Traveling in West Africa

Crossing Across...

2007-04-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Picture: from Southern Burkina Faso.

So I've had to do this entry differently than I wanted to due to a conspiracy between God and computers to make this an endlessly frustrating project. I've managed to now fool them I hope by just leaving the pictures first and putting explainations and the story after. This blog entry was sabbotaged by electric blackouts, connection failures, refusals by computers to move pictures, refusals to allow me to sign in, and more. But my personal favorite was when I had it done perfectly in Guinea Bissau , the pictures exactly where I wanted them, ..and the computer refused to allow me to save it. In Portuguese. I got the techie who worked there to help and he was stumped. He got his techie friend. He was stumped. They changed it into English for me and it said what I thought. "The required field must not be left blank." ...Of course there was no required field. This is again just one of those instances I try to explain to my computer savvy friends when I say computers don't work for me. This is why I hate computers, and why I believe in God. God and computers must have a pact...

Picture: Woman in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I want to do a watercolor painting of part of this picture. Sorry Radek but yup, you're getting cut out of the painting. :)

Picture: Radek, me, Evalina and Michael at the Domes de Fabedougou in Burkina Faso.

Picture: squinting in the sun and trying not to fall off the rock..

Picture: Covered with red dust on dirt roads in Burkina Faso. Radek napping in photo.

Picture: Valid mode of transport in Mali and perhaps better than the bus system. Really I'm not kidding, read the text for more info...

Picture: Kids selling water at roadside in Mali when the bus stops. They scamper up when they see the buses coming.

Picture: Hellish bus ride through Mali. See broken bus in the background?? And some of my Nigerian allies with me in the foreground. We really should have taken the donkey cart..

Pictures: I finally made it to the coast. And didn't step on either of these..

Picture of Cows... Now this here was meant to be at the bottom close the the bit about the "Land of Lots of Milk but the computer just will not have it.. So you'll have to go find that bit for an explaination. It's near the bottom so don't worry you don't have to read the whole thing if you're just curious about this.

Picture: Dr. Fatmatah, .. on the beach.. And again this would work better if I could have formatted it the way I wanted. Explanation is near the bottom tho so all is not lost for those just looking at pics..

xxo. And now my little story for the month of March...

Crossing West Africa.
On March 5th I arrived in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. -A busy little place where trucks, taxis and bicycles compete. It's hot, dusty and kind of lacking in tourist attractions. I stayed in a dormitory here. Promised myself after the first night with a group of French hippie posers and later birds clattering around on the roof all night, that I'd leave the next day. But the next day the French group left and a procession of better people, (French and Not French), came to stay over the time I was there. I ended up staying longer than I'd planned by far for this and from this made some friends out of the local people and travelers passing thru. But the first night was not fun. The maps in the Lonely Planet in these parts are wrong, sometimes dreadfully and I got lost on my first evening. Darkness approaching and I'm trying to ask people where the cemetary is... because it's a landmark for me. But people aren't understanding my pronunciation and they don't know the hotel, so I'm trying to ask for 'The big place with dead people'.. in French and of course everyone is thinking they must not be understanding me because why would you want to go to see dead people??

Eventually I found my way home, but not before dark and I'd heard lots of scary things about Ouagadougou at night.. But again, I never saw it. Just heard about it. In Dublin,.. you can see reasons to be scared at night. They're in your face. Same with cities I've lived in in the US. Now maybe I'm just not seeing it, but I honestly haven't seen all the scary people I was warned I would see in West Africa. I've seen them at home so I know what to look for...

I found the right people to bother for all kinds of things here without even trying. A Burkinabe by the name of Julius Caesar (not the dead one) treated me to breakfast when he saw me in a cafe, A Lebanese guy who owned a techie shop copied my photos onto a CD for me for free, Radek from Poland helped me put pictures on my Ghana blog, and another Burkinabe lent us time for free on his personal computer in the back of his dad's internet shop. And Adama, who worked at the hostel, was help with buses and took us to a drumming performance. Local people here were really friendly and generous.

Radek, Evalina and Michael are 3 Polish travelers who were mad enough to go through Guinea at this time, a time of strikes which saw them walking for 4 days because there was no transport, sleeping outside since hotels and shops were closed, and listening to gunfire for background music. This didn't stop them, but when they reached Ouagadougou they all had malaria and that stopped them for a few days. In that time we became friends and I joined their travels for a spell. After so much time with The Malaria Party at the hostel, it was sad to leave all our new friends behind. ..

The 4 of us went to Bobo Dioulasso first. There, we took at taxi to see 'sacred fish'... huge catfish tended to by a strange rasta who lives amongst a zillion chicken feathers floating around in the woods above the stream. He cooks chicken for the fish who are not so picky and were just as happy with my not so special or sacred crackers.. While there I managed to slip and fall with both feet into the one and only pool of stagnant manky water for miles I'm sure. -which is just great. So if I get bilharzia will they at least be sacred bilharzia???

We went to Banfora after Bobo and took a half day charter taxi to several sites. -Tengrela Lake where we took a boat about 10 meters into the lake since the group of hippos we'd come to see were right there before us complete with a bouncy playful baby play-fighting with it's mom. -Then to beautiful rock formations we could climb and it was actually windy and cool at the top!! -And then to Karfiguele Waterfalls which were beautiful and formed pools we could swim in, but for some reason I have no pictures from here! boo.

Went onward (these lot travel faster than me).. to a couple places in the Southwest of Burkina Faso, Loropeni and Gaoua. This to experience some smaller villages, bounce down dirt roads getting covered with red dust, break down in the vehicle we were in, and for the Poles to have yet another visit to the hospital... In Africa's hot climate small infectioins can run rampant quickly and Michael (for the second time that week) had one. He survives and they are all off to Cote d'Ivoire on schedule as I turn back west. Somehow I've been lucky medically speaking and you never know I could survive this trip unscathed. We shall see..

One bad thing about Gaoua was the Seedy cat who attached himself to us. And his rasta friend. I think he followed us from the bus station to the hospital. I thought he'd come there with Evalina and Michael. They thought he was part of the hospital. I felt like he was dodgy from the get go. It turns out so did they. (The rasta friend is just a follower.) Seedy proceeds to have a perfect place for us to stay he says, a doctor who has the meds Michael needs he says, and a better restaurant than the one we want to go to which he says is actually the one he's shown us, -they've just changed their name. Uh huh. yeah. He proceeds to try to charge five times the price for medicine and not provide what he said he would for the 'place to stay' when evening comes. You meet these types sometimes.... Had we been softer targets I'm sure it would have gotten worse, but we're having none of it as it is and eventually we get what we'd originally agreed upon. My favorite part was where he's telling the boys that "women from Europe are like this, African women are no like this," after Evalina and I threw the final strop and insisted on getting what we'd agreed to pay for or we'd leave. This comment of his did not make me behave any more like a 'good African woman' as anyone who knows me would know. I'd decided what I thought of this leech long before this little showdown.

Sadly, I said goodbye to my little family and headed West from Gaoua as they headed South. It's too hot for me in these parts and I'm in a rush to get to the coast now. So, bus back to Bobo Dioulasso... and then a day off to explore the market and chill out. Tons of people want me to stop and talk. 'Guides' want to take me places. One keeps following me and trying to get me to go to his shop so I make a game of dodging him as this market conveniently has catty corner rows. I can slip into one and he loses me for a bit. Of course he can find me, (Where is the white lady?? Gee I don't know...), but eventually he tires of this and, muttering, goes stomping past the last time he finds me and leaves for good. ha ha.

And bus to Segou, Mali. I didn't notice nearly as many people trying to sell me things or charge me extortionate prices or demanding cadeaus as I did other places in Mali... Because of less tourists? less package tourists? less French tourists?? I don't know. But it's a pleasant surprise. I did notice a bird trapped in a second story room behind a window. I learned the word for 'window' -finette, and for trapped, which I can spell in Korean better than in French so we'll skip it. Went to the guys in the shops downstairs from the bird and appealed for the bird. They of course thought this was hilarious, but promised they'd get the guardian to let it out when he returned at 6pm. I hope so. It's hot. It's even hot for birds.

And bus to Bamako, Mali's capital. March 22nd and I'm still finding sand from the Sahara in my backpack from January.. In Bamako, a Malian guy named Omar attaches himself to me and I never did work out what he was really after. Is he trying to rob me? fall in love with me? help his friends out by bringing them my business? (he knew the guys at the bus company for my journey the next day) show me off? -donno... He shows me a shop his 'friend' owns where there is a music CD I would buy, but not for the first price they say. It's extortionate. I'm back in the Mali I'm familiar with... I leave. Four of them follow me and the price changes back and forth down the road. Nope. I insist on the price I first said. They eventually agree and then tell me they don't have change. I take my bill back and say no deal if no change. So we go to find change, me hanging onto the bill. Omar cracking up in the background saying, 'this woman, ha ha! she is real Africa woman' and takes to calling me Fatmatah. He tells me this is good, comes from the desert, but I am not buying it. I find out in Gambia that this name is given to women and it's the name of Mohammed's son. It means strength sort of. So now I'm confused. Are African women supposed to be strong? or to back down as Seedy said?? Which is it.

And next on a bus to Kayes, Mali near the Senegalese border.. but not... as this goes from being a one day to a THREE day misadventure which saw everyone at their worst as can be expected. It started out nice enough. Omar turns up in the morning to see me off (tell me he loves me, give me a bead and a kola nut, ask me for a souvenir.. -I don't understand!!..) and introduce me to another friend, Alison, who is Burkinabe, a drummer, on the bus with me, and only speaks French. I also meet a group of men who's English is excellent and we have a little chat. Where are you from? Nigeria. Oh dear.. Turns out I'm on a bus with about 8 Nigerian men. And astonishingly they turn out to be my best allies and I theirs. Just goes to show you.

