San Louis

Africa gets a lot of bad press.

This is probably because Africa is a pretty messed up place most of the time. War, famine, ethnic cleansing, resource exploitation, environmental damage, you name it, Africa’s got it. But Africa isn’t all what you see on TV or read about in the papers.

The Senegalese people were probably the friendliest people I met throughout my trip (except for Bermuda, but those people depend on tourism, so it feels like maybe they try at it). Everyone smiled, said thank you and wanted to be your friend. Granted, many of them were trying to sell you something, but in Senegal saying no won’t lose you any face. You just have to be firm and polite and generally people will leave you alone. It helps to have an intimidating beard.

During my last week in Senegal we found time to take a three-day trip north on a guided tour. On our way north to a bird reserve we stopped in San Louis, one of the largest cities in Senegal, and a major maritime hub for the region.  San Louis is a base for most of the fishing that happens in the north part of Senegal. Pirogues, long wooden boats, whose design probably hasn’t changed in five hundred years, head out to sea every day and return each night full of all kinds of fish.

Without a doubt San Louis was the filthiest place I’ve ever been to. India runs a close second, but I’m pretty sure even the Gangees was cleaner. The streets, the shoreline, and the roads were crowded with the detritus of the fishing industry. Discarded nets, rotting fish guts, trash of all possible description was layered feet deep on the shoreline, crowding onto the roads and permeating the city with the sick stink of decay.

It was downright shocking. Ngor was mildly dirty. There’s trash in the streets, but some effort is made to collect it, though discarding it generally involves burning it in large piles on the beach. But in San Louis, there was literally no point, you’d have to burn the entire beach.

We spent around three hours wandering around San Louis. In that time we discovered how the pirogues were made. Jordan, utterly fascinated by any kind of shipbuilding, climbed over a massive, half built boat, nearly ten meters long. It was perched precariously on a pile of garbage, lending a hint of the surreal to the already haphazard nature of it’s building.

Spray painted on the prow of the pirogue is a strange image I’ve seen nearly everywhere in Senegal. It is the outline of an old man wrapped in black robes, with the lower half of his face covered. What you can see of his face is deep and craggy, with eyes that somehow bore into your soul despite a lack of any real detail. It is a dark and foreboding image to my eyes, and is often paired with a similar one, only painted in pure white.

One of our guides, Marmadu, points to it and nods, enthusiastically. “Bon, Bon!” (good good!)

Through sign language, his limited grasp of English and my extremely limited grasp of French, I come to understand that the image is that of Ibrahima “Lamp” Fall, or as he’s colloquially known in Senegal, “Fall, the Light”. Lamp Fallwas one of the earliest adherents of Morudite Islam, which is the most prevalent form of Islam in Senegal and the Gambia. The man in white was Lamp Fall’s mentor and founder of Mourudite Islam, Bamba Mbakke.

I found myself extremely taken with this, simply because “Fall, the Light” is probably the coolest name for a holy man ever. And whereas I had previously viewed the dark images as sort of an “evil eye” to ward off danger, I now saw them for the good luck symbols they were. Lamp Fall made a name for himself by saying that you could substitute the prayer and fasting portion of Islam in exchange for hard physical labor and devotion to one’s master, basically if you have his sign on your stuff you’re saying that you’re loyal and you work hard. That’s something I can relate to.

Not long afterwards we made our way further north to the Djoudj National Park, a migratory bird sanctuary that Pat tells me is one of the top three in the world. Exhausted from San Louis, and lulled by the tires on the road, I fall asleep in the warm sun.

Doug

The Hog

Despite my hesitance and lack of running shoes, Jordan manages to convince me that I should go on a run with him. Twenty minutes later we are pounding the red earth at a reasonable pace, trying to decide how far and where to go, when across a rice paddy style ditch a sight that I never thought I would see greets me.

There needs to be a word to describe the feeling that comes to a man when he unexpectedly sees an animal he knew existed but was mentally unprepared to see. French is too smooth for such a word, German too rough, Italian... Perhaps the Italians have one, something with an "o" on the end. I don't know it, but that is exactly the sensation I have when I see my first warthog. 

It is a strangely noble creature, and smaller than I thought it would be.

