Dakar Sat 6 Nov

Great music pretty and yet macabre island filled with very poor but hugely positive and friendly people. The bead seller insisting seating herself at our table like she owned the place, the chef with his I have already prepared le diner for you as we arrived....the kids kicking up a storm at the foot of the stage and the team of sea rescue dudes swimming fast to avoid the unexpected ferry which arrived outpouring a cruise ship load of sticky  labelled US tourists and quickly able to return us with the solitude of an entire beer ship to rushin Dakar in the morning.

The taxi ride home is wild no mirrors and impatient tooting life saving as pedestrians are shooed or dive out of our way. The tolerances distance wise between things, cars buildings, people, ships, is very finely judged here and often at high speed. 

We return safely  to a welcome warm shower and happy children.  We buy and continue our malerone to thwart maleria  and sport no mozzie bites from our dance night.

Goree Friday 5 Nov

Today unexpectedly we visit an old slave trading island Goree and are treated to some wonderful music, fine vegetables and a clear and clean Atlantic.

First we meet the kids school teacher whose has had the job at the international school for many years. She twinklingly suggests that Sheila come to read to the youngsters in class. An Australian story.

We drive through an increasing throng (inspired we are told by a friday tradition of  lunchtime prayer) We creep towards the French cultural centre which shaded by a really big leafy tree. Perhaps the largest tree I've ever seen. Lunch is tofu again the first this trip in an excellent honey and ginger sauce. Washed down with a ditax drink, green cucumbery and refreshing..

We emerge in the hot sun to find the streets becalmed beneath the loud muezzin calls. Now the streets are filled with sill and bowing men with covered heads. Also the car is wheel clamped. Not that driving would have been possible. Our host pulls out his trusty phone and in minutes at prayers end two men arrive to remove the metal collar and we are again moving cool, this time to the port to catch a ferry to Goree.

The ferry is leaving as we arrive with little more than our sunglasses, phones, passports and money. the trip is mercifully short and wave less despite being on open ocean.

Our host reminds us as we leave him to return to work to visit the Maison des Esclaves

http://www.kassoumay.com/senegal/ile-goree.html

.  I nod little expecting the horrors of slavery to be so vividly recounted and so passionately by the traditionally clad gentleman who leads 50 odd of us through a series of tiny rooms marked with  hommes or femmes  or enfants or recalcitrants, or simply the door of no return. Ghastly and awful treatment of fellow beings. Parts of history  are somehow too awful to recount and yet need to be so as to prevent their recurrence and honour the victims. We all  felt overawed and upset at the sight of the mouldering metals cuffs and leg irons. William Wilberforce I now intend to research as his name is everywhere linked to emancipation.

We bake in the hot sun and retreat after the exposition to a nearby cool doorway which turns out to have a wonderfully open hearted older woman selling drinks and art of all kinds. She brings me and extra stool and serves very very cold  bottles. Cokes and water revive us. I struggle to asisit in the repair of the owners souris whose tail vanishes beneath a surprising large and fast screen into a festoon of wires and table legs. No luck. We move on down narrow paths filled with green vines and shadowed by again huge trees. Everywhere the sea is lapping digging the beats of drums and the un deux's of the stage set up team

For tonight is a festival night and we resolve after actually getting onto the return ferry to remain and stay the night. A large and air conditioned hotel room is found for us and our vegetarianism explained to the local restaurant owner. We miss buying the sticks used round here to brush one's teeth. The sun sets as we eat a large plate of steamed vegetables and rice and sip and cold Chardonnay, on the top of a wall overlooking a small bay between us and the brightly lit stage 100 meters away.

We dance to the music in a barriered off dust bowl with small children and back packers. The bands get increasingly more proficient and the tall red cloth covered seats are filled with VIP's. Our photographs are solemnly taken by a man in green overalls who then vanishes into the night.... as we do towards midnight to sleep in a vast room accessed with an upside down key and guarded by our wizened hotel owner who emerges after the power cut with matches to aid me retrieve the moustiche reppellant.

Dakar Nov 4

The highlight of today was visit to a private art gallery. Such a strong and exciting art is all around us with real everyday competition for our attention on the streets to buy carvings, beads or  paintings.
The 5 stories worth were picked very well and hung in a kind of geography. Dogon doors depicting real people and stories, masks from everywhere, the Yoruba ones immense and surely too heavy to dance in? Cameroon is on special I'm told by a very beautiful curator who proudly explains in english that her task is the labels which are very consistent and copperplate fine.

We gulp cold drinks in the warm roof top restaurant surrounded by life size carved men and women made  in  far off desert villages and now living together staring woodenly at the chattering humans that haul them up and down stairs. Outside a two lane highway filled with battered yellow and black tooting taxis, donkeys tiredly plodding between large tire car sleds.

I emerge struck by the constant artistic decoration that goes into everything here. From the architecture to the plates, the clothes and decorated cars,  doors windows, wrought iron , furniture it all comes with an individual and imprecise untutored passion.

Dakar Wed 3 Nov

Unexpectedly loud birds cheep one awake. Outside the warm air floats over vines. After breakfast we visit a brand new shopping mall with the kids who are having the day off from the International school especially, The mall is strangely filled with black mannequins and linen suits all sold under the same Paris brands yet in more realistic sizes. Lunch is a fresh sharp tabbouleh by the ocean in the warm tropical air.