The bus which is meant to leave at 9 sharp (and we've been instructed to turn up at 8 for this), does not leave til 10:05 sharp. That's not so bad, but then we get gas.. and we change a tire.. and then we park 5 kilometers later at the edge of town in a large area of trucks, buses, fumes, people selling things, and other general chaos. At about 11:00 people on the bus start to complain and call, "hey chauffeur!" Seven of the Nigerians are sitting around and next to me and we start to get antsy. The driver and conductor are merely being greedy now and filling stools and jerry cans into the center aisle for extra people to sit on. They're piling more goods onto a groaning roof and we've had enough.. It's freakin hot on this bus. The only windows that open are small ventilation windows at the top, together with the door and the emergency exit windows. I'm sitting at an emergency exit by chance. And at 12pm, I open it. (Everyone please put on "I predict a riot! I predict a riot!" by the Kaiser Chiefs now and we can have a sountrack.)
I'm holding this window open and Nigeria is shouting over and under it for the driver to GET IN. NOW. Now. I'm shouting in English and French. Nigeria is shouting in English and Yoruba. Other people on the bus are shouting in Bambara and French. The conductor rudely tells people to sit down... And Nigeria goes mental... A couple of them get off and are shouting in the driver and conductor's faces saying 'No you sit down! Now! Get in and drive. Now!' The sellers have stopped to stare and snicker. The Entire Bus mutinied. And won. Literally everybody was furious. Under a hail of abuse the driver gets in and we get going. Who knows how long we would have sat there had we not revolted.

Six of the Nigerians have been traveling together for a while and they are funny. Noisy, but funny and picking on one and then the next of each other. All is jovial until a terrible event. This wretched driver, who we don't like already, who has stopped for countless stupid reasons for himself, could not be bothered to stop when a large herd of sheep were crossing the road. I couldn't believe it. We could see them from ages away. We saw the herder try to turn them out of the bus's path. The driver slowed but did not stop, driving straight into the panicked herd and killing at least one of them from the thump heard and the roll felt. He had absolutely no reason to do this. He is just a prick. The Bus.. screams and starts shouting. Obviously the herder would be angry aside from the fact that this is just senseless cruelty. The Nigerians are shouting that some of these people have guns and could come after us on motos. Everyone is insulting the driver. People, myself included, are cursing this driver in about 4 languages. But he doesn't care.
The conductor has dropped off after overselling the bus, but there are 2 mechanics with the driver. I talk to one of them at the next stop and he agrees it was not good, very not good. He's actually quite nice. This mechanic starts to come to me when he wants the Nigerians to know something such as the bus is stopping for lunch, etc. -Is how I wind up translating (at shops as well) for about 8 Nigerians who don't speak French..

At 3:30 am we arrive in Kayes, not at 4pm the previous day as was told. The bus and most of the people are actually continuing on to Dakar, Senegal. The mechanic comes to me at Kayes and says the driver is tired and must sleep a bit. I tell Nigeria and they are not happy, but better to not get into an accident they decide. My things buried on the roof and no place to go at 3:30 am in a dusty town anyway, I find a grain sack and sleep with my head on my precious posessions near Little Nigeria. I figure I will continue on to Kaolack as my intention for stopping in Kayes had simply been to break up the journey.

At 6:30 people are up and at 7 the mechanics are taking the bags off the roof for those who are actually staying here. So obviously for me to get my bag at 3:30 would have been an argument anyway. I tell the mechanic to leave my bag up there, I want to continue on to Kaolack and he agrees. I tell the driver as well, but remember we don't like each other.. He says nothing. I find out at about 8am that there's a ticket booth on the other side of buses. I couldn't see this and no one told me that I should have gone to change my ticket already. Now there are a bunch of people who've bought tickets waiting to load themselves and even more goods onto the roof of the bus...

Nicholas, the Nigerian who's been sitting next to me and myself are explaining what happened to the new conductor. He is telling me I should have bought a new ticket. He's telling me I must wait now. Nicholas is arguing my bag is already buried on the bus. The other Nigerians are arguing with the bus driver. It becomes apparent that the driver is trying to fill the bus and leave me behind. The seats, stools and jerry cans are filling slowly. The roof is being piled higher and higher. People are pushing to get on. Sellers are waving sunglasses and watches in my face. The conductor keeps yelling at Nicholas and I that we should have changed the tickets. Nicholas keeps having to explain he has a ticket. More things on top of the bus. It's hot again now. People are yelling because the bus is late leaving again. Babies cry.

I can't describe the chaos of these bus stations. Goats chew on plastic bags in the background. Women in bright colors shout at children. People are going past with buckets of fruit on their heads. Men go past shouting because they're carrying large sacks of coal on their heads. Two women drag a large ram along, one by the rope and horns and one by the tail. He's dropping to his knees in protest. Someone is buying a towel out the window of the bus. People are waving a stand of hair products in my face. Begging children irritate me with, 'tubab, tubab, cadeau' as I wither in the sun. Someone waves sunglasses in my face. It's a trial to remain polite.

In the end it's Nigeria to the rescue. I'm last to be let on the bus, grudgingly. Nicholas and I have to climb on arm rests over people in aisles who are bickering amongst each other as the bus is even more crowded than yesterday. But within this writhing mass of humanity are two glisteningly empty seats.. the ones Nicholas and I sat in yesterday.. because no matter how many times the driver tried to fill them on us, NOBODY was willing to challenge the 6 huge Nigerian guys sat round them saying they were taken. They give a cheer when they see me get on the bus and bust up laughing. They've obviously enjoyed all this confrontation they've been having inside the bus. Hilarious...

The irony. Here I am being helped to escape the Dreadful Transportation Muppets of Mali by Nigerian men. This when I've had to take such drastic measures in the past to escape Nigerian men (the women being not a problem, but the men...) in Seoul. You just can't EVER get out that paintbrush and paint a people one color.

We drive all day. It's incredibly hot. I open the Emergency Exit at every stop and hang myself out of it for some air. I have no hassle with border crossings, constant police checks and bag searches. Not so for the Nigerians. At each police checkpoint they are made to hand over 1000 CFA. (about 1.50 euro). And at the border leaving Mali the guards know it's Saturday and so there's no one to call for help so they try to have them up for 10,000 CFA each (15 euro!) -steep for me! Nigeria throws a fit. They're arguing that they are an ECOWAS nation and should pass for free. They're right of course, but this is corruption Africa style.

An hour goes by. It's getting on 2pm and the bus driver gets antsy. He goes to move forward. The Nigerians see the bus moving from the office and freak out. They're demanding money back if the driver leaves. It's a big scene. The mechanic and Alison come to get me. (We're all outside the bus.) They tell me the driver wants to just move up across the line, he's not leaving. Please tell Nigeria. The Nigerians are coming to me, Chris please tell the driver not to leave, please, we're trying to get them to lower the price. ok ok. I'm back and forth between the driver and the border guards, telling the guards that these guys are nice and have helped me on the bus, please lower the price. They get the price down to 5000 each. Still spendy. And going directly into a pocket.

The road gets worse. More potholes and we go slower. Less air through the bus. It's unbearably hot even when the sun goes away for the day. I'm delirious and Nicholas keeps falling asleep onto my shoulder. This I cannot stand and am violently shrugging him off which sends him flying the other direction. He apologizes, but my patience is gone, worn through yesterday.

Then in the middle of the night, in the middle of the deserted road, the bus pulls over and stops. The mechanic comes to the window to tell me the driver must sleep again. It's 2 or 3 am. Mats come out and I try to sleep on an edge of one but there is a baby crying the whole time. Even it's mother seems to detest it the way she throws it about. I hear it even with earplugs. It doesn't stop it's noise until the bus starts moving the next day. (Then it goes peacefully to sleep and it's all I can do to keep from shaking it awake!)

I worked out it was time to get up just before dawn when the mat I was on was yanked out from under me. Apparently it doubles as a prayer mat...

Day 3 on the bus... The road is awful. The bus and vehicles coming toward it slowly weave a path between potholes using the whole of the road until the last moment when they move to the correct side to pass. At about 10am the shock that was going, goes. The mechanic comes to my window to say they'll try to repair it here. (nowhere). This soon becomes 'we drive to the next town.' We go at a snail's pace with the crippled bus. It's even hotter. I've noticed my shoe feels funny today and looking down find that my left foot and ankle are horribly swollen and my right foot shows signs of following suit. I've seen this on other people, but never on me. I don't like it. We get to a town at about noon.
And wait..

The mechanic says it will take about 30 minutes to weld once they have the tire off when we ask if we should hail other transport. Nicholas used to be a mechanic and he is saying no way a little spot welding will hold the weight of this vehicle and it's overloaded load. He's probably right, but we wait. Kaolack, where I will get off and where Nicholas will change vehicles for Gambia, is only 110 kilometers away. We ask for our bags. They say to wait. We wait more. At 90 minutes Nicholas freaks out and climbs onto the roof to get the bags. The bus is on a jack. The driver and welder are shouting at him. He's shouting back. The other Nigerians are shouting for him to get down and alternately shouting at the driver. Women are shouting to stop bothering with the bags and fix the bus. About 30 people are in the road shouting. Traffic is having to stop. Nicholas has stopped a share van and this vehicle is waiting now.

Me? I'm being good. I want to be on whatever goes first and I'll sit this argument out. I'm staying on the sidelines. Behaving myself. Everyone please note, on March 25, 2007, Chris was good. Occasionally this happens. See?? Thanks.

The mechanic climbs up on the bus. He's shouting at Nicholas to get down. I'm translating to Nicholas that he says he'll get the bags. Nicholas leaves and the mechanic is complaining to me about 'why can't he wait, the bus is almost fixed'. I explain he has to catch the last ferry to Banjul or he'll miss work in the morning. Ok, so he calms down. We get the bags. I'm getting in the taxi van to go with my 'whatever leaves first theory'. The rest of Nigeria gets their bags and then argues about the price with the taxi van. That driver had had enough and leaves them there. Nicholas and I have no idea how the rest of their story unfolded.

The local taxi van stopped constantly to pick up and drop off people eventually arriving in Kaolack at 6:30pm. ...about 58 hours on the bus en tout... I could not wait to get to a hotel room for a shower, some sleep and blessed solitude.

In Kaolack I'm treated to Senegalese hospitality when for some reason I'd been a bit worried about Senegal. I'm invited to people's houses for dinner and tea. I'm given free Fanta, cookies, and breakfast at the local shop. (I gave money for breakfast anyway.) My internet time is discounted. I'm shown things, directed to places, invited to tea in the afternoon with the hotel guards and stopped in the street by 3 teenage girls who just want to tell me they think I'm pretty. People here very sweet, but it's too hot.. I learn later that while I'm in these towns (Kaolack and later Foundiougne) the temperature reaches 41 and 44 degrees celcius. That's 105 and 112 for farenheit ppl out there. I've met my match. I cannot handle extreme heat.

Mohammed, from the Restaurant of Free Breakfasts and Fantas, sent me with a friend of his, also Mohammed to stay a couple days in Foundiougne, where they have a house. They say I can stay for free and just pay a little for food. I can't help being a little wary, but it turned out to be perfectly fine and just what they said. Fresh fish was grilled for me and water was brought in by moto. I took a boat ride through the mangrove swamps, but there were not enough birds this time of year to justify the cost. (Even the birds have left it's so hot??)