 

Eager to get a closer look, but wary of the dangers of disturbing creatures with tusks, we cautiously approached the beast.

 

And a beast it was. Warthogs aren’t nearly as fat as Disney led me to believe. Our warthog was thick, and bristling with hairs, it moved smartly on small legs and used it’s tusks to help it rip up bushes and shrubs to eat. It eyed our approach with the practiced caution of an animal used to the presence of humans, unsurprising given its proximity to the hotel and science station we were currently lodging in.

 

It was possibly the first animal that I’d seen in nature that I felt the true desire to hunt. Not with a gun, guns are not suited to the personal communion I wanted to have with the beast. I wanted to hunt it with a spear, or a knife. I wanted to get dirty, to challenge it in close combat. It was a strange, seemingly insane urge, but I now understand the hunter’s refrain “I wanted to hunt it because I respect it”.

We keep our distance and eventually the tusked animal made it's way into the undergrowth, disappearing save for the movement of the brush. 

Jordan and I look at each other. "Aren't you glad you came running?" 

-Doug 

D'accord

Downtown Dakar is a wild place. The streets are narrow, crowded, and downright dangerous. Overly friendly Senegalese start up conversations, follow you around, and beg you to look at their shops. They’ll walk with you for blocks trying to get you to buy something. It’s a damn good thing I didn’t go to Senegal first, or I would probably have been robbed through sheer ignorance of how to deal with overly friendly locals.

Third world markets tend to be pretty chaotic. The downtown market in Dakar fit the mold, with stalls that took up the entire sidewalk of the main arteries, and smaller side streets utterly swallowed in merchandise so that only a narrow passage remained open. Most of the things sold in markets like this are for locals, a lot of it is produce, meat or cheap household goods, everything from clothes to cookware to fabric. Sometimes you find neat things though, homemade knives, carvings, drawings, though it seems like everyone in Senegal is an “artiste” of some kind.

Most of the time I wander through markets because I like them, not because I actually want to buy anything. I love the feel of commerce around me, the bargaining, the haggling, and the down to earthiness. I like to wander down the narrower and narrower lanes looking at all the things people find valuable. Sometimes, if I see something I really like I buy it, but that is a pretty rare occurrence. My pack is tiny, and already overflowing with crap. I need souvenirs like I need a hole in the head. This time I’m looking for something though. 

After shaking off what seems like a hundred guys looking to “help” me out, or wanting to show me their “art” I find what I’m looking for.

Senegal is an ostensibly Muslim country, and a by-product of this is that many of the women dress reasonably modestly. But unlike Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, or really anywhere else, the Muslim women in Senegal have taken their traditional African dress styles and fabrics and incorporated them into their modest dress. Senegalese women are swathed in beautiful fabrics with geometric designs and bright colors, making even the most modest women stand out in a crowd. It is these fabrics I’m looking for. My mother is a quilter, and it seems unlikely that she will ever come to Africa, so it’s up to me to bring a little bit of Africa to her.

I stop at a small recessed stall just of one of the main highways through the market. An older woman and what appears to be her daughter sit behind a glass case. The walls of the stall were covered in fabric, and several stacks sat inside the case. They eye me suspiciously as I walk up. I guess they don’t get many male Toubobs (a dubious phrase that means white person, tourist, or a combination of both, depending on who you ask) interested in their fabrics.

“Cest va?”

“Cest va bien.” The old woman grins at me with a mouth full of crooked teeth.

“English?”

“No.” She shakes her head regretfully. Okay then.

I point to a fabric on the wall and the younger woman pulls it down for me. It is a beautiful green and black combination, with spiraling shield designs. Using sign language and the most basic of French, I ask how much for one meter.

“No oon (one) meter. Twa(three) meter.” I was afraid of this. Because these fabrics are used to make dresses, they’re sold in three meter swatches. Demanding the old woman cut it would basically be demanding that she make one of the swatches worthless, as very few locals would be interested in buying less than three meters.

I point to fabrics and then the ground and use my questioning voice “Senegal?”

The old woman shakes her head. “Benin.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Benin?” Benin is a country to the South and East; it’s not far away, but still a reasonable distance. I’m surprised, and interested.

“Benin.” She nods, points to the fabric, then herself. “I, Benin.”

