excited by the information the Lonely Planet offered up about the Coast Resorts in The Gambia. Mainly that it was cheap. Senegal is not cheap and we were looking forward to spending less, making up for some expensive days. And we wanted to chill on a beach, drinking cheap beer. We took a taxi to Bakau and went to a hotel recommended by the LP only to find a massive price increase. This was discouraging. We went down the road in search of a cheaper alternative only to find the cheapest place comparable in price to Senegal. Sigh. It was late though and we had had a very long, very indescribably hot day sitting in sweat boxes so we stayed, thinking we could check out the other places in the LP the next morning. Turns out the LP needs a little updating. All the cheap places listed were much more expensive now, so we stayed put. Our Gambia Experience consisted of beach boys trying hard to be our guides, cause obviously we couldn’t do anything on our own (we quickly learned most visitors tend to fly in from Europe and had no idea about anything in Africa, thus the need for ’guides’), fruit and vegetable vendors overcharging by a ridiculous amount and not coming down in price at all, and all dreams of affordability going straight down the drain. We were toubabs (west Africa’s mzungu, white person), and we would pay through the nose for it. It wasn’t all bad though. We met a local football team on the beach one day and they invited us to join them for lunch. They were friendly guys and didn’t harass us in any way. One guy’s family was from Malawi and I got to teach an African his local language. We saw some excellent live music with The Gambia’s best kora player (a type of stringed instrument, commonly referred to as Africa’s first instrument) performing. I got to witness male prostitution first hand with young handsome locals whoring themselves out to fat, old European women (one chick had a mullet!). It was all very entertaining. The constant bad prices got to us though and D and I decided to head back into Senegal and spend some time in the Casamance region. This is a stunning area of forests, palm groves, small islands and mangroves. This is also an area that’s been plagued with violence and rebellion. Goes back to the early 1900’s when the French installed local chiefs to control the areas. The local Casamance people, the Diola people don’t have a hierarchical society and don’t recognize leaders and so, a rebellion broke out. Long story short, peace deals and cease fires have come and gone but nothing has truly been resolved. One local explained to me how the rebels are now being seen as common thieves and bandits and the government have spread word that the rebels are the ones who sell pot, in the hopes this will discourage the use of marijuana. The rebels have stuck to their promise that they will not target tourists though. We still wanted some beach so we headed right down to Cap Skiring, near the Guinea-Bissau border. This was touted as being one of the top beaches in West Africa and, I have to say, that may be true. It was beautiful and empty of tourists as the season had ended just one week earlier. The rains were on the way and Club Med had shut it’s doors till Oct. (This is true. There’s a gorgeous expensive club Med found right down the beach from where we stayed.) Christina had left us to head for Mali so it was just the duo now. Upon arrival to Cap Skiring we were met by a number of touts, there to aide us in finding the right accommodations. Oh the fun we had playing them off one another. By this point, as well, I could understand a fair amount of French but neither of us let on I did. We took our time, with D pissing off the beach touts looking at a lodge in the ;middle of the village. I sat and waited while they told me in broken English how bad the place was and how their place was better, etc. Then they would converse in French, and I would giggle. They were so mad we were checking out our options. We weren’t in a hurry though, so it was nothing to us. Finally we agreed to head out to the beach and see one place. We went, we saw, we checked into the neighboring lodge. Those poor bastards. No commission or strong arming the owners. We ended up getting quite a good deal there and managed to get in the beach life we had wanted in The Gambia. The beauty was the season was over so no one was around to pester us. It was very chill and very nice. And the night skies were filled with lightning but with no rain. Funniest question I got from a possible husband: When told I was already taken (an innocent lie) he asked me if the significant other was Christian. He was a Muslim.