I think the combination of extreme heat and The Bus Experience weakened me and I caught a cold. What a miserable experience that was. Headache, sinus pain, sneezing constantly and still the heat. Can't sleep in the afternoon for flies landing on my face. This was not fun. It was a good place I was happy to leave for sheer discomfort. Thankfully it was cool at night.

Getting to Banjul, Gambia proves a hassle. There's a festival this weekend so everyone is leaving for the cities. No transport is left and tons of people wait for some to come back. Mohammed, a friend of his, and myself start walking. Eventually another friend (popular guy this Mohammed) comes by with a car. He and the 4 people within are headed to the border. So I'm in as number 5. They then stop at each village to visit friends. Everyone wants to talk to me, give me palm wine and tea. And it's nice, but it stretches my journey and I have this pesky cold... And it's still hot.. Eventually they got me to the border, carried my bag, helped me through immigration, defended me from the crazy street person who kept trying to touch me, and arranged a rather spendy ride to the ferry -all this whether I wanted it or not.

I raced to the ferry and then in Banjul, it's also a holiday. Half day of work, everything is shut. Streets are blocked with people praying. Hotels are spread out and expensive and taxis want too much to be bopping between them. (Covered with dust and walking down the main tourist strip here -yup there actually IS one as this is a package tourist haven-all the fluffy tourists are sneaking stares at me and my backpacks. I can see them thinking, 'what's this just dragged itself in from the bush?'). Which is funny, but I'm not having fun today...

I meet a guy named Ana and he directs me to a van, then tells me to wait -he has a friend with a room. We sit down for him to call the friend and a guy on my left says 'wait I have a friend with a room.' Both of them on the phone and I say, 'wait I have a friend..' and call Nicholas. I'd intended to stay in a hotel and see Nicholas for drinks even though he'd invited me to stay at his when I got to Banjul. Now here I am and I've had enough for the day what with feeling rough.

Nicholas came to fetch me and he and his fiance Sarian from Sierra Leone proceeded to have me in their house (couchsurfing sans couchsurfers) for a few days and treated me like royalty. Free internet, coca cola for breakfast (my fav in hot climates..), home cooked meals. They were very good to me even with my dirty, vile cold. But also there was all the Shakira, Whitney Houston, spam and my personal favorite -Phil Collins...

Different strokes...

My original plan (well once I made one) was to go North through Mauritania and Western Sahara, to Morocco and from there fly to London, then Dublin. But Eastern Senegal taught me that 50 degree plus heat, as it would be this time of year.. is not for me. I've learned to be pragmatic v/s dogmatic in traveling. I'll cross that desert another time. Too much heat is simply not any fun... So I came here to Banjul and luckily found, -a cheap flight from Dakar to London. And because I've changed plans I can now go south to Guinea Bissau before I head north to fly back to Europe.

It's cool at night in Banjul and Serekunda, the satellite city Nicholas lives in, and this is what saves me. I was almost ready to throw in the towel somewhere in this last couple of weeks. People here are incredible as well. I can't go anywhere without being invited for a chat or a tea. This is an English speaking country so it's easier to talk to people as well. At one point I've sat down with 5 men for a street side tea and a woman of about 45 marches up to me. She shakes my hand, introduces herself, asks my name, country, why I'm here. And then asks, "So where is your husband? Which man is your husband?" "Me. Me! ME! me. Me!" chirp all 5 men. She laughs, welcomes me to her country and strolls off. The men tell me she's a little bit crazy when she leaves, but I don't think so. I saw strength, intelligence and independence in her. I'd liked her immediately. Perhaps she just doesn't take any crap from anyone and this scares them. At another place where I've been invited to sit for a chat with 2 men and a baby, one of them says, "hmm. Ireland. Lots of milk." (Absolutely fantastic! Must tell the Irish tourist board!) I desperately try not to laugh as I say, "Ahm, yes. There are lots of cows."

At the start of April I'm off to Kafountine in the Casamance, (Southern), region of Senegal. Gambian border police stamp me out, but the Senegalese never stamp me in... because the driver took back roads after the first border post to avoid pesky police check points. So I arrive illegally in the evening. I took a big well needed 4 day break from Africa whilst here,- illegally. I stayed at a somewhat posh hotel and enjoyed solitude, beach, birdwatching, reading, ..recovering. And it was gloriously NOT HOT. The staff were great and treated me to a coctail of hibiscus flowers and fruit from the Baobab tree. Even in the sun it was possible to go on a walk with a retired Dutch couple I met. There was a comfy hammock to read in and a perfect beach to start running again on. I immensely enjoyed my vacation amidst my vacation here. It was actually COLD at night. I loved it. (I did have to share my bungalow with a spider who was pet sized though. I thought I would take him out in a glass, but he was too big. I would have chopped his legs off at the knee. Pet sized I say. Gah!)

Back to Africa... sort of.. I got a ride to the village with the Dutch couple in their spaceship, -a Mercedes Junimoch (The vehicle everyone at the hotel was talking about..) I expected a long day of transferring from one vehicle to the next, waiting and battling with border guards for a stamp I should have gotten 4 days prior. I'm illegal here. And so.. I arrive at the first bus station and I'm rushed into a car. Ok. Off we go. At the next bus station I have just gone to the restroom and return to find people looking for me and hurry hurry, I'm rushed into a waiting van. Ok. Off we go.

I get to the border and walk to the window with a big fat smile... and explain my problem. I still don't know if the guy is going to ask for a bribe (fine) or not while he is writing my name in his book. He asks my profession. I say 'hotel manager'. He hesitates. I say, 'hotel..' and he cuts me off, "oh!" and writes 'Doctor'. Well... I see no reason to correct him because he's probably less likely to ask for a bribe from a doctor because there's no telling how I'm connected if I'm a doctor now is there.. Sure enough I'm sent off with "Ok madame. The problem is finished! No problem. Thank you!" and big smiles... Ok. I smile back. Cheers mate, Thanks heaps.. :)

I'm rushed back onto the van and sent scurrying into another van headed back South again, but which will continue to Ziguinchor, my next destination. Hurry hurry! Get in! I'm last in a crowded bus that 8 guys are waiting to push start. I'm arguing about the price and they are arguing back and laughing saying it is already discounted!! I don't know because I haven't had time to look up the price, I just figure they're charging extra as usual. It seems cheap, but I've had no time, it's been hurry hurry rush rush all day. Slow down People! It's Africa for cryin' out loud!!

And then it's Back To Africa for real -complete with a push start. The bus stops and starts to pick up and drop off and deal with police checks and bag searches and here we go again. But I feel refreshed after my stay at Kafountine!

Signing off,
Dr. Fatmatah.. from Ireland -Land of Lots of Milk.

ps. this was where the last two photos were supposed to be..

Ghana...

2007-02-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

... about February 9th or so...
I headed into Ghana and made a mistake. I went to the bank and changed travellers cheques because the rate was good. I changed 200 Euro.. and didn't realize how BIG this would be until the woman at the bank handed me a plastic shopping bag and then several bricks of money. Eesh. Now I had to carry that around. I'm couchsurfing in Accra at Eva's tonight. If you've not checked out the couchsurfing site, do so. www.couchsurfing.com. choose 'couchsearch' and type Cassidy under 'User name'. Look for the camel. And get on the site yourself :)

I spent my first day in Accra wandering and getting my hair braided. The most exciting part about getting my hair braided being when after 4 hours the chair gave up and slowly collapsed under me. I could have caught myself but for the woman doing my hair who panicked and tried to catch me in turn getting underneath me and turning me into a flailing foreigner much like a turtle on her back.

In wandering everywhere in West Africa I am endlessly amazed by what all people will carry about on their heads. On any given busy street there is easily enough merchandise traveling about on people's heads to stock and entire store, I kid you not. Tires, shovels, glass cases, furniture, etc. can all be carried about on people's heads in case you didn't know. Like if I tried to do that someone would end up in tears. -Either me, the merchandise or several innocent bystanders.

Ghana is the first English speaking country I've been to here in Africa and that makes things easier for me, but I worry I'll forget my French. Eva and I meet 2 other couchsurfers, Meg and Steve for lunch one day and it turns out Steve is a web designer and invites me to his office to start this blog. Without his help there would certainly be no pictures on this blog so kudos to Steve, yeah??

I wanted to go to Cape Coast after Accra, only a 2 hour journey, but no.. At 11am I arrive for the 12pm bus I'm told is sold out. I meet Patience who's in her 60's and is very nice and trying to convert me to God (the first in a series..) as I wait for the 2:30 bus which does not show up until 4pm and breaks down at 5. I give up on the bus and take a tro-tro that is flagged from the road. A tro-tro being a van piled with people that stops to pick up and drop off people constantly. 11 hours later I arrive..

The next day is Valentines' day and I meet 3 single women traveling solo, -Lisa, Jessi and Isabelle- (back off boys). We went to Kakum National Park where there is a canopy walk thru the treetops and where we were invaded by a 20 strong tribe of noisy Korean missionaries. What missionaries are doing in Ghana, the Land of the Already Converted, is a mystery. Every taxi already has "Dr. Jesus" or "Merciful" written on the back windscreen even. Jessi, the American girl, is a horticulturist so we had a free tree and plant guide which was great! Her, Lisa and I then opted to take ourselves on the guided longer walk, but we were guideless and we lost the trail a few times. We were fine... until we reached the road. There we were trying to flag down tro-tros who couldn't work out why we're flagging them when they were full. We get one to stop and ask directions to park HQ. About 5 people point back into the woods trail we just came out of saying, "It is there!" and "Go straight!" Which brings us to directions in Ghana. (By the way we did find park headquarters, I'm not writing you from the woods.)

This 'go straight' thing is quite a theme in Ghana. Any question of "where is (enter place name)?" is always answered with, "Go straight" or "you just go straight" with a general pointing that in no way matches any road and sometimes is directed at a building. (But... I can't fly. how do I get to where I can start going straight??) Directions don't seem to work in African languages here either we learn as taxi drivers ask directions for us and we still do circles on several occasions. Perhaps we should ask, "Hi, can you please tell me how to get to (insert place name) without using the phrase 'go straight'?"