I nod sagely and try to make my interest known.

I mix and match fabrics, using my rudimentary skills acquired through ten years of exposure to quilts and quilting. In the space of about twenty minutes I’ve got it narrowed down to six fabrics. I look up at the old woman, she grins. It’s about to begin.

“How much?” Even if they don’t know English, every market seller everywhere knows those words.

She pulls out a calculator and punches in some numbers. When she turns it around, I’m already reacting.

Laughing like she’s suggested the sun is blue, I punch in twenty five percent of her number and flip the calculator around. She glances at her daughter, who rolls her eyes. The negotiation begins.

For literally half an hour we pass the calculator back and forth, both protesting utter poverty and great scandal at being so ripped off. She makes great protestations of cutting me a deal, and then proceeds to knock off the equivalent of fifty cents. I begin to walk away twice, called back a the last minute. Finally, we are arguing the difference of 500 CFA.

About twenty five cents.

I’m leaning over the glass case, she’s right there with me. We push the calculator back and forth, back and forth, protesting, claiming great offense, and finally, for one last time, our eyes lock.

And we both lose it. My façade cracks first, and I break into a grin, hers cracks a second later and five seconds after that the both of us are hooting with laughter, looking like total and utter madmen. She pats me on the shoulder like a favored son, and I laugh more freely than I have all day.

“All right.” I say. I know most of the words won’t get through, but the gist will. “I’ll give you the 500 CFA.” I hold up a 500 CFA coin and the rest of the money. “If…” I hold up a 2,000 CFA note, “You change this into four 500 CFA coins.” I make dividing motions with my hands to get my point across.

“D’accord.”

-Doug

A Day in the Life

We woke up with the dawn.

Sleeping in the main room, it was a toss up weather or not daylight or another team member puttering around would wake me up. This didn’t usually bother me, for the last three months I’d been sharing rooms with strangers who came in and out at all hours of the night.

Over the next hour or so the rest of the team would congregate onto the front patio that was our command center/ hangout area/ conference center/ dining room. Meals were divided up among the team. One person cooks, another cleans, rotate.

Breakfast is a planning session. I mostly keep my mouth shut while Jordan, Adam, Markus and Pat talk about what they want to get accomplished that day. Chris and Erin chime in every once in a while, offering helpful suggestions and coordinating photography and film.

The tasks mostly revolved around communication. The team was investing in making contacts in the local port authority, the international school, and making friends with the Peace Corps reps. On top of all this, the team had to communicate with friends, family, and OAR NW contacts back home.

All this communication required two things: power and internet.

There was no power grid on the island to hook into, so we ran our devices with what little juice we could squeeze out of the solar panels on the roof of the house. These panels are linked into a series of four car batteries, which are possibly older than I am. It’s a pretty impressive system given it’s location, and would easily provide enough power for a three-person family with low technology needs. Unfortunately for us, we had two Panasonic Toughbooks, 8 mobile devices ranging from tablets to smartphones, and a whole passel of camera batteries, all of which aggressively consumed electricity.

Compounding this was a lack of any kind of Internet on the island. We’d purchased two “Expresso” mobile hotspots, which basically turned anything with a USB port into a 3g mobile Internet platform. These were great, but for whatever reason none of our devices could talk to them, so while they gave the Toughbooks wireless internet, everyone else was out of luck. Adam found a free Wi-Fi network at the very edge of our property, but it faded in and out, and could basically only be used to download emails. Adam and I would stand at the edge of our property, download emails, return back to the patio to write responses, and then head back out to send them all in one big dump.

Activities vary from day to day.  Sometimes Chris and Erin go to the mainland to recharge their computers, edit photos and video, and answer emails. Jordan, Adam, Pat, and Markus write emails, call people, or occasionally head to the mainland for face to faces. Most people find time to work out. My favorite is to swim from the island to the mainland and back, a trip that amounts to about a kilometer and a half of swimming.

Lunch depends on what’s happening. If the team is together at the house, someone usually cooks. If not, lunch is your own responsibility. My favorite lunch in Senegal was from a beachside shack run by an enormous Senegalese woman who insisted we call her “Momma Africa”. Her shack only served a few entrees, the best of which was Yassa Poisson.

