A bit on my earlier travels...

Because of the lack of decent internet facilities, this is being typed for me back in England (June / July 2006 - in the sun, on a laptop in the garden!) and is a reflection of my trip so far. I am no travelling with a camera and thought it would make a change to write down what I am experiencing. The blog was suggested as a way of keeping it all together.

Agadir to Nouadhibou (March and early April 2006)

The men, women, and their homes in my life… So far…

Africa is still a heavily male-dominated society and it is therefore not surprising that it is young men who are jobless or opportunistic enough to approach me, who then get ‘taken on’ as ‘minders’. They might revel in the attention my presence bestows on them and the image of lots of money coming forth from the ‘white skin’. But I, on the other hand, know that I shall be protected from further harassment and able to negotiate prices and payments which are not blatantly exploitative.

It all started when I offered to share a taxi with two young Polish men who had flown into Agadir with me. They were construction workers in London and part of that wave of Eastern Europeans who are propping up the British labour system. It was late at night and they left me to seek cheap accommodation whist I enjoyed the luxury of my hotel – part of my return flight package which was the cheapest way to get to Agadir. We met the next morning and spent the next day exploring the city and they then showed me where one could get a side-walk tagine meal for a fraction of what tourists pay. It gave me confidence to continue eating there after the boys had gone to explore the rest of Morocco. I did not feel intimidated by my single state after that.

Early in the morning five days later, in Dakhla, I went to the area outside where the twice weekly convoy assembled to go through Western Sahara to Nohadhibou. This convoy system no longer applies, as the dispute between Algeria and Morocco has been settled, and I was persuaded to join a private ‘taxi’. This rattling vehicle is owned by a formidable woman whom I instantly classified as a matriarch and I have not since met another woman with such a personality. Whilst we waited for three hours in case there was another ‘fare’ who would take up the one empty space, her impressively handsome driver, who was wearing a tuareg style turban, with only his eyes showing, showed me how to create the effect. There are apparently 40 different ways of wrapping it. I fell for the ‘eyes-only’ lark over and over again… Once the rest of the face is exposed, the mysterious men no longer have that look which makes one weak at the knees, - And I defy anyone who saw ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ to disagree! But the banter and friendliness once again gave me confidence to know that I need not be intimidated. I was fascinated by the way he started the car with a screw-driver. Little did I realise that that was the best maintained vehicle I would ride in for many a moon.

We were now in Western Sahara, which is being administrated by Morocco. We chugged through the desert on a reasonably well-maintained tar road. One caught glimpsed of miles of the white Atlantic waves attempting to eat the coast of Africa, and then just flat scrub and that sensation that one can see the curvature of the earth. No traffic for long periods, not a bird in sight and one wonders at the irony of getting one’s timing so wrong: we passed a road kill desert fox…

Until recently the conflict between Algeria and Morocco for this piece of land was active, hence the convoys. Today, despite Algerian wishes to have an Atlantic outlet, calm has descended, although 26 Police checks still seem necessary! The conflict remains unresolved and the problem of Western Sahara refugees on Tindouf (Algeria) needs to be addressed. They claim the world has forgotten them. Landmines are only a problem for the traveller at the Southern boarder. There is a 3km no-man’s-land where you need to keep to the untarred tracks before joining the tar road in Mauritania.

Daya, the matriarch, sat in the seat next to her driver and made me aware for the first time of the incredibly complicated Arabic greeting people use. She is a natural chatter, but whenever we stopped for petrol or a snack, she would endlessly greet people with this marvellous ritual of to-ing and fro-ing phrases. Later in Nouadhibou, to just cross an alleyway in the market with her was taken up by endless greetings. But her marvellous nature and confidence in her middleclass status was reflected in her insistence on having the air-conditioning on, despite her refusal to close the windows. And she just matter of factly indicated to me that I shall be staying with her. This of course was an incredibly fortunate thing to happen, as I was thrown into a very strict, but dynamic Arabic family home.