This night is Valentines's night and the 4 of us spent it at dinner and beer complaining about men. Best Valentine's day I've had in years. :)

The beach... I'm still trying to do something to fix this tan. Jessi, Lisa and I spend a day at the beach near Elmina. Beautiful, but the surf was really strong. That afternoon we wanted to go to Elmina castle, one of the slave forts. Walking down the road a taxi comes the other way, stuffed to the gills with people and leaves as if a tree had been crammed into the trunk and back seats. The guy says, 'I'm coming!' as he speeds by. And so begins one of the more interesting taxi rides of my life. First you have to picture this taxi. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle cutter has cut this taxi apart and it's been soldered and mismatched back together. Including the windsheild which looks as if a soft bodied object has landed square in the center of it.. it's welded together with that glassstickbacktogetherstuff. Whatever it is. Now scrape the whole thing along in the dirt and bang it around a bit and there you have our taxi.

We haggle them down to a reasonable rate on their return, there are now 3 of them, soon to drop to 2 and the trees are gone. In we get and they start asking us where we want to go. Haven't we done this part already?? We're looking at each other. We drive for a bit and then they pull off on a bad dirt road. We're going through a village and I'm not so concerned because there are people around, but why are we here?? Chickens are scurrying in front of us as we bounce along with the engine revving because the taxi wants to die. Jessi is tapping the driver, "um, why are we here?" Lisa has a hankie over her face complaining about the taxi's fumes which are awful. My door doesn't open. The passenger guy is then out and they seem to be looking for someone, (the real taxi driver??). They're yapping away to each other and ignoring our questions. Then off we all go again, but the driver can't maneuver over a road obstacle and now they are deep in debate ending with the passenger getting out and going round to the drivers side and the driver keeping one foot on the gas to keep the jigsaw puzzle alive and sliding over to the passenger side. The new driver solves the Road Obstacle problem with speed and dives through, the car body scraping against the wheels because the shocks are long gone.
We're asking, "where are we going?"
Driver, "ababadabu!"
Passenger, "eebida obida oobida."
Us, (WHAAT??)- looking at each other. They speak English here in Ghana and their English is very good. But we can't work out what these lot are saying.
And suddenly we're hurtling toward the road which is up a hill. Never mind the parked van, the food stand, several goats, or that we're coming onto this road at an angle I'm convinced is going to land the jigsaw taxi on it's side, -my side! All is solved with speed and we survive to the road like as if The Dukes of Hazard Go To Africa.
The taxi guys are back to saying stuff we don't understand and asking us where we're going again.
We're saying Elmina Castle again.
Looking at each other again.
Lisa is talking about fumes and lack of driving skills again.
They start blinking lights and making hand signals to oncoming traffic. The cars and trucks respond. And they keep doing it. Strange.

We get to Elmina center and we want out. Then the taxi stalls. Good. But traffic is honking and the passenger has jumped out to push. Jessi has opened her door to escape and has one foot out, SCRRRAAAAAPING along the pavement.
She's saying, "look this is fine we can get out here."
People on the street are waving to the taxi driver to stop the car because they can see her trying to get out.
Lisa's saying, "oh, I'm gonna be sick from these fumes."
I'm thinking ' is this the time to throw a proper Foreigner Fit and get us out of this, oh but wait my door doesn't open.' Shit.

Then the car starts, passenger jumps in and driver says his only decipherable phrase, "Close the door!" (Ah-ha! I knew they were speaking English!) Off we go. We get to the castle and they drive in and all the way around and soon to be back out again with all 3 of us saying, "OK! ok. stop! This is it!" ...Jesus... Those 2 have been sniffing too many car fumes.

Now the castle was a slave trading fort and loads of sad horrible cruelty happened there, but if you want to read about it look up "Elmina Castle" because I can't possibly make it more interesting than the taxi ride getting to it in this particular story, Sorry. There's also a similar story for Cape Coast Castle which we visit the next day. The Winning Question of that guided tour being asked by an English girl, "So the slaves were given food on plates?" -Well done darling, you get first prize for that. Makes you wonder what the guides have amongst their winning questions. .

Lisa and Isabelle head back to Accra after this and Jessi and I went to Kumasi. The posh bus experience had air con, but was made excruciating by one (it only takes one) shrieking boy of about 3 years old. He screeched at the top of his lungs every 60 seconds or so. Jessi had a headache from this. I spent 5 hours with my fingers in my ears. And the 3 women with this child thought he was cute. People, Please Note: A shrieking child is only cute in the privacy of your own home. Thank you. This has been a Public Service Announcement. We treated our shattered nerves to an air con room and a spendy feed at an Indian restaurant that night. Some things are just unbearable anywhere.

Kumasi was fun, but the hat museum we were keen to visit was closed and then it was Sunday (Survival Sunday) where everything closes save church. And we still forgot to go even with all the hymns echoing over the hills. Imagine that.

Next day there was life again in the village and... There is a large colony of fruit bats who hang out shrieking in certain trees near the National Cultural Centre (a sort of artist co-op) in Kumasi. Note: Shrieking fruit bats ARE cute even if they don't go to church. People vending on the street in front of them were telling us, 'money' 'sweet' . WHAT? Turns out you can eat the bats of course, but luckily we didn't see anyone selling them. I like them alive.

A Ghanaian trait I notice... When men here don't like something they'll say, "Oh!" or "Ah!" really high pitched. The women are opposite. When they don't like something they say, "Oooo!" really deep and low. Example: One male tro-tro driver when we were sitting up front said, "Ghana driving. Oh! It is not good." (And Jessi and I had to pretend we're laughing at something other than the 'oh!'). And Example 2: When Steve gave me a lift back to Eva's where I was staying in Accra, 4 neighbors (all women) jumped in the back seat for a joyride. Giggling and being noisy of course. Steve told them to stop it or he would 'drop them out in the middle of nowhere'. All 4 stop their chatter to say "Oooo!" deep and low, and then ignore him. This role reversal of manly men and relatively girly women is something I find quite amusing. Jessi and I were constantly sneaking sniggers together about this.

We took a day out of the city to visit the Bobiri Butterfly and Nature Reserve where we saw tons of beautiful flutterbys, a large scampering mouse with a fawn patterning of spots, several funky beetles, and... leaping and diving away from us through the fallen leaves -a shiny black 3 foot long cobra! Note: Cobras leaping and diving AWAY from us are also cute. TOWARD us would have been decidedly less cute. We asked several people to make sure that really was a cobra and yes indeedy it turns out they're quite common here. We got a ride back to town with 3 Ghanaian PHD students studying butterflies (part of the Cobra Confirming Crew). Which brings us to another Ghanaian peculiarity.

They have all this good African/Ghanaian music lying about, but no.. they're playing Michael Bolton, Whitney Houston and gospel. Singing along with it even. The 3 PHD students are singing along to "Josannah, Josannah! Let the people sing! Let the people dance! Let the people bring His love into their lives!" -complete with a Rapstar type DJ over the top shouting, "Come on come on. Welcome Him into your lives! Welcome him in I say! Raise your hands in the air!" Jessi and I look at each other.. again..

I mean I'm pretty sure there is a God, -this for several fine examples, I'll give you one:
It was a dark and stormy night..... ok, no it wasn't. I'm sorry. I just wanted to start the story that way, but it's not true it was daytime. So daytime. And I'm rushing through Vietnam to catch a boat I'm late for. I'm carrying too much stuff because I gave up on sending a parcel home the day before because the woman at the post office had made her fine self so incredibly problematic. All the stuff I'd meant to send is in a cheap gym bag on my shoulder, my backpack on my back and a small pack over one shoulder in front. Suddenly the gym bag strap gives way and the bag crashes to the ground behind me cleanly breaking off the sole of my sandal. The entire sole. I quickly grab the bag and limp on wondering why my sandal feels funny. After about 10 steps there appears a shouting little Vietnamese man under my nose blocking my path and flapping the sole of a sandal in my face. I of course can't make out what he's saying, but I'm pretty sure this has something to do with why my foot feels so strange. I grab the sole and limp off to try to catch the boat with 3 bags, my shoe sole in hand and a bunch of people staring at me. Now, if you can explain how a sequence like this can occur without a God sitting up there on His Cloud WREAKING THIS HAVOC, then have at it.

The day we want to go to see The Sword, the taxi driver doesn't know what we're talking about and asks a priest who's walking by the car. Waves him over with, "Father father!" Father explains and I make sure to ask the price while Father is still there. :) He says 30,000. Jessi says we're not stupid. I say 10. Father says take them. In we get. Unable to resist needling the taxi driver, I say, "Hmmm. That one kinda backfired on ya, didn't it?" Everyone laughs, the taxi driver very much in that Indonesian style of 'te he he, ha ha, you win this one' that you so often see there when you catch them out with their little scams.

We get to the Akomfo Sword, a sword stuck into the ground symbolizing unity of the Ashanti people, -the main tribe here in Kumasi. Legend says if the sword is pulled out the unity is over. I asked the guide if we could have a go at pulling it out, but he said no. Mohammed Ali got to give it a try. It's not fair.

This afternoon (feb 21), we're on an air conditioned bus back to Accra, but the air conditioning is broken. When the driver gets on he stands up front and announces, "Praise be to the Lord God Almighty we shall go to Accra this afternoon if He so chooses, Ahmen." The Bus says, "Ahmen." Jessi and I look at each other wondering if we're on the wrong bus. And we were. For 5 hours. Our seats near the front, we were subjected to the bus's painful horn which the driver thought was an integral part of the engine. He'd honk when something was in front of us or when nothing was in front of us. -These were the only 2 conditions under which he would honk. The only time he would forget to honk was when his cell phone would ring and he could shout on the phone instead. His cell phone ring tone was that of a meowing kitten. Jessi and I tried meowing a few times to distract him from the horn, but I think we were laughing too hard to meow effectively... And so. again, Jessi gets a headache and I spend another bus ride with fingers stuck in ears.

It doesn't end in Accra when at hotel number 5 or so we finally find a couple empty rooms. One skanky fan room, one passable air con room. We quiz the reception desk about electricity and they assure us the generator will come on if the electricity goes out for the air con room. I have just enough time to take my braids out and watch a small rainstorm which bring the frogs out onto the pavement who happily roll about and rub their bellies along in the water and wipe it over their faces in exctasy at seeing water... when the electricity goes out and the air con stops. And no one is about. And the water does not work so I can't even cool down in a shower. Fantastic.