Yassa Poisson was a plate of rice, stir fried vegetables, lettuce, French fries and a massive whole Dorado fish that took up nearly half the plate. I have rarely had better meals, but I’ve never had more or better food for what amounts to about two U.S. dollars. They’d even deliver it from the beach to our house, which was only about fifty meters, but still.

Some days we’d do filming. One afternoon Erin, Chris and the team did a shoot of them running stairs at Dakar’s largest and most visible monument: the Monument to the African Renaissance. The night of my arrival, Jordan had pointed it out to me, barely visible from our beachside bungalow and explained it’s history.

The Monument to the African Renaissance was donated to the country of Senegal by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. It is nearly as large as the Statue of Liberty, and can be seen from anywhere in Dakar. I won’t bother describing it, because it can really only be fully appreciated visually.

Yep. But hey, the Senegalese love the damn thing, people come from all over Africa to see it, and it’s got the largest set of stairs this side of Mali. What’s not to like?

You know, aside from it being built with blood money by the most evil regime since the Khmer Rouge.

Sometimes we’d spend the afternoons testing out equipment. Markus and I spent a decidedly scientific half hour determining if a kite he’d brought along with him would be able to handle attaching a camera for shooting aerial video. We tested this by duct taping a beet to the kite and flying it around for an hour or so.

You know. For science.

Because of our power constraints, the light governed our lives. Pretty much all productive activity shut down before 8 pm, when the last ferry to our island home went. We could buy passage later than that, but it would be double the cost, and more than that, Ngor Plage isn’t all that interesting past 8pm.

Dinner was by candle light. The house came with hurricane lamps, basically a small lantern with glass on three sides that kept the wind from blowing out the candle. We’d set up three of them outside for dinner and conversation and two more in the kitchen to cook by.

I never realized how much I like candle light. It cast’s a warm glow that still provides plenty of light to see by, and it feels so much more comfortable than electricity. We would buy a case of Gazelle, the cheap Senegalese beer that is bottled by the liter and isn’t much better than water, and sit around the table and converse until the candles died.

In it’s own way, my time in Senegal was the most relaxed I ever felt on the trip. Despite being in a country where I could barely communicate, was constantly a minority in every sense of the word, and always had the pressing concerns of clean food, clean water, and reliable communication, I had a great time.

-Doug

The Ambassador

We have been invited to the American Ambassador’s house for dinner.

This apparently necessitates me trimming my beard.

Which is actually fine with me. My red brown hair has been growing at a nearly exponential rate since I last cut it (the day before my friend Donna’s wedding, three days before I began my trip). More than three months into my journey, the hair on my head has become longer than it’s been since before high school. My beard has turned into a soul-stealing monster that makes all who stare too long at it quake in fear.

This is actually not a joke. I credit a good portion of me not being robbed on this trip to the fact that I maintained a very aggressive personal appearance. It’s one of the basic rules in any situation where you might be victimized: present a hard target, and you generally won’t be messed with. My beard makes me look at least five years older, and has been described as “intimidating”.

But now, sadly, it has to go. We have no clippers on hand, so Jordan sits me down with a pair of the ubiquitous orange handled scissors that you can find literally anywhere, and starts clipping. I am convinced that I’m going to have to shave it all off in the end, because the last time Jordan cut my hair I was about twelve, and he butchered it so badly that I had to nearly shave my head.

This time goes much better. With some judicious advice from the rest of the team, Jordan clips my beard down to something almost respectable. There’s nothing we can do about my hair, but I wouldn’t have wanted to shave it down anyway. Theoretically, while on reserve status, I’m supposed to maintain a constant military standard of grooming and dress. This would involve me traveling through Japan, China, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Turkey, New Zealand, and Senegal with a military style haircut, clean shaven face, nice slacks and either a polo or button up shirt tucked in. In some of those places that would have been fine. In others I would have stood out like a sore thumb, and probably made myself a target. I’m of the school of thought that your situational awareness and safety sometimes justify bending the rules.

Unfortunately, that leaves me in the position of meeting the U.S. Ambassador to Senegal in a pair of khaki trousers that I picked up at a market for twenty Turkish lira and one of my worn out hiking button ups.

