Maa ngi tudd Gaberoo

A little over two moons ago I arrived on the African continent. I came with the hope of doing good things and saving the world. And even though I cannot really say I did so, I tried my best and in the end that is all we really can do.

However, one cannot be completely selfless forever. So I have packed my bags and am now on the road again, once again discovering what is hidden in obscure places around the globe.

This tale begins in Dakar, Senegal with the arrival of The Rafi (as he shall be called from this point on). I myself, of course, had already been completely accustomed to the Afican way of life, but it seemed like a good idea to give The Rafi a few days time before heading into the bush. Plus, my temporary Roommates had organized a Youssou N’Dour concert to fight Malaria (because moskitoes, in contrast to humans cannot stand Youssou N’Dour and he wrote special music to sing them out of Senegal once and for all – really!). In any case, we had super special VIP tickets and were invited to the pre-event cocktail party with a special secret screening of the new movie about Youssou. And people say life in Africa is though, pffff…

So, after a week-end of glamour, the suit and tie returned to the closet and we strapped on the hiking boots and started towards the Gambia, along a road slightly less travelled that would take us through the Sine-Saloum Delta just South of Dakar. Along with our backpacks and some supplies, we had picked up a stray traveller the day before at the Gambian embassy (call him Mr. John IV). The fierceless duo thus became a trio and so the story begins.

Our first stop brought us to a town called Joal, with an adjoining island known to most as Fadhiout. Somewhat on the tourist trail, the island is none the less worth a visit. If not for the houses built from bricks made out of seashells, there is an impressive footbridge leading into town, from which local kids will gladly jump into the water so that you can take a picture of an African child in the ocean, for a small fee of course, something that struck me as slightlzy bizarre but failed to impress most of the other Toubabs (White Person).

An egg sandwich later and slightly suffering from African Egg Blindness (itchy eyes that you get from eating an overly greasy egg sandwich in an extremely stuffy egg shack) we left the confines of paved roads and started driving through the Senegalese Savannah on the back of a pick-up truck. The trip lead us through a bunch of tiny villages, most of which got you thinking of the differences between our life back home and the hardships of growing up a few thousand kilometers away. People were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and others came abord, always with a friendly greeting the fellow travellers and occasionally the specific realization that there were strangers amoungst them who meritted a special Ahhh, Bonjour les Toubabs!.

Shortly after, we arrived at our first over-night stop in a town called Palmarin, a somewhat forgotten strip of Paradise on the beach. Bungalows 50 meters from the ocean with hardly a soul around that make you wonder why how people have a good time on the crowded beaches of Southern France.

There’s more to come, but time is up. Check back soon! G

A little while back, somewhere wedged in between dreaming about Senegalese HSS and quantifying the Cameroonian need for lube, I managed to hitch a ride out into the middle of nowhere, a.k.a. Louly Ngogom, with some of the Peace Corps chaps. We watched village wrestlers appease the gods, ate dinner with the village chief, climbed baobabs and ventured through the portal into Narnia. See things through my eyes…

Dakar on a breezy Saturday afternoon: marvelous. The gang just got back from the beach. We went out to buy boogie boards this morning and drove down to Virage to show off our skills. A rewarding alternative to surfing’s steep learning curve. I’m starting to get used to the city. It’s hard to believe I’ve already been in Africa for over two months. Time flies when you’re busy. “Work hard and party hard” is the motto – some people should take their own advice. It’s somewhat amusing to have a foot in two worlds that seem to exist side by side, and yet they don’t appear to be very compatible. Super successful consultants for dinner and a toothless photographer travelling from Berlin to Benin for desert. Must be the culinarily challenged American part of me that enjoys meshing and mixing (no offence to my loved ones in the USofA – cheese whiz might taste good but it most definitely isn’t a culinary master piece). Reminds me of Kevin’s eating habbits. It’s all about the mix, right? The view from our balcony is as stunning as always. T-5 days before Rafi gets here and then the great West African voyage begins. For now, only the Baobab gods know where the wind will take us.

A coffee shop in Dschang, somewhere in the western hills of Cameroon. A pleasant trade off from Nescafé and condensed milk. I have the feeling of being in Cuba, and yet I was never there. Rhythmic music and a bunch of middle-aged men in umatched suit pants and sportscoats having breakfast. I realize I have gotten used to being the odd one out. The caffeine is starting to take effect and I can feel my heavy eye lids getting lighter. I’ve been reminded of why I love to travel – you have my thanks. I wonder why a wanderer is always an attraction and assure myself that there is value in slow travel – he was wrong. I begin to ask myself if it’s possible to get along with everybody without sacrificing your own principles. The old men are sitting around gossiping. They seem content with what they have. Where are these old men back home? I wonder if I’m unknowingly searching for something. What would be worse: never finding it or never understanding what it is? I try to remember life back then, when there were no cell phones or internet and it was easy to hide. I think about the human butterfly effect – is life chaotic? Which would mean that at the same time it can be described by a set of rules. I start philosophizing and wonder why it seem bad things that happen to you have a stronger effect on your life than good things? Maybe it’s because they make you change the direction in which you are heading, rather than reinforce the path you’re currently on. The coffee grains start to appear at the bottom of my cup. A whirlwind frozen in time, a story of its own.