Unquestioning hospitality is an accepted part of Muslim culture and I was to frequently experience this in Mauritania. However by the time I had travelled south to Mali, the attitude that tourists were to be exploited had taken over. Here I first encountered the wonderfully cold and sweet goats-milk drink which is presented to every visitor on arrival. I very nearly made a faux-pax by putting my hands in the bowl being offered, thinking that it was for washing hands. After one has taken a deep draught, the bowl is then passed on to the next visitor.

Deya rules her enclosed town house in Nouadhibou with all the power of her voice and character. There is a large, covered communal area with two open-sided rooms furnished with cushions along the walls and four bedrooms with doors leading off it. Tea making takes place anywhere within the communal rooms and involves a gas-cylinder, small teapot and tray with a few small glasses. The little packets of sugar (about 2 tablespoonfuls) which is the only way I’ve seen sugar sold and a tin of Chinese dark tea are the other ingredients for the incredibly elaborate tea-making ceremony, which ends with you being offered about 2cm of dark, sweet tea. The ‘secret’ is to endlessly pour tea from the small pot into a glass, which is then emptied into another glass, which is then poured back into from a considerable height into the previous glass. After many repeats of this action the stuff is tasted, sugar added, the original tea thrown away and more water added to the residue, that is then brought to boiling again and once again the pouring from glass to glass repeated. Eventually you might get three small sips of tea in three glasses from this. The idea of this is to create froth. I did once count the times the tea was transferred from a height into a glass by a man making tea. (When you do not speak the language but have to wait for your hospitable offering, you can indulge in counting!) He did it 99 times and I was just about to cheer the 100th time when he offered me my sip.

The Nouadhibou house is dominated by females, of whom about 5 are in secondary school and studying science and mathematics. The girls are thoroughly modern, wearing jeans under their milufas and endlessly applying make-up like any teenager. While I was there, the house always had about 16 people in it, although the characters kept changing. Two TVs dominated the communal rooms and tea was constantly being made, or vast platefuls of food consumed: the women in one room and the men in another. I never quite mastered the art of eating with my right hand and keeping it clean.

On the carpets, I saw some well-polished stones, the use of which soon became obvious. Women generally say their prayers indoors rather than anywhere outdoors, as the men do, but to be close to the earth and connect with it, the stone is used as a substitute and rubbed between the hands which are then placed on the face before a prayer is said.

If the family was not eating, drinking or arguing whilst watching TV, they were on their cell-phones. There could easily be six telephones in use at the same time. I began to accept that this is the norm for everyone to have his or her own cell-phone. Even in the poorest household, they seem to be part of modern living.

The children were endlessly eating chocolate bars, then throwing the wrappers on the floor, no matter where. The teenage girls would sneak into a bedroom for a fag and all the detritus of the household would be swept up 3 or 4 times a day, just to instantly reappear. The concept of a trash can or anything to be used as a receptacle for unwanted plastic bags or wrappers is just not there - whether in a house or outside. If only goats were designed to eat plastic! The earlier way of life when everything was biodegradable cannot cope with modern trash and it is sad to see the total lack of concern. People religiously sweep the outside street area of their houses, but the trash is left in a pile, just to be trampled and redistributed once again.

This was the most sophisticated house I’d visited, yet it was as ‘bare’ as any other. Cushions, large dishes and a portable charcoal burner are the most obvious utilities. Water is generally from a well within the property and ablutions done in a lea-to with a hole and bucket of water. Food is not stored as we know it and the children can be sent off frequently during a meal to buy more bread or sugar. The latter in small plastic packets of about two tablespoons…

Nouadhibou to Atar

At Nouadhibou, I took “the longest train in the world” to its end-station at Zouerat. It was such a delightful ride that it can be a chapter on its own. My new minder, Mohamed Ali, or MA, as I called him, was the complete contrast to subsequent minders. (More to be added later…!)