Ambassador Lukens’ house is more or less right across the street from the Embassy, with a fancy plaque identifying it and a Senegalese security guard checking names at the door. The rest of the team and I present our passports at the door and I wonder where the Marines are. Theoretically, U.S. Marines are responsible for the safety of the Ambassador and the Embassy, but often that job is subcontracted out to locals or private security. I guess it was the former in Senegal.

We are greeted by the Ambassador and his wife. My training kicks in immediately and I’m “Sir” and “Ma’am” left and right. I almost missed it.

Jordan and the team are the highlight of the night. The Canadian Ambassador has also showed up. At dinner, Mrs. Lukens and I talk history while Jordan and the rest of the team hobnob with the two Ambassadors.

A moment comes around when I’m not talking to anyone and I sit back and watch everyone else converse. Smiling to myself, I realize that on this trip I’ve gone from sleeping in a hammock in the Cambodian wilderness to dinner with the personal representative of the President.

Hell of a ride.

-Doug

The Team

Dawn at Isle de Ngor comes first with the sound of waking seagulls. They squawk and chatter to each other, zooming around in the grey predawn light searching for their morning meal. The sun slowly creeps up over the strange geometric mountain of Dakar, breaking through the haze and shining through the slatted doors of the common room onto my face.

“Hey, DW.” I open one eye and look up at Jordan through my mosquito net.

“ehaghdsa.”

“Wanna come with me to the corner store?”

“Yes.” Thickly, not quite awake yet. “Gimmie a second.” I extricate myself from the mosquito netting and my bed, throwing on a shirt. Twenty four hours ago I was wearing three layers in Istanbul, here deciding whether or not to wear a shirt is my biggest clothing decision.

The corner store turns out to be literally twenty feet from the entrance to our house, and basically consists of a mud construction shack with a gas stove and a few refrigerators used to keep the beer just above rodeo cool. With his rudimentary French, Jordan asks for a dozen eggs and some baguettes. Something I guess I knew intellectually before this trip but really only came to understand, is that eggs don’t need to be refrigerated. It still weirds me out when the clerk takes a dozen eggs from a open crate of perhaps sixty and puts them into the carton we brought with us.

 

Back at the house, Jordan cracks the eggs into the pan with some potatoes, bell peppers, onions and anything else he can find. Meals on Ngor are split between the team, one person cooks, one person cleans, then it rotates. The nearest grocery store is at least a half hour away, and its not all that better stocked than the corner store. You make a meal with whatever you have on hand or left over. Random concoctions are the norm, and it’s always interesting to see what kind of a meal someone can create.

At breakfast I’m introduced to the team.

Adam is a bigger version of Jordan. He sports a shock of white blonde hair and a grin that belies his terrifying size. An Olympic Gold Medalist for Canada in the 2008 Olympics, he met Jordan in a rowing race and was somehow suckered into joining up from the Dakar to Miami row. His most prized possession is his mandolin, which he carries nearly everywhere while we are in Senegal.

Pat is an old friend of Jordan’s from the University of Puget Sound. When the expedition need a fourth rower, Jordan called Pat, who he describes as “The one person I know who I could cold call and ask to row across the ocean who would unhesitatingly say yes.” Which pretty much sums up Pat’s personality. He’s tough, loyal and adaptable, with snarky sense of humor and a thoughtful nature. Pat works seasonally, and tells crazy stories about using dynamite to trigger avalanches while working at ski resorts.

Markus is the team’s other Canadian. I’m not sure how he heard about OAR Northwest, but according to Jordan, Markus just contacted him out of the blue and expressed interest in joining the team. This turned out to be a boon, as a few months later a spot would open up for him. He’s the person with the longest amount of time in Dakar, and the best command of French.

Markus’s brother Chris is also in Dakar. Chris is a professional filmmaker, and has been everywhere from Kabul, Afghanistan to Vancouver BC. He’s a quiet, soft-spoken professional, and I find myself taking a liking to him instantly.

Last to arrive before myself was Erinn. Erinn has been with OAR Northwest since the beginning in 2006, and is responsible for all the amazing photos that Jordan and the rest of the team put up on the site. Capable, daring, and empathetic, she’s always managed to put a human face on the team and what they’re doing.