Almost two weeks have passed since my arrival on The Dark Continent. Things are starting to settle in and I guess I’m getting used to living 14° north of the equator. Work is starting to pile up and I’ve made contact with the key players here in Senegal concerning the proposal I’ll be helping them with.

This post, however, is about a specific event. As I have mentioned, I managed to break my camera shortly after arrival. The poor camera has been through a lot with me – our journey together started late 2005 in Hong Kong. It even has gone swimming with me (cheers Karoline) and this is not the first time it needed to go to the doctor. Considering it’s age and the eventual cost, however, I wasn’t convinced that it would be worth getting it fixed and thus started researching possbile replacements. Now, the electronics retail industry here in Dakar doesn’t quite compare to the one back home: everything is sold by very sketchy vendors and at steep prices. I did find one of the two camera’s I decided on (for double what it would cost in Switzerland).

That being said, walked out of the store and decided to try one last random guy in the middle of the Sandaga Market (think Marrakech or the shouk in Yaffo) to see if he could fix my old camera and how much it would cost. Naturally, he immediatly offered to have his brother fix it for some price that magically appeared to him. And, in what must be one of my most daring business transactions I agreed. “Of coooourse, no probleeem. Give me a down payment and Monday morning 8am you will have your cameraaaaa,” he said. He even gave me a receipt, how could I doubt them??
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Remembering the words of a very “wise” friend of mine, “Es git kaini böse Mensche uff dere Wält”, (There are no bad people in this world), and since the value of the camera to me is zero if it is broken and I buy a new one, I decided to believe in the good nature of mankind. I do, however, wonder what your input would have been, had you been standing beside me at that point in time. So, here is a doodle where you can vote on if you think everything will be fine or if i just sold my broken camera for $-20.

Link for e-Mail and Facebook readers (go to my blog website for the full experience).

(I also wonder who actually reads these posts ) I will publish the following events as they occur.

The adventures continue, and so do the tales. Almost a week has passed since I first set foot on the desert soil of Sub-Saharan Africa. Is it much different than I expected? Most likely I’d answer that with “yes”, but then again, I’ve only been here a week.

Apart from the fact that I was almost not let into the country, (Note to self: It pays off to actually know more about the place where you are going to be staying than just ‘with some friends’. You’d think I’ve already run into this problem, especially while CouchSurfing, but this is the first time the border guard actually seized my passport and threatened to send me back onto the plane that was going to … I don’t even want to know. Double-Note to self: long parentheses really break the flow of a story), my arrival went quite smoothly. My suitcases arrived without delay, and somebody had even gone through the trouble of attaching green bow-ties to both of them. I’m still not quite sure what that meant, and I have to admit that at the moment I did fear it was some kind of African tribal sign, indicating to everyone that I was fresh meat, juicy and tender, of course.

Much to my disappointment, nobody else seemed quite as impressed with my African tribal bow-ties as I first did, and I managed to escape the confounds of Dakar-Yoff-Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (I know! right!?!). And there, in the blazing sun of Senegal stood my welcoming party. I had hoped that someone would be standing there with my name written in gold on a marble plaque. But after realizing that spotting one particular person surrounded by many is not quite as difficult when you are a caucasian in Africa, I humbly accepted the absence of the golden plaque.

Now, Vince from Satellite had told me that the taxis in Dakar only seldomly had doors. I can’t believe he lied to me! They all have doors. They don’t always work and they do swing open at unfortunate times (for example on the way home from the airport), but none the less, they have doors. Pffff…

The not-doorless taxi came to a halt in front of a new three storey building that was to become my new home over the next few months. Our sweet pad occupies the top of said storeys (with the middle one destined to become habitat of my boss) and all this comes equipped with a complemenary ocean view and a relaxing roof-top terrace. So much for living in tents, eh?

All was going fair to well – I personnally think Murphy just hadn’t arrived yet. I guess he doesn’t do airtravel so long distances take him more time than me. Ultimately, he did arrive and so just as I was about to retire into my custom-made (!!) bed, the faucet in my bathroom exploded!

Well, it didn’t actually explode per-se, but it did refuse to stop the flow of H2O extruding from it’s spout when it was instructed to do so. Initially unable to find the main water supply switch, I had to rely on my certified engineering skills (dipl. ing. phys. EPF!) and modifiy the pressure equilibrium in order to stop the flow of water. The result looked somewhat like this:
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We did eventually find the main water supply to the bathroom. It was convieniently hidden in a corner of the other bathroom. The plumber didn’t seem to find this the least bit odd, so I just stopped wondering.

Since I will only really start work the coming week, I spent my time this week getting used to living on this continent: Hot days, breezy nights, glass of wine in the flickering shadows of candles lit because of the frequent power outages (~1x day), sunsets on the roof, crazy markets and so forth and so forth. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some impressions of what it looks like here:

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Lonesome chair (on the roof) to sit and watch…

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… the view (from the roof).

P.S.: I managed to get sand in my camera the first day in, so I guess I’ll need to make up by writing thousands of words…