We're awake all night and delerious the next day after 2 nights with no sleep since the last night in Kumasi was lights off (this where the electric is turned off from 6pm to 6am once every 5 days to conserve energy) -=Sleepless night for overheating foreigners, but we accept this because you know it's happening and you don't splurge on air con rooms on these nights. Having managed a hostel for 9 months I know there are times to complain and times guests are being high maintenance. This was a time to complain because we'd specifically asked about electricity before we chose the a/c room. We won another battle here through patience and paid only the fan room price which is what we would have taken had we known we'd have no air con. Fair enough.

Exhausted, we take a taxi to another hotel in the morning... and it's always in these times.. the taxi driver's first question: "So are you Moslem or Christian?" Me, "Ah, neither." Driver, "Oh! (high pitched) you must believe! You must believe in Jesus and accept God!" on and on. He's really on a mission here. I'm saying well if there is a God it's probably best I slip under His Radar. He's saying "No! God loves you!" Jessi is desperately staring out the window back there trying not to laugh (I'm in front), but she loses it when I lean out the window at a traffic light and say, "please help me" to a woman walking by selling something. Taxi Driver, "Do you think I'm funny?" Me, "no, no, well yes. But if you weren't funny you'd be boring so funny is good." Jessi has stuck her fist in her mouth. He's satisfied with this and goes back to His Mission. He brings up Noah and I pipe up, " Oh yeah! That was my favorite story from the bible because I like animals. Animals are cool. Except I don't know how he would have chosen which animals to save. Me, I would have taken them all." on and on.. anything to distract him. Jessi is eating her fist and the taxi driver is staring at me perplexed, (in between occasional peeks at the road), and I can see he's thinking, "What's wrong with her? She's yapping away about animals when I'm trying to save her wretched soul!"

We escape to the new hotel and please can I sleep tonight, please?? One thing is certain. I cannot live in a climate like this for long. Give me rain and a place where I can sleep under covers.

Jessi leaves for Tanzania this night and I wind up drinking beer with a motley crew of ex-pats.

Oh by the way, I saw on BBC that the US plans to install it's "Son of Star Wars" missile defense shield system and it wants missile silos in Poland, radio stations in the Czech Republic and possibly those missiles designed to shoot down missles staged for them 'on UK soil'. Presents for you, all my international friends! Now you too can be a Hated Target if you weren't already, isn't that nice?

The expats consist of a Swede, a Dane, A Dutch girl, a Congolese guy and 4 Nigerians, -3 men and one woman who's just married the Swede. The Nigerians are pushing God, and Nigeria as a travel destination. Nigeria-which has one of the worst reputations in the world for corruption on all levels and bribes and scams.

I have personal experience with extremely aggressive Nigerian men (the women have always been nice). I know a doctor from South Africa who volunteered there for 6 months or so. He'd worked all over the world before. -Says Nigeria was the worst experience ever because he literally had to bribe everyone, including the guys minding medical supplies to keep them from selling stuff out the back door. I've heard there is a warning about Lagos Airport because apparently planes have been hijacked between landing and reaching the terminal by pick up trucks outfitted with machine guns.

The Swedish guy is arguing that for us it is dangerous to go there. The Dane is listening. The Dutch girl is saying the only way she made it through there is because she'd latched onto a diplomat's wife when she traveled through. The Nigerians are arguing no no it i just a little problem. little. .. Then the Congolese guy who's been quiet up til now steps in. He sometimes has to travel there and says that the amount of bribes he has to pay to get through Nigeria is more than all the other countries he has to go through put together.. He says the rest of the region doesn't come close to having the same scams and bribes as Nigeria. And oh now the Nigerians go nuts. No one is angry, but suddenly there is this passionate inter-African argument between 5 Africans waving arms about and all 4 of us whitey's are quietly looking at each other with a bit of a grin. Interesting stuff.

I've a plan with Steve to drive from Accra to Akosombo, the southern port of Lake Volta, where I'm to take the boat to the north of the country. But the plan goes a bit astray as Steve is a graphic designer and like 2 of my best friends in the States, gets trapped by clients who show up on a Friday afternoon and want something done by Monday. Then they'll want to change it, twice, and then wonder why it's not done at 8am on Monday. Please people, be nice to graphic designers. Really there needs to be a Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Graphic Designers. ... On the bright side, I get to work on my blog here and Steve helps me put some more pictures on it so thank him for making it less boring.

On the way to Akosombo, Steve points out Shai Hills Nature Reserve, the place where he had his most interesting wildlife experience. A large monkey came out on the road with a branch and waved the branch for traffic to stop. Small monkeys then crossed and the large one moved off. I know of humans incapable of that kind of advanced thinking (George W. Bush and Dublin's knackers leap to mind, but it's debatable whether they're human.)

Turns out Steve has a friend at the Lake Volta Transport company and we stay in rooms at the manager's house. Pretty cheap and air con -luxury!! I don't know how I would have gotten onto this boat without Steve's help really because all the listed hotels were quite expensive and the town is so spread out! This boat is much more a cargo boat than a passenger boat so facilities are not really there. I would have had no idea how or where to get tickets.

And.. coming out of my room one morning the transport manager says to me, "howz it goin?" I said, "fine fine, and you?" He says, "Praise be to God I'm doing fine today, Praise be!"

.... (HELP ME, I'm being exorcised out of Ghana!)....

The boat is called the Yappy Queen, oops spelling error, I mean the Yapei Queen. I have a second class ticket meaning I sleep in a room with lots of people because there are only 2 first class cabins. And then Oliver from France comes up and offers a bunk bed in a first class cabin to one of us girls, (I'd met 3 girls from the US and Germany). "Me! Me!" I blurt out, -the other girls never had a chance. My first instincts saying, "yes Chris yes! Throw all caution to the wind and sell your soul immediately for air conditioning!"

And then we wait... the boat is to leave at 4pm sharp. After 4pm sharp, someone decides that possibly it is a good idea to load the cargo on the boat. We passengers don't get on until 8:30. Boat leaves at 9pm. 5 hours late, -impressive faffing even by African standards. I slipped past the ticket checkers by following Oliver and ignoring them, determined that no one was going to prevent me from getting to the air conditioning. :) I offered to split the difference in price with Oliver, but he wouldn't have it saying the money is gone anyway so what's the difference which was really nice of him.

Lake Volta is wide and there's not much to see outside of the stops we make which are a flurry of activity. Forklifts haul crates on and off whilst people mill about moving in and out of the way with kids, live chickens (no African journey is complete without poultry), bags and an endless amount of varied goods piled on heads. People from villages bring goods on the boat to sell and the last ones disembark by leaping over the ramp as it is winched up, - into the water as the boat pulls away. (Imagine the law suits in the States for twisted ankles and bruised fruits.)

At one stop there is a truck waiting. What used to be a truck at least. Oliver asks a Ghanaian, "does that still run?" The guy replies, "accident, oh!" ...(no really??) The entire roof is flattened backwards onto the body of the truck leaving the drivers' cab exposed. The highest bit on this twisted piece of metal posing as a vehicle is the steering wheel. A thick shaft of metal that used to hold up the roof and contain the windscreen thrusts about 3 feet straight forward from the front of the cab like a jousting spear. Sure enough a guy perches himself behind the steering wheel and this is coming on the boat. People climb on to join their posessions which are strapped onto the squashed flat roof. This is not a dead vehicle in Africa for it has 'go'. ('stop' and 'turn' being less important.)

We arrive in Yeji and who is waiting to drive on for the southbound journey but the 3 Italian speaking Swiss people I spent time with on the beach in Lome, Togo! This often happens, this re-meeting of people because the traveling world is even smaller than the small world. Fun to see them again!

I stay the night and am off the next day to cross the lake to Mekongo and go North to Tamale. It was a bit of an adventure to get there involving a scrum to board the boat, an offer to get a ride in a broken down truck or a crowdy bus (I took the bus because it looked more capable), another bus and an extreme amount of red dust. So much that when I arrived in Tamale only one tout asked shyly, 'where you go?' and seemed happy when I said I'd walk. I thought hmmm that's strange. Once in a hotel room I happened to wipe my nose with a tissue and it's an impressive shade of burnt sienna. I look in the mirror and this dark redbrown dust has settled all round my eyes and nose. No wonder I've been scaring people. I look like some rabid raccoon. I had no idea I looked like this because no one else here is white!! It doesn't show up like that on black faces. I wipe off a bit and head for a restaurant where the guy asks me if I've just come from Mekongo. I say yes, why? He says "Ah, because people who look like this usually are coming from there." (Alright! Everyone just calm down. I'm gonna take a shower!)

NOthing is where it should be on my Lonely Planet map of Tamale as happens occasionally and I end up at a police stop where something else is supposed to be. Ok, so I ask the officers, one of whom is much more interested in telling me (after all the usual questions) that he wants to marry an Irish woman so he can move to Ireland. He says he's 'very serious about this' and asks me if I have a daughter of about 18 that he can marry. Um..no.. but thanks heaps for the compliment.

I'm actually on my way to the tourist office to ask about the Kukou, (witches' camp), at Gambarga. See, the way it works here is that when men get tired of their older wives they can accuse them of being witches if something goes wrong in the village. A little 'trial' is held, they're accused and sent off to live at this camp. Isn't that convenient for men?? -So I'm gonna go visit and bring the 'witches' some gifts.

My morning doesn't start out so well trying to get to Gambaga and the witches camp. First off, the hotel takes all my change to pay for the room and then can't work out how to sell me a coke because they have no change. This is a recurring problem here to the extent that people lose business. At place number five, I manage to find coke, that's cold, and change for my 2 euro equivalent bill... I'm sorry to be spoiled but please just give me my caffeine fix, I can skip food.

Then I get to the bus station and have to wait for the bus to fill up. This takes ages and then 2 muppets are missing so we have to wait about 20 minutes for them to reappear! The guy behind me and myself were just about to pay the extra 2 places, had money out and everything, -and leave them behind -when they turn up. The entire bus is yelling at them including me. It's a combination of English and African because some speak the same language and some don't so they use English. The 2 guys are yelling back that they' had to buy medicine!!'. People are yelling 'how long does it take to buy medicine!!' Oh!' Ah!' Oooo!' I had to stop and laugh as the bus slowly makes it's way out of the bus yard, 20 of 26 people all yelling, waving arms, pointing fingers, 2 babies howling at the noise... -as all the sellers we pass are grabbing the buckets on their heads to steady them to turn to see The Shouting Van as it slowly trundles past. Hilarious. Ghanaian guy behind me was laughing too.