That morning while eating breakfast, I had the immense pleasure of witnessing a group dynamic that I would soon be a small part of. 

Doug

Ngor Island

Plage de Ngor is actually a beach across from the island of Ngor, a tiny spit of land perhaps two kilometers long, and five hundred meters wide. Jordan and the rest of the team share a three-bedroom house a few meters from the main beach. The island is crowded with houses, and narrow lanes form a bewildering maze allowing residents to get from one end to another. There are two beaches, with the rest of the island’s coast made up of sheer cliffs and rocks.

Ile de Ngor has a dark history. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries this portion of Africa was dominated by French, Portuguese and English slave traders. The Europeans would trade guns, ammunition, and various other valuables to local tribes in return for slaves captured from wars. The slaves would then be taken across to the Americas, where they were traded or sold for tobacco or other colonial goods. These goods were then taken to Europe, where they were sold for a tidy profit. Part of this profit was used to buy more guns, which were then brought back down to Africa for more slaves. The advanced European weapons fueled inter tribal warfare, which fueled the slave trade, which increased production in the Americas, which increased demand in Europe.

It’s called the Atlantic Triangle, and I don’t know if they still teach it in schools, but if they do, they should stop teaching it as this horrible accident of history and start teaching it as a lesson in ethical economics and what happens when consumers demand goods without understanding where they come from.

Ile de Ngor and many of the other islands surrounding Dakar represented a regional hub for slave traffic out of West Africa. When the slave trade was abolished, Ile de Ngor and the places similar to it continued to serve as trading hubs, though severely diminished.

Today, Ile de Ngor is nearly entirely owned by none other than the rapper Akon. There is also a small military base, which as far as I can tell exists only to sell beer to the tourists staying at the surf camp. Many Senegalese make the island their home, and most of those are fishermen, who spend their days plying the coast in their beautiful multi colored pirogues.

The night of my arrival Jordan and I had made our way through the nearly empty streets of Dakar to Plage de Ngor, the beach opposite the island. When I asked how we were to get across roughly five hundred meters of open water, he laughed, pulled out a cell phone, and spoke some rudimentary French. A few minutes later two Senegalese youths appeared out of the night like wraiths.

We shake hands. In Senegal, and most of West Africa, you must shake hands while greeting someone. It’s considered rude not to. Handshakes have thus become sort of a way to get a feel for a person and the social situation. Most Senegalese will clasp your hand, switching over to a (and I have no good way to describe this) arm wrestling style grip and sometimes pulling in for a hug.

I watch Jordan do this, and imitate. His rudimentary grasp of French astounds me: neither of us knew any before coming to Senegal. Now he’s greeting people and holding a decent amount of conversation.

“Ce va?” sounds like ‘Sah-Vah’ and basically means ‘how goes it’”

“Ce va bien.”  ‘It goes well’

Through French, English, and a few words of the regional lingo, Wolof, Jordan negotiates our passage over to the island. Everything in Senegal must be negotiated, there are no fixed prices for anything. We overpay, but due to the late hour don’t make any noise about it.

When we’d shown them the color of our money, one of the youths produced a surf board and dived into the ocean, paddling towards one of the pirogues tethered just beyond the reach of the tides. He climbed over the side, started the engine, and to my surprise accelerated the craft away from the shoreline.

“Watch this,” Jordan said, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

The pirogue turned around about a hundred yards from shore and the driver gunned the engine, sending the tiny wooden craft rocketing over the black waves at terrific speed. He gunned the engine to the last second, and catching a fortuitous wave, the craft was carried up onto the beach, crashing to a halt half in, half out of the water. It was my introduction into how to get from the island to shore, and I would experience it nearly every day I was in country.

Once on board, Jordan told me to hang on as we rocketed over the waves toward the island. The driver slowed down as we approached, using the nearly full moon to look for rocks exposed by the low tide. Using astonishing accuracy and knowledge of the local waters, he guided the pirogue through a gauntlet of sharp outcroppings, and gunning the engine at the last second, deposited us on the beach safe and sound.

We made our way up the beach to the OAR Northwest house, dropped my bags and caught up for a few hours. Eventually I pleaded exhaustion and fell asleep to the sound of the waves. 

-Doug