Returning on the train from Zouerat, I left it about quarter of the way back at Choum and took a taxi to Atar. This was a ride of about 3 hours, but the setting sun and desert scenery made it one of the best rides I’ve had. Generally, the sunsets in the desert are unspectacular because the dust in the air and lack of clouds offers no contrast. However this sunset was a golden sphere of defiance after the indignity it had suffered the previous day. People who had travelled thousands of miles to see the sun being eclipsed by the moon, had clapped and cheered and drunk champagne. But the sun soon recovered and continues in its life-giving way. That night the moon followed an hour latter in a subdued, small silver sliver.

We frequently stopped to off-load a passenger. How on earth can people live in the middle of no-where? – Not a building or bush in sight, but off they’d walk and one can but assume there is habitation behind the next rise…

A young passenger next to me offered to let me stay with his family. They lived in the furthest back-streets of the desert town of Atar. Despite the obvious poverty, their hospitality was gracious. But the women kept to themselves and I was given space on the floor of the only building where the men slept. (The women slept under the large shaded area in the yard.) A clever ‘window’ at ground level provided a slight movement of air. Toileting was in the road outside. Ahmede, my minder, with only hand signals and minimal French, managed to show me as much as Atar offered. He had never been to a museum and did seem to enjoy my constant questions and delight in the desert market. We had ‘discussed’ the possibility of my going to Chinguetti (sand dunes and ancient buildings), but when we went to the place where one joins a guided tour, I was so put off by the semi-naked tourists counting out wads of notes, that I decided to leave Atar and my opportunity to be a ‘good tourist’. The contrast between the people who fly from France to see the sand dunes, buildings and the people who live there is so stark, and I am seeing this more and more clearly as I go ‘native’. As one walks through the streets and markets, one is aware of the cry ’white skin’ in whatever language. My minders point this out, but otherwise one would not be aware of the insult / salutation. Ahmed kindly let me stay another night in his family home. This time I slept outside where it is cooler. Just after the cock-crow at about 4.30am I was aware of a strange splish-splosh sound. I glanced into the ‘tent’ where the women slept and could see the old grandmother, who spent most of the day sleeping, sitting crossed-legged with an ancient goat’s skin bag on her left knee. The contents must have been fresh goat’s milk which she was ‘souring’ for the morning drink by rocking it from side to side.

Atar, by bush–taxi, to Nouakchott (early April 2006)

When I bought the taxi ticket the night before for 3,500*, it was 1,000* more expensive than the train journey which is 3 times as long. I felt at home: those of you who have never used the British Rail system, need to know that a simple journey on a British train could cost you £8 to £120 for the exact same trip. But, and here is the selling point, ‘you will be in a Mercedes’. Now this really does impress one and my conjecture is correct. A clapped out car is a clapped out car. But, I must admit, mine did not have a roof rack and 4’ of baggage on it.

I was there by 8.30am (departure time) and it was a good 30 minutes later that the boot and every conceivable hole was filled with luggage. One can but admire the ingenuity of the driver! Items were repacked 3 times and every time he managed to put more in the boot. Well, people were also arriving at an alarming rate! When we finally moved an hour later, we still spent half an hour driving around doing mysterious things.

I sat behind the driver, who had two men squeezed beside him (normal) and next to me were two ladies, a child and a man. If I say that Alexander McCall-Smith would be proud of the ladies’ traditional build, you can visualise the problems we had. I sat with my knees firmly stuck in the driver’s seat. How the gentleman on the other side managed to bang the door closed behind him is still a mystery.

The women began bickering endlessly as they humped and heaved their bodies. The child gave me one look and hid behind his mother’s bosom. We drove through delicate desert scenery with flat topped hills to the east and eventually descended the escarpment. The road is beautifully paved and the drive could have been more pleasant if it was not for the blaring of the music in my left ear and the constant bickering and humping of the flesh to my right.