After lots of waiting, also for another bus, getting someone to take me to the project coordinators house, paying a small fee, going with him on a moto to the chief and paying a small fee (plus he pilfered my can of milo and a packet of cookies)... I was taken to meet the women. And that was fun. I couldn't bring enough treats for all of them, but I presented the big bag I had to the oldest and they were all quite delighted to hear through the project coordinator (they didn't speak English) of my travels and especially to see cookies and honey and treats they don't usually get to indulge in. They were actually quite smiley and friendly, but I could only catch one smile in a photo of them.

And then I had to go through all the waiting for buses again and make my way back on packed buses in the late afternoon to return at about 9pm and be unable to find food. But I was glad I went. And some people I'd met during the day were keen on what I was doing so I got some free rides back and forth, one from a group of Muslim men who talked to me for half an hour or so while I waited for a bus, asking about Muslims in my country 'are they black or white?', -who then rallied amongst themselves and took me for free on a moto to the next town where it would be much easier to catch a bus.

As for the camp itself and the program, it turns out they've sucessfully reintegrated quite a few of the women now that there are programs to educate the communities. The biggest problem was the villagers didn't know what things like spinal meningitis were so when a bunch of people died, they blamed it on witchcraft. They're holding seminars now to teach people the science behind death and illness and the villages have accepted the women back in many communities. There are now 85 women at the camp as opposed to hundreds before. And before the camp existed, they used to just kill them outright so things seem to be progressing in a positive direction..

It's been hard for me to find food here in the North. Restaurants generally don't have anything more than fried rice or spaghetti despite a large menu. Shops have the same thing as each other and there's only so many days I want to live on tuna and crackers, cheese and crackers. On my last night walking back to my hotel (with tuna and crackers), a woman who is selling oranges invites me to join her and her children to taste the food they are eating (how did she know??) I sampled some and told her I've actually had a hard time finding food here. She said, 'you have to learn how to eat here'. And she's right, but I hadn't yet. She then told me that if she knows in advance, she will cook for me. Which is incredibly sweet of her.

Too bad I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm almost tempted to stay, but just for dinner?? seems like I should go.. so I am going to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso... in search of food. :)

Apologies for lack of editing here, but Im lucky I got this blog done and that only with the help of Radek from Poland who is IT magical even without speaking French. And Matteius from Ouagadougou who invited us to use his personal computer for free when we were having trouble in the internet cafe. Again Im lucky to have bothered the correct people! :) I'm usually on a slow computer that will only talk to me in French so c'est difficile pour moi. Puet-etre je dois aller a une cher hotel avec les ordinateurs pour l'aider quand je fait mon blog! Ah! Mon Dieu.

Solo in Togo

2007-02-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

January 25th, 2007.. I hadn't planned to come here, but here I am in Togo. Stefan and I get treated on our arrival at the hotel/campground in Dapoang to some local whiskey made from palm trees and dates. Yummy stuff. Seems people are going to be nice here too..

The guys and I go seperate ways and I join the ranks of the African mini buses and other forms of public transport. -Overloaded with people, bags, produce, etc., -leaning heavily to one side or the other and in general in dilapidated condition. My feet are on a bag and I have one of those thoughts that never occur to me on buses in Dublin, "Gee, I better check to make sure there aren't any live birds in that bag." There aren't, but surprise surprise live birds are under someone else's feet. Guinea hens. A relatively short ride is rendered painful by a driver eager to stop and pile more people in at every oppurtunity even after it's impossible.

I get to Kara and it becomes quickly apparent that as a solo white female here I'm going to get a lot of attention. Three guys at the internet shop try to convince me that I should have a baby with one of them. They said he'd be a great father, he has 2 kids already. It's 'more the merrier' here. I had to work all of this out in French of course which gets interesting but I know how to say the word, 'Non'.

Internet is close to impossible in the region, it's just too slow or there's no connection or what good is a connection without electricity anyway.. hmm?? Africa makes you appreciate the finer things in life like consistant electricity, RAIN!, hot water taps, water taps full stop.. (not that water taps necessarily work in Ireland, but with existance exists potential.) And I'd love to be in an internet shop where I don't have to bring a book..

Back to all the attention. In some ways this is an advantage. -People come up to talk to me. -my hotel tells me where to buy bus tickets to Lome for the next day, wants me to take a moto, then when I say I'll walk since it's close they come after me on a moto and take me there for free. And that was a good thing because though they'd showed me where it was on the map it was no where near there. Perhaps they knew that they couldn't work out the map.. I don't know.

I'm on the Posh bus this morning when I leave for Lome, but it's not without a hitch. It's all very organized and seats and tickets are ticked off and checked, but it seems the wealthier women of Togo are the size of a house... and so I'm once again crammed into a bus because the woman next to me overflows out of her seat. But she was nice. I met a peace corps volunteer and his visiting mother on that bus when I asked them if they could explain why we went darting over to the side of the road and everyone including the driver is leaning excitedly out the window and shouting out numbers. Apparently there was a stand selling bushrat.. or grasscutter.. I'm not sure which, but a large rodent -skinned -stretched- and beheaded. The auction was on.. And then off we went with several little corpses stuffed precariously over my head in the bus shelves.

Lome. Is a basket case. Ramshackle. Really run down. I read something about loads of political problems in the 90's not really resolved of course, bodies dumped on the steps of embassies, massive exodus of population to neighboring countries, rife instability and corruption. What I see are dirt streets, shacks, street stalls, electrical outages (constantly).

But again people are really friendly. Curious. Moto drivers get Rock Star Status at red lights with me on the back because all the other moto drivers want to talk to me and then to them and it's all smiles and laughs and more questions and "HHHOOOOOONNNNKKK!!!" from the cars behind who are not privy to the conversation. Everyone says 'oh' 'ee!' 'ah' and off we all scoot as it's the cars behind who remind them that they were waiting for a green light. Being on my own causes people to come up and talk to me. Or just talk about me, and sometimes I find out that people talking about me but not to me have walked off after buying me breakfast. Retired men invite me to sit and chat over a coke and won't let me pay for it. I have a collection of phone numbers and email addresses since I keep insisting I don't have a number here myself. -all men of course.

Not that I'm fooled. After a year of no attention whatsoever in Dublin I have no delusions that I've become a supermodel overnight. These guys see a commodity in me that no western guy is ever going to see. Money and a possible visa oppurtunity. They all want to know where I'm from. I say I live in Ireland and this is a source of confusion. If I said America well hey they know everyone there is dripping with gold because they too have seen it with their very own eyes on MTV Cribs and in Hollywood movies. But Ireland. Where the hell is that??

Anyhow, at the police station they tell me where I must go for my visa extention and one asks me to come back later. At the cafe the guy gives me his number. Walking down a busy road the ARMY sentries STOP TRAFFIC and make me cross the street to them. (Shit is this for a bribe? I'm thinking..) But no, one of them just wants to tell me he loves me. Then walking back in a shower of horns designed specifically to shatter my eardrums enough that I will seek relief in one of these tooting taxis, Peter stops. I didn't know Peter yet, but after he laughingly convinces me that no he's not a taxi, that he's just offering me a ride, and showing me his government issued ID card as a tax collector.. ok, I accept the ride. If you travel alone you have to trust people sometimes, as difficult as that is for me, or you never talk to anyone..ever. Peter doesn't speak English. Peter of course was also in love with me, but he accepted it when I told him that that was not on. I told him I had a boyfriend in Ireland (ha ha!! Not true, and I hate to lie but it is just easier in some instances). Over the next few days Peter would come and meet me for breakfast and he ferried me back and forth a bit and gave me a little Togolese Agenda Book. I got to practice my French and got quite conversational, talking about politics and loads of other stuff. And usually I knew what we were talking about. I knew what I meant anyway. So I enjoyed my time in Lome because I met mostly good people there.

I did have one incident at dusk where I was walking down the street with my Thai handbag on one shoulder and a shopping bag of food in the other hand. A guy of about 20 approached on my left and instantly made me uneasy. Then a guy came on my right and I realized immediately that they were together and that this was bad. I didn't even talk to them when the second one showed up, I just backed straight up and left them staring back at me. I stared at them for a bit and crossed the road. They were up to something and I wanted them to know I knew it. Possibly they were going to grab both bags and hope for one. But I clocked on to them and got away.

Mostly it's been good.. the electricity goes out constantly and leaves me sweating to death without a fan at night, it's too hot, I had to kill a refusing-to-die cockroach the size of a pet, I was fed bushrat when I ordered the vegetarian dish, and on day three in my hotel I notice worms living in the water that used to only be a UNESCO Protected World Heritage Mosquito Breeding Ground otherwise known as my sink. I'm gonna have to get myself wormed when I get home. Like a dog. Do I go the the doctor or the vet for that? Please help me. . And I have a gorgeous mix of a golden brown tan on face, arms and the bits of my toes that stick out of my sandals -and my Irish Tan on the rest of me. Beautiful. And I forget how to speak Korean for French. I met a Korean couple running a photo shop and couldn't talk to them. Ended up talking to them in a mix of Korean and French of all things. Their employees wrote my name on the envelope as Ms. Christ. Wonder how God would feel about that one..

Kpalime. -Has been talked up in the guide book for it's waterfalls and lake you can swim in 'even in the dry season'.. well.. things have either changed or the author of this section of the Lonely Planet Guide book.. never actually went there. The town of Kpalime itself is not bad, again people are friendly and I have a chat with the hotel ladies. I tried to go to the waterfalls on Feb.4, a Sunday. The book describes the waterfall at Kplime Seva as 'not much in the dry season but you can walk 30 minutes up to the lake at the top, a popular weekend spot and a guide is unnecessary.' So I didn't expect to be alone.. getting off the moto.. for a pack of flies posing as guides to descend upon like as in a feeding frenzy.

I lose all but the seediest one by saying no I don't need a guide thanks. He follows me even though I've said no. Nattering away at me in French. Me saying I don't understand French and making him repeat it in English. Then I'd answer him in French and he'd speak French again. I'd tell him I didn't understand again. Round and round we went. I was trying to wear him out. At a place where we were alone he gets tired of this and tells me to pay him 1000 francs and he'll leave. I say no. why. He gets in front of me and pushes me backwards saying 'then leave!'. I go to get round him and he pushes me again. I push back. We get in this little wrestling match about 5 different times. Him saying, 'leave' me saying, 'no you leave.' I stop. Something I've learned about adversaries such as these is they often lack patience and endurance. I fold my arms and say, "ok. We will wait until someone else comes along." And I glare at his face remembering every detail for later. His gaze goes from my face to my bag as he wonders if he can get that away from me and keep his teeth in their present terrible state. At this point I'm mad and willing to try to make myself a force to be reckoned with. I wonder how far this little scrap is going to go and think shit I wish I hadn't left the Hatori Hanzu on the movie set. Five minutes later he breaks and leaves. He lives in the village here so he does have something to lose. But I worry he's off to get his Little Fly Friends.. I hear a moto on the road later and duck off behind some weeds where I can see but they can't. It's not The Fly.

