The International Roots Festival in the Gambia officially ends today, but I’m already back in the States. I fully expected this to be the journey of my life.
I didn’t know the half of it.
Arrived back in the United States today after a nine-hour flight from Dakar, Senegal. It actually was an 18-hour trip. A one-hour ferry crossing of the Gambia River, followed by eight hours on the road, most of that on the main Senegalese highway north to Dakar.
There were a lot of things that didn’t go according to plan. The scheduled meetings with the president and tourism minister never came off, even though we still managed to interact with both on multiple occasions.
The incredibly slow wi-fi connection in our hotel made podcasting and posting images impossible. The mere act of opening or refreshing a Web page could take anywhere from three to 15 minutes.
FRIED ELECTRONICS
On the first full day of the festival, the searing heat fried the circuitry in my digital voice recorder. And I had to shut down the camera numerous times and let it sit in the shade to cool down, which meant that I missed a lot of great shots.
But just as no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, no travel plan ever goes completely according to script, especially in this part of the world. My standing rule: Just roll with it.
(Heat aside, I was really happy with the new Canon G12. You’ll get a taste of what can do Sunday evening, when I’m able to post pics again.)
The day before, we walked the streets around our base for the week, the Seaview Beach Hotel. Chilled out at the poolside bar, drinking Julbrew, the national beer, wine and in my case, a soft drink called soft drink.
Not to mention lots of bottled drinking water.
Also on my last day, I picked up a $26 unlocked cell phone that I can use anywhere in the world with the simple change of a SIM card.
SIM cards are a big deal in West Africa. Vendors on the streets in both Banjul and Dakar hawk these things days and night in virtually every public place. Each card comes with its own phone number, which means that every tie you change cards, you effectively have a new phone.
CELEBRITIES
It would’ve been nice to get about discreetly and check out some of the capital, something that the hectic festival schedule had not allowed, but it was impossible. Anywhere we went, we were spotted.
People who’d been seeing us on government-run television all week long greeted us by name. But the not the name on my birth certificate.
More on that later, too.
On our last day, the Gambian national soccer team checked into the hotel in preparation for a match against rival Senegal in the African Cup series. We briefly rubbed shoulders with some world-class “footballers,” as the Europeans call them, and talked soccer for a bit — including some of the racist treatment that African players receive when they play professional ball in Europe.
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
After that, it was time to head for the airport, and a string of emotionally wrenching farewells at the Seaview. Workers there had come to see us as one of them, belonging to them, so our departure was not unlike saying good-bye to family with whom you’d been only just been reunited.
This didn’t happen in isolation, as you’ll see later. By the tine we left, I felt as if we’d been adopted by a nation.
Final hugs and handshakes, last exchanges of business cards and email addresses. One last blinking back of tears. We piled into the same van with the same driver who had brought to us Banjul a week before.
TRADITIONAL TREAT
There was a too-brief respite when was stopped off at the Senegalese town of Kaolack (pronounced COW-lock )for a brief farewell dinner laid on by the daughter and family of our team leader, Ogo Sow.
She had prepared dinner for us, a meal of the Senegalese national dish of fish, vegetables and rice called thieboudienne (pronounced ceebu djenn). Dinner was laid on in traditional Senegalese style, a huge wheel-sized pan of spicy fish, vegetables sweet potato and red rice, st on two tablecloths in the middle of the living room floor.
No individual plates. We sat on low, sturdy wooden stools around the pan and dug in, each to their own section of thieboudienne, washed down with a small, decorative glass of hot green tea spiced with fresh mint.
The only concession to our Western ways was the spoon given to each of us so that we didn’t have to use our hands.
I have no idea how long Ogo’s family spent preparing all this for us, but I can tell you this: It was wonderful. The sweet, flaky texture of the fish, the way with vegetables were perfectly cooked and everything was wonderfully seasoned but not too hot.
There are a lot of world capitals where people would pay handsomely for a meal like this, and it would be worth every cent. Sadly, though, we couldn’t linger. Dakar, and our flight, were waiting.
HELL’S HIGHWAY
Somewhere in the world, there are worse highways than that two-lane road in Senegal. I know that. I just don’t want to see one. Driving over this highway at anything other than walking pace pulls and pushes your spine like a bungee cord.
I was 6’3″ when we left Banjul. I feared I might be 5’7″ by the time we reached Dakar.
In addition to the miniature meteor craters, our government-supplied driver had to contend with multiple police checkpoints, as well as all the cattle and goats and donkeys blithely cross from one side of the highway to the other from unfenced fields.
We made it with two hours to spare. It was barely enough. The scene inside Dakar’s rundown airport was utter chaos, the likes of which I’ve seen only in Paris at the height of the Christmas holiday season.
Unlike Paris, however, where airport security couldn’t care less whether you miss your transoceanic flight, Dakar airport security pushed us to the front of the line and hustled us through the screening process.
Mosquitoes accompanied us into the terminal. I was bitten once for sure that I know of, and maybe twice more. Malaria is a very big deal in this part of the world. If you don’t hear from me a week to a month from now., you’ll know why.
This is the only flight I’ve ever been on where the first thing the cabin crew did after closing the doors was spray down the plane with insecticide. A necessary evil, believe me.
Nine hours and six times zones later, we were back where we’d started the week before, in Washington-Dulles, where every breath you exhale makes you look like an upright, bundled-up dragon with nylon luggage,
For sheer exhilaration, nothing beats the sensation of going from 90-degree West Africa to 15-degree weather in suburban DC in a single jump.
Then again, you could get a bigger bat.
Tomorrow, I’m back in San Diego and can finally start posting some pics. Prepare to have your minds blown.
By now, you’re doubtlessly wondering, if that cell phone was only my third best souvenir from the Gambia, what was Number One. That’s next.
Right now, though, I’m going out to the mall across the way to bring back the night’s dinner. Given the temps out there, I may not come out of this room again until spring.