We stopped in a small town for a car-fix moment and some refreshment. On leaving the sound to my right had completely changed and the two ladies were chatting away as though they have always been the best of friends. The sun is beating down on my side of the car. We stop to help a man forlornly looking at his vehicle. I cannot believe it – it is a 4 seater truck and there is only a driver, a container of water and a spare tyre to be seen. I have become so used to clapped-out, over-filled cars.

By this time my love of the heat is not so passionate. I unravel the milufe which has become far too hot over my head, and wind it into the window to provide shade. All approve. We squeeze in again and this time the girls have managed to swap with one of the men from the front seat. They all melt into nooks and crannies and peace reigns; sleep overtakes all. – Just the occasional views of a few camels on this ‘curvature of the earth’ flatness or a tented structure in ’the middle’ of no-where’.

Not far from Nouakchott we stop for petrol. Great hilarity as the lady in the front is suddenly unable to fit into the space she recently occupied. Shoving from outside and firm door-banging finally gets her settled and the chatting between the two women increases in volume. The boy sleeps through it all.

This is just a tale of many such journeys to come. I can pay for two and hope for more space, but I enjoy the challenge and oneness with ordinary life.

Nouakchott to Nema (7.5.06)

The next man to enter my woman-less cultural exchange was a man from Mali who sat next to me on the two day trip from Nouakchott to Nema, in the distant western Sahel of Mauritania and close to the Mali boarder.

Sounam could speak good English and he was on holiday from work in Nouakchott. He showed and interest in the book I was reading, and in a moment of madness, I gave it to him. He will never read a 1400 page about America… But I also showed him my precious 12-African-Language phrase book. Being in a French speaking area, I really hoped to unravel the mysteries of the language. Unaware that he had pocketed this little book, I happily followed him to his friend’s house where we were made most welcome and I was assured a place to sleep. By now the habit of just finding somewhere to place my sleeping bag and then doss down, clothes and all, was very comfortable. It was too hot to have a covering in and case. Sounam had to leave early to make his connection to Mali and I was happily looking for my phrase book once he had left. Only then did the awful truth dawn and I have been bumbling through Arabic / French territory ever since with no idea of what is being said. A smile and a pathetic look usually works. And I have not yet succumbed to annoying the police patrols by taking my time when filling in the endless forms that are pushed at me, though writing the full title of my nationality instead of UK: i.e. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What other country in the world has such a long name? Even the ‘Islamic Republic of Mauritania’ is not as long.

There I was, stuck in Nema, with a family who had no way of communicating, yet I spent two nights with them, we managed to say the necessaries and weeks later I received an e-mail from a distraught Sounam saying that he thought I had given him the book and where could he get it to me? By this time Karin in London had kindly found me another copy and posted it to Ghana, my only address and, ironically, an English speaking country. I e-mailed Sounam to keep it. What would he as an Arabic, French, English speaker want with Zulu or Swahili phrases? But the fact that his friends informed him of my distress is impressive. This simple family is on the cusp of Westernising and it was sad to see them make such an effort to accommodate me: bottles of pop, table and chair, spoon, biscuits… But the women were ever-friendly and insisted on my taking a ‘Mali’ outfit for the next part of my journey. I swapped my Arabic Milufa with them and proudly left wearing the wrap-around skirt and headscarf of Africa.

That’s all for now…. But I’ve been to:
Agadir (22.03.06) in Morocco.
Dakhla ( 27.3.06) in Western Sahara.
Nouadhibou (30.3.06), Zouerat, Choum, Atar, Nouakchott (5.4.06) and Nema (9.4.06) in Mauritania.
Bamaku (10.5.06) Segue, Mopti, (16.4.06), the Dogon country, the River Niger (17.4.06) and Lake Debo in Mali.
Bobo-Dioulasso, Ouagadougou (1.5.06) in Burkina Faso.
The beach in Lome (6.5.06) and Kpalime and Kouma-Konda (a small village NW of Lome, 12.5.06) in Togo.
Accra (22.5.06), Kumasi, the mountains in the NE (2.6.06) and back to Accra (9.6.06), then River Volta and Lake area in Ghana.