The walk is much longer than it's supposed to be. Two hours go by. It ends up the same moto returns and I get the driver to take me to the lake. Which is dirty and weedy and not swimable AT ALL. And no one is there. -The Lonely Planet completely wrong in this case. I get the moto guy to take me to town, but I arrange to stop in the village because I want to see the chief. At the bottom of the hill are 3 older men sitting in the shade. I stop my moto and tell them what happened (French! in french! and they understood!!). The oldest one jumps on another moto and drives up with my moto to the Resting Place For Flies (there's maybe 12 of them) at the entrance where they accost tourists. I point him out, "He is there, with the very bad teeth." -In front of his friends, because if you're going to behave like that you give up all rights to be described as beautiful. The old man starts shouting at him. The rest of them come to me, sorry sorry madame, sorry. The Fly comes over and tries to put his hand on my shoulder, sorry sorry, but I'm having none of that. I swish him away with, "Ne toucher pas! Bouge de la!" And whether it's correct or not he gets it. I told the old man I'm an author for guide books. I want to make as big a deal out of this as possible so that this little weed thinks twice before doing that again. I am tall and not so easy to push around. Another tourist at another time might have more of a problem if it comes to confrontation so I want The Fly to remember this as a negative experience. I ask to see the chief still, but am told he's not in town.

So I have my moto driver drop me at the police station in Kpalime. Not that the police are going to do anything, but the moto driver lives in the village so he will certainly go back and report that I've been dropped at the police station. And this is about all I can do except tell people in the town what happened and I certainly did this. I tell guys I meet in the cafes and I tell the ladies from the hotel. They are shocked and then it becomes smiles and "Bon courage, sister. Bon courage". But I don't realize how this little event affects me until I get to the beach the next day. I also tell the hotel I'll leave a day early because of these guys. With all of this, hopefully news will get back and The Fly will think twice before he tries this one on again. Hopefully. There is enough to worry about in Africa without this. All sorts of scary diseases. I'm told that the children I see with the really snotty noses.. well that's malaria. So I can see how prevelent it is. And I'm reminded of my friend Kinga who tragically died here last June of this. I'm taking my pills. I'm taking my pills..

So this day was a flop. I ended up back in my hotel room with the explicit 'how to' poster on the application, use, and disposal of condoms in cartoon picture style that is posted in most hotel rooms. This is good this program. It's a UN program and it's good to see the UN doing something other than driving around in expensive white vehicles and forcing me off the road into landmined areas when they see me someplace they think I don't belong.

I return to Lome the next day after meeting 3 Italian speaking Swiss people who tell me of a nice campground/auberge about 15 K outside of town on the beach. I go there. To a place called Chez Alice. The Swiss people are friends with Alice from years ago. Alice is a 73 years old tough bird from Germany and for the first time in a while a good group of people develops around me again. I meet people from Sweden, Latvia, Germany, France and Togo while I'm here. Plus the nice Swiss ppl. The Swedish and Latvian guys are on an around Africa trip on motorbikes. I end up catching a ride to town my first day with the Latvian one, Kasper, when he sees me stranded on the road, my driver's moto having given up the ghost. -And wound up spending the next few days with the three of them. I wish them luck on their vast adventure.

When a Togolese guy approached me on the beach though, I automatically backed up because I was alone and this is where I realized I'd been affected more than I thought by the experience in Kpalime. But he only owned a snack shop on the beach and he wanted to tell me. When I backed up like that and he learned why.. he gave me a pineapple and a necklace. When I came to his restaurant to buy a coke later to be nice more than anything else.. he wouldn't let me pay for it. I have to remember that most people are good. Most people in most places are good.

I didn't really do too much in the 3 or 4 days I was here, just lazed on the beach and played cards, and talk and talk but it was nice. Met loads of cool people. One of the Swedish guys was complaining that "everybody likes you! even Helmuth is nice to us now (an older German man they'd had a conflict with) -because he likes you!".. I told him don't worry, there's plenty of people in my other life who don't like me. But it was restoring to have a good group of people around me for a while.

I left the beach on Feb. 9th. Tired of sand. New friends have moved on. Ants keep trying to get into my bag and the lizards keep pooping on my bed here. It occurs to me that this is another one of those things I never think of in Dublin. Like I never say to myself, "Gee I better turn on the light and make sure the lizards haven't pooped on my bed. " On my way out the door Alice thinks I've paid my previous bill. I could have gotten away with saving 23£ English and that's a bit of money. But I could not try to get away with this. These people have been nothing but nice to me so I told her that no I haven't paid. She's grateful and sends me off with a hug and a kiss on each cheek and gets a taxi for me. Well yes everybody liked me here and that's a nice feeling. Now it's a new crossroads. I leave for Ghana and new adventures today.

From Dogon Country to the Elephants in Benin

2007-02-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

Douenza.. Dogon Country. January 16th or so.. The road from Timbuktu to Douenza consists of Kerstin and I being bounced along in the camper van (which we're not allowed to call a camper van according to Stefan who says, "It's not a camper van! It's a monster!" Kerstin then named it "Campi" and it stuck. :) Several bounces launch us into the air to land on comfortable things like tool boxes and a camel skull. This road proves the undoing of Campi.. Ah the luxury of a private vehicle at the moment though..

In Douenza, Kerstin manages to arrange a trip on motos for the four of us. I'm usually ok zipping along on backs of motos but this is in sand and from all the slipping the one I'm on is doing it's obviously not suited. I was definately nervous. For the most interesting village, we hiked up a mountain to get there while our moto drivers slept under a tree. This was a village where the women seemed to hold the power and they were grumpy before we got there. The cheif, who seems a bit hen-pecked, was not grumpy. Kerstin and I were both wearing Tuareg necklaces but hers had fallen luckily for her under her shirt. Mine had not. So there I was with a pendant from an enemy tribe in the midst of already grumpy women. Awesome. I put that away when I realized what was going on when they realized what I had.. and I apologized and tried to explain that for me it is just art, but there was nothing I could do beyond that. I think it's just a part of it that if you travel a lot, you're going to make mistakes once in a while and it's all about how you try to recover from it. In any case you gotta love that, 'please can I crawl in a hole in the ground now' feeling.

That night at the campground where Kerstin and I are sharing a room, I get locked in the room because who ever has attached the handle has not checked that it can be opened from the inside. The positioning of the handle is such that it is stopped by the wall when you try to open it from the inside. Kerstin is dying with laughter when I call her from inside the room to rescue me. And this is one of those few times in Mali where we don't even have to argue about what is wrong in French. We just grabbed one of the Malian guys and stuffed him in the room without any info and told him to try to get out... "ok ok!" he finally says and we let him out. Hilarious. And out come all the tools and they fix it after they say that 'someone' must have turned it wrong. Lucky we weren't both in the room when it first happened.

Mali was a bit annoying with money and arguments. Several instances of getting a price for things and then when you want another for a friend the price goes up.. 'Ah, you want that do you, ok it's now double the original price because 5 flies have landed on it since your friend bought one'. Interesting concept. Money and the pursuit of ten times the real cost of things is the root of most arguments in Mali I think. Always with them saying, 'Pas de probleme' -not a problem. I have fond memories of Kerstin, "Non. C'est une probleme. C'est une probleme pour nous!" because it's only pas de probleme when it's not a problem for the seller...

Sadly Kerstin has to leave us, but I've been invited to join the boys to the Parc National D'Arly and Parc de Pendjari in Benin. Sure. I didn't make any plans for this trip so there's no plan to change. Off we go to the border with Burkina Faso. Campi has a large map of Africa and zebra stripes painted on it and I'm quizzing the kids who gather when we stop on where Mali is on the map. They don't usually know. One time I'm asked where America is on the map of Africa. That's as bad as American or Korean geography knowledge... At the immigration procedures for Burkina Faso the officials point out that my visa doesn't start for 3 days yet. Beautiful.. I put on my best smiles and apologies. And they say no problem! And let me in. I'd not planned exactly when I was leaving Mali, but had guessed 3 days wrong when I got the visa made in Bruxelles and luckily forgotten about that completely or I would not have come along.

We don't get into Ouahigouya til after dark and that's a bit intimidating. But people are nice. They help us find the campground we want, even leading the way with a moto and then not asking for money, just wanting to be nice. We must not be in Mali anymore. It amazes me how a line in the sand can change things completely sometimes and that is the case here. I admit meeting nice people in Mali and having a great time, but there were a lot of people there who were quite keen to milk tourists for way more than what was appropriate.

Spending time in Burkina Faso makes this all the more apparent. No one is here shoving stuff under our noses to try to force us to buy them and no one tried to rip us off. They're just happy we stop in their shops. People are so nice, it's hard to believe we've been told not to be out after dark for 600 escaped prisoners in the capital recently and a shootout between the police and the military. And on about Jan 19 I'm realizing I'm starting to be able to speak and understand French again. Enough to get by. Goody. I keep arranging campground prices and the women keep asking to come along with us when we leave. Until they realize we're not headed back to Europe tomorrow.

The two parks butt up against each other and Campi is tricked out with 4 wheel drive and a GPS system so we can get through on back roads from one to the next and be in Benin without a visa... although I suppose we wouldn't want to announce this in Benin.. We spent 2 days at the park and anyone who knows me knows I loved that. Animals galore. We saw a desert fox, grasscutters (a rodent who I have since eaten but I did not mean to!!), crocodiles, hippos out of the water again, loads of beautiful colorful birds and antelopes. Saw monkeys, 4 mongoosey type thingys who scampered along.. I don't know.. , groups of baboons.

One time when we were parked at a campground a troop of baboons surrounded us like a pack of Dublin pre-teens and I was a bit worried, but they didn't throw bottles and rocks at us when we wouldn't give them cigarettes. It wasn't until we waited at a watering hole all the second day that we saw what we came for.. elephants. (And we saw hippos who refused to come out of the water here, FINALLY!). The first Ele. was a big male and he magestically and gently pulled water up with his nose and poured it in his mouth for quite a while. We left when he did, but pulled up when we spied a group. Heading back to the waterhole since we knew they'd go there, we got to see a group of 5 adults and 3 babies. One an itty bitty thing -too cute.

