Dakar Friday 12th

Today we read and sang at the international school with Ana's classmates....a home amongst the gum trees...

First though we went to a spin class....

To describe the scene, a hot room with ceiling fans to wave the morning air around. Really easily adjusted and good quality bikes 30 or so. Big ghetto blaster and mirrors. I wear my alp d'huez t shirt little realising that the work out would be similar to that glorious mountain day. 

A really tall and really fit ( as we were to establish within minutes) instructor arrives with many a bonjour and ca va. To begin we are told to take the pressure up to immovaable and then release as we are going to race up a mountain together. After a brief and intense warm up we are working it to reengineered 60's songs with heartbeat tempo,s....after 45 minutes of frantic ups and downs fasterss and slowers and a bucket of sweat we wipe down the bikes and stagger off through a shady courtyard to drink very cold drinks and remember who we are again.....great instructor Amidee would have enjoyed a chat...

Then freshened by single drops of water over our heads we emerge to sing songs to youngsters and represent down underians.

Then we are kindly taken to a market and I negotiate a new purse for our common abundance cat...the stalls are filled with artizanz and their dark interiors speak of generations of skilled hands...a cheerful and unhassled woman ensures that we take home an amulet made of bone and a very african designed tissue.

Then the day is calm again and we relax in the calm of the shaded portico that is home...

Dakar thursday 11 Nov

Rising late I plod up the dusty roads to buy the daily baguettes and to revisit the travel agent to buy our desert. I'm assured that we will be able to return in time for the Tabaski fete which causes a massive outrush after work on Tuesday prior to the wednesday meat fest. We are looking forward to some stars and the real bushland which seems not far off in Dakar but  is obscured by an endless vista of houses as we rise over the small mamelle on occasion.

We are encourage to try out a 4 star nage privee which promises a pool good pizza and all the rest.  It takes $16 each to enter and then the beach is completely flat with introduced sand and a rock wall which is wave prohibitive. The air is rich with food and the pool's fountains murmer against the discreet inground muzac. The rocks are faux the lifeguards oddly american and very welcoming. The pool is great and we loll in the thatched shade. Lunch proves sumptuous.

Through it all I feel the strains of the slave ships in the book that occupies my restive mind. When in Rome......

Wednesday 10th nov

Dawn and the very fast Dakar jets awaken one at the normal  hour. The travel agent Colline is unable to arrange a trip to la lac Rose and the desert stars until monday. We trust the return 85k trip into the teeth of the pre tabaski traffic as everyone returns home goat underarm to share with friends and neighbours. Reenacting the Abraham Isaac sacrifice. If only the arch angels could stay their hands on Tabaski.. we see more and more of the goats fattening on the street corners waiting with the cold knowledge in their eyes.

Day at the mall, lunch by the sea and shirt buying. We also went to the un local Casino. Bought a moulinex blender and carried it home like a leaf cutter ant to give as a present.

Dakar Sunday 7 Nov

Sleep in waking to discover it is ten and we really have slept through the late night without hearing a thing, thereby negating any reputation as baby sitters...

After a delicious local yogurt we are dropped off at the American club which sports an excellent swimming pool complete with de rigeur thatched shades. After a brief wait we are rewarded with banana seats and begin a days decline.

Above us the hot sun from which we are bethatched powers the updrafts into which the sea eagles lazily slide and wheel. Two soar over us, it is impossible to imagine such grand birds asking for frites so I assume they are checking our white bodies out to become the objects of chat back at the nest.

I read of women married to royal men and vice versa, mostly vice, as well expect power to corrupt some times love can be found amongst the affairs of state....did Wallis Simpson really order Ed VII to publicly remove her dirty little shoes/? Could the poor princess stabbed with a file as she boarded the ferry across Lac Leman have ever known her assailant? Histories filled with human detail  and a tragic lack of sexual knowledge or relationship therapy.

Onwards to WilliamWilberforce who it turns out is galvanised by Hannah More

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_More

Why are the women in history so seemingly absent and yet upon research prove their 50% many times over.

Dakar Tues 9th Nov

Today we visit another island off the coast this time l'isle N'gor.  Which is within sight off the coast 10 minutes by decrepit taxi and less so in others. We are given a lift through the sandy streets past deviations and busses with small kids hanging perilously off the back. Open doors, dark populated interiors, one foot hanging free beneath school bags covered in familiar sports logos. Our host explains that it is illegal to overload the buses which seem parlous and worn but that no-one is interested in policing the problem. And we notice the army clothes within the bus. I resolve to ask taxi drivers in our employ to slow down behind buses

We park and walk around a corner like any other, dusty, concrete worn faces with a few straggling plants here and there, the smells of cooking and people and ordure and then suddenly the ocean. Like Grenoble's mountain filled streets (Stendahl's) this was just as surprising to a newcomer. Clean blue sea, sand and long wooden motor boats with high prows and 20 to 30 people to colorfully fill them. We are rudely asked to pay 500 french francs for the return ticket and then we are farewelling our host and waiting amid the severe and attentive looks of many men waiting for something to happen.. We cross the 500 mtres in a trice and are deposited at the jetty privee of the maison  of an Italian restaurant hotel and lido. We swim in clear and beautiful waters behind the safety of a rock wall and sun ourselves while black backs strain in the sun mixing concrete to repair the jetty after a recent freak wave wreaked destruction. I read to the steady rhythmic turn of shovels and the quick silver ringed hands malletting basalt.

The lunch is very Italian cooked by the Roman patron who is charming and  in tune with vegetarianism. He swims delightfully carelessly with his tiny daschund surfing on his back while is wife suns herself and laughs.
We are served by the tallest woman with lovely dark skin beaded hair and shining eyes. She assists her portly patron who is repairing the out door lighting and I laugh as she waves away the ladder he proffers and simply Gomez Adams like reaches up and fits the bulb effortlessly.

 Lolling again this time at the maison d'italia. Hot sun horrific yet gripping history and lapping waves. Vacation.

Dakar Monday 8th Nov

Visited very friendly travel agent to investigate possible trip into Lompouil a small desert 50 ks or so from here.
We will be given a special air con (clim) car and vist Lac rose a pink salt lake on the way. We promise to confirm after discussions amongst ourselves.

The day is languid. the weather perpetual sun and we encounter a drink with 20 times the amount of Vitamin C than that of orange juice. Baobab juice.We spend the arvo along with some rowdy south africans  in a blue restaurant beside the rocky beach.  Fish are frying and talk is of Tabaski which involves goat slaughter on a massive scale apparently. They are being fed  in the streets in throngs readied for next weeks fateful day of meat giving. I guess thanks giving must be a similiar thing to the turkeys......

I am reading an interesting book lent to me by my hosts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Negroes

which sadly comes to life after the visit to Lisle de Goree.

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.