In the evening we visit the mammelle that  is unladen with sculpture simply sporting a crumbling but still functioning light house. We watch the setting sun over the atlantic for the first time with fine wine , paris truffles and large garden spiders waving. The evening wind is redolent with the scents of a new and burgeoning city laid out below with far off toots and whistles incomprehensible shouts amid trails of tail light glow.

Paris Dakar Mardi

Paris left behind for a while, Dakar becomes real emerging from dreams...........

Woke early to fill the bike bags with the last riding stuff as we will return for another brief icy blast. Then the kitchens posted home.......... brilliant coffee maker. and untransportable things like the blade as we are travelling light and want to carry only cabin baggage to save time. The wonderful beaded woman in the Post office said with a broad smile.... Dakar est tres tres different ....my mind is flooded with imaginings...I know ma francais mal can only improve.....

We present our left over figs, tournesols  olive oil from Swisse  and tin mugs all cycled gladly around the world to the trio of Soutines down in the parc. A respectful thank you in english is again in our ears as we dart off escaping their garrulous invitation to chat. The pigeon man is edging around his pile of cardboard that fills a niche in the wall nearby. The rubbish removal team is looking at his carefully constructed chateau which hides all his belongings.... we will know when we return if he succeeds in warding them off..

We say our goodbyes to the very friendly man at the Hotel Parc slipping him and extra E50 to safeguard our velos whose helmett covered saddles pop out of their bags in the dark cave below waiting our return in three weeks. We stash the 1/4 pounder of parmesan that we hope to smuggle into Dakar along with the St Emillion....

Off to check the local lingerie magazin for the spretty maillot de bain.......without success we are too early or we conjecture the owner is having an autre tous saints....no doubt behind the windows above us as we turn away...

We catch the RER train out CDG in the pouring wintry rain and I'm overawed by the efficiency and architectural spleandor of it all. I seem to get a splendor to observe every day en Paris. The way huge volumes are enclosed with beautiful curved ceiling seemingly without supports lined with wooden strips and faced with glass glass glass...then gradually as one reaches the departure lounges the sky is let in incrementally.....to prepare one for travel...

We board and wait as luggage is removed because of no show passengers. We are surrounded by many languages, men now dress in supremely coloured robes which drag on the carpet behind them,and have stylish briefcases into which I watched one passenger load the air france blanket....my feet start to expand and then just in time we are descending and will land in 28 degrees.

The white card is handed out and we endeavour to answer truthfully. No declarations are sought other than our country of origin. During the flight a group of well robed men accompanied by a sharp lookin dude in a cream suit converse and divvy up some duty free loot, perfume and expensive tins of what must be coffee...
When we alight they all wait for each other holding up the line. As they emerge a female soldier in fatigues emerges to greet the cream suit. We are loaded onto buses to get to the aerodrome. There is a mix up and some  of the important party are on our bus as it roars off. We stop two bus lengths later at tha airport entry and take to queues under the battered International Visitor lamp. The important party rejoin us for 5 minutes until I guess the remainder are sorted out and then vanish into the night escorted away behind our backs.

I'm told at the customs post not to lie about my country of origin which is Australia despite my European passport.  Australia  is crossed out and Irlandais replaced. Who am I to argue ? I nod and thank in broken French as is my want for being made Irish for the books.

Kate and Bechir , Sheila's wonderful family make us feel so welcome as we emerge into the dark hot night that is Africa and everyone is tugging at our luggage sleeves and waving orange cards all sticky taped up. Great deals one and all I'm sure. The car is wonderfully cool over the dirt roads as we weave our way through the newly constructed highway that links the airport to the rest of the world....

Broad expanses of cool white tiles and leafy courtyards are secured by a uniformed guard who emerge to greet us very politely. The world outside recedes and soon we in a dream less sleep ensconced in mosquito net on a very comfortable bed in a large quite cool room.

Paris Lundi all saints day

Breakfasted with two regulars at the hotel du parc (from 1960) who came from Copenhagen and liked trees.
Packed and ready for Dakar. Tried to post little realizing that today all saints day would be post pas possible. Payed my respects along with half of Montparnasse at the cimitiere to CB and Cezar. The autumn fluttering leaves and the early morning still made for a perfect reflection moment.

Then packed bicycles and made them shrink into the cave. We are trying to get through customs at Dakar with no checked baggage....so have now only two bags for everything. Causes a bit of a reshuffle and we are leaving stuff here and posting stuff home etc... complex.

We are both tired today but decide to go the the musee d'erotism in Montmartre anyway. Big collection and some wonderful book illustrations by a Nicole Cloveloux which were detailed and descriptively humorous. The wooden monkey schlongs left me cold as did the antique french movies. Joyless. However an interesting collection none the less. 5 floors with everything from skeletons lovin to vibrating holy pictures.

Home to buy an enormous parmesan piece which will get us arrested at the border I'm sure.

Paris Dimanche 31

Today's marvel was the Musee D'arte Moderne

http://mam.paris.fr/

and Jean Michel Basquiat whose short 27 years produced over 2000 fantastic paintings with a strict and unusual iconography.Again the ICOM card got us past a 3 hour queue.
Larry Clark's work was simply depressing and beastly, no human on account of beast would be unable to descend so...
 Nice salad lunch and a return home for an Italian dinner that we both disliked. Never trust an illegible addition I always say.
 Some photos of the parc populated by Chaim  Soutines