Leaving the next day, the road from Timbuktu plus the dirt track we're on are the final straw for Campi and the shocks give way on one side. There we are 60 kilometers into a really bad road in Nowhere, Burkina Faso. Stefan fashions a brace and we came up with a way to secure it enough so we can drive out. This all takes time and the curious villagers have come in from the fields to see what excitement is going on. The Staring Committee is in full force.. One older man bends down next to Stefan and picks the detested krum krums off of his shirt while he works away under the van- (Monster?)... They're curious and want to help. Kind.

At the breakneck speed of 4 kilometers an hour we crawl for 60 kilometers (no I'm not doing the math) out of the dirt track and onto pavement at dusk. Just in time to find the closest auberge at the closest town, I mean village, I mean not much. But it's called Pama, and the people at the camp/auberge are really nice and arrange for a mechanic to come the next day. My French is getting a workout now...

And next day it's a party with five African mechanics happily under Campi playing with all the fancy tools the boys have and scaring us to death with their utter lack of care with little things like making sure the Monster does not fall and kill them all. I'm helping translate and they want oil, saying this would make things easier. Stefan gives them lubricant in a spray can and oooo they like that. The lead mechanic then sprays some on his fingers and puts them in his mouth! I slap his arm, "No! don't eat! Bad for you!" in French and of course they fall about the place laughing over this. By the end of the day they've done an African Fix and welded together parts that really should be replaced but this is not possible here. So we're on the road again and over the border to Togo the next day...

Festival au Desert in a Land of Almost No Return

2007-02-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2007. Nine months of managing a hostel of 100 beds in Dublin, Ireland was enough... and I headed to Africa completely unprepared. Months of ignoring friends' emails, pressing projects, learning French, opening my guide book could not be resolved in the two weeks before I left.. especially since this was over the holidaze in Dublin and everyone conspired to either have me out partying or have banks, pharmacies and shops closed when I needed them. The only thing I managed to do before I left was spend some small time online and find Val on the Lonely Planet thorntree. -Another solo traveler who was on the same plane from London into Bamako as I. We met over the internet and telephone and agreed to find each other at the airport.

And this made things incredibly easy. I met Val at the airport and then met Kerstin from Germany and several other people while we waited for the next plane in Casablanca.
My first introduction was stuffing bags, guitars, people and alcohol onto and into the car of a contact Val had in Bamako and then the driver having an argument with the gate keepers of the airport because the gate stopped working after he put the money in. This at 4am or so..
We get to a house where we can sleep (thanks Val!!) for 3 hours which makes 10 hours for me all together over the last three days and we're up again to see Bamako. First thing I notice in the supermarkets is you can get decent deodorant, shampoo and hair conditioner here.. things I struggle to find in Dublin.. We then went to the Grand Mosque and the fetish market where you can buy heads of reptiles and skins of endangered animals... buying is not recommended, but these are also difficult to see in Dublin..

Luckily the next day we didn't get up in time to catch our bus to Mopti and in showing up an hour late, it's actually ready to leave. Again I'm incredibly lucky as my friend Silvia who helped me arrange visas when we were in Dublin and who got me onto the volunteer list for the organization of the Festival au Desert happened to be staying at the same hotel as my new found friends. Practically crashed into her even, as she sped up on the back of a moto and we sped into the lot in a taxi.
Silvia and her friend Marie have arranged a boat up the Niger River to Timbuktu for us, (I've been so indispensable at planning so far haven't I), and up we go for three days on a small motorized boat called a pinasse. Wow that was great. We saw loads of birds, - hawks, egrets, herons, cormorants, kingfishers and green bee eaters. We even saw monkeys and hippos and they were posing pretty as you please out of the water! It's a pretty cold time of year here so we're wrapped up all day in our turbans and wooly blankets and camping on the shores at nights with sand and stars and it's just beautiful! I loved that boat trip. Even went for a swim in the Niger one evening. We stop at villages and kids come running sometimes to shout "cadau, cadau, tubab! Cadau!" Meaning "give us a gift whitey" basically... but many times just to grab our hands and totter along with us grinning. The girls pull at my hair and rings and they all yabber away at Silvia, Marie and the Swiss group we're sharing our chartered boat with. Me, I can't speak French at all because remember all that studying I did before my trip along with the planning?? well yeah.

We arrive at Timbuktu, well not.. but at the port for it and we wait.. 2 little red finches come visit us in the boat for a while and don't seem scared at all.. they must be used to this waiting.. We get a ride to Timbuktu and the rendezvous point for the festival volunteers and wait some more.. And then all pile into 5 four wheel drive vehicles. Everyone darting in and out, Tuaregs yapping away with each other, guitars and bags being loaded and unloaded. People get tired of waiting in cars and pile out again, then suddenly we're actually leaving for Essakane and people get piled in again. The faffing factor here was pretty high.. this became quite comical later. At the edge of town all 5 vehicles come to a stop, people jump out and back in again, bags, people, musical instruments get moved again from one vehicle to the next and then we all set off again with exactly the same number of people and bags and guitars.. just all in rearranged places. Phew, glad we stopped to sort that out.. We're still all crammed in so I really don't know what changed.. Then we stop again. In. Out. Yap yap in Tuareg. French. People shouting why have we stopped??! Back in. start up again. Then it's prayer time and all the Tuaregs jump out and bow down in the direction of Mecca. Ok. Back in again. It gets dark. Our car gets stuck in sand. The guys in front of us stop to ask if we're ok.. on a hill so we get stuck in sand again and our driver seems to have said something along the lines of "WELL WE WERE OK!" Off we go. Another vehicle gets a flat tire. People try to get out, but now there are krum krums everywhere.. these evil desert prickers that stick in skin and clothing for the rest of your life!! Some of the vehicles move on. Another one gets lost... And all this in only 70 kilometers of sand track between Timbuktu and Essakane. Who could have known that so much action could be packed into such a small track?

We arrive after dark and stuff is not ready. The decision is made to sleep in the large artist's tent. An evil overweight French shrew who is working with VIPs apparently takes a disliking to that and has a shouting match with some of the organizers but she loses this battle. She turns out to be someone who all of us wonder 'why is this one here involved with something fun when she is just obviously unable to have fun?'

Disorganization reigns supreme for the entire festival and poor Silvia and Marie are worked to death by the press. The people who we're working for are quite nice and are trying to fill in gaps left by the people they are working for. Through it all I am blessedly useless not speaking French. Don't know how this happened really because other English speakers were put to work with English speaking artists, but there just weren't enough to go round I guess and shucks.. I get to spend my time watching the festival or hanging out backstage and onstage. Poor me.

The festival itself was spectacular even if disorganized. Saw and met some great artists. Habib Kiote. Bassekou Kouyate. Afel Bocoum. Tinarawin. Liam and Paddy from Ireland! And 2 guys who used to be in the String Cheese Incident.. a band I'd seen years ago.. who were now playing in Pangea Project. One of them is Korean. I can't speak French, but I can have a chat in Korean. So many more artists. The music was fantastic all 3 nights. On Saturday Tinariwen played.. a family of about 18 Tuaregs and they were really good. I never met them though, just ducked under several who were having heated arguments with the door guy. There's me, 'excuse me' ducking under a bunch of shouting men with swords.. interesting.

The festival outside of the music. -The Sahara is harsh. Hot during the day. Cold and wind driven sand at night. Sleeping outside is no for I'll get buried even though I try the first night as there's not enough space for us all. Even in the tent we're covered in sand by morning. The krum krums SUCK, but the Sahara is all the time beautiful even with soft sand ruined by these. The Tuaregs with their nomadic lifestyle packed onto the backs of camels are fascinating. At one point when I am sitting in the dunes in the back with Kerstin (from the plane and who I found again at the festival) and several other new friends, a group of about 15 Tuaregs, men and women, come sit down. They're crammed into a space suitable for maybe 5 people huddled together and using us as a wind break. In their flowing blue and indigo robes and nattering away in Tuareg which sounds like Arabic a bit to me, they somehow make me think of bats, clinging there in the dunes if the world was turned upside down, gravity working opposite to usual. There's something wild and animal like about them. It's amazing to be seeing them here. Talking to them in my broken French. Watching them set up tents and work with their camels. And woah I've stepped off a boat and into all those National Geographic photos that always captivated me.

After the festival on the Friday night, friends and I went into the Disco Tent and that was just hilarious. Picture loads of men jumping up and down to electronic music in blue robes, turbans and swords attached at the hip.

I've attracted a lot of attention here in Africa traveling as a solo, single white female. Most of that I know is just people looking for better opportunities, but the Tuaregs are different. They actually seem to be curiously cracking on to me. Because I'm tall as well as look different?? I don't know. But I had several instances of Tuaregs who seemed to want to meet me and take me into their world as opposed to the rest of the African guys cracking onto me who want me to take them to mine. So at one point in this disco I was grabbed forcefully by the arm and just levitated about 20 feet left by a little tiny exceptionally strong man in turban and robe and suddenly I found myself in a circle of about 18 of them. I panicked. Couldn't help it, just darted away again. I didn't want to be rolled up in a carpet and tied onto a camel to be carried off into the desert.

At another time, one talked to me for a while and then wanted to retie the turban that was draped around my neck. I let him and when doing that he cupped my jaw in his hand. That's all. Harmless. But the strength and agility in these people showed even in that. I was really fascinated by them. And when he gave up and left he did what all the rest did. Just disappeared. He melted into the sand.

Habib Kiote, the last act on the last night, played until 4:30am. So again, no sleep for Chris for about 3 days you see. For getting out of Essakane, things again are interesting with broken vehicles, no show vehicles and all us volunteers piled in the sand save those who must must must get to airports such as Silvia and Marie. I jump in Kerstin's ride as I don't want to live in the desert for the rest of my life...

And once in Timbuktu, we hitch a ride to center.. with 2 guys from Bavaria, Germanland. Stefan and Nickolas. We end up traveling with them for a few days. The 4 of us trying to get food at the restaurant in Timbuktu was the first hurdle... they were busy and an hour and then another goes by. Who comes in then but Habib Kiote from the festival stage night before. We have a chat, tell him the show was great and then Kerstin the wise one, tells him he'll really be our Rock Star if he puts a hurry up on our food. He appeals to the kitchen and low and behold the food arrives. So there. The way to get things done in Mali is to get one of West Africa's biggest musicians on your side. Excellent.