-Francis Bacon-
We woke with no power and no water this morning, so even
if my aircon had continued to work, once the generator was turned off at
midnight, it would have made no difference anyway. The staff were super helpful and I guess 2
hours of aircon was worth all their effort in their eyes. We having been using the term ‘let’s get out
of dodge’ a few times on the trip just as a comment to leaving a town, or
place, not really meaning that the whole place was dodgy, but this morning we
used the term with some form of honesty to it, the town didn’t look any more
friendlier this morning, well certainly in our section, but after breakfast and
loading up we were on the road at 8.30am and as soon as we got onto the main
road leaving ‘dodge’ we noticed that there were a lot more people around than
we had seen at this time of morning anywhere else, and they were all immaculate
dressed and a lot of them carrying mats under their arms. The town of Gueckedou seemed to be a Muslim
centered town and with everyone dressed in their finest, it was Rich who noted
that maybe it was a holiday today. It
was the 15th October and after seeing the schools in the area closed
this seemed to reaffirm that it was a holiday of some sort. Rich later found in the Lonely Planet (LP as
we affectionately call it) that today was a holiday in the Muslim calendar,
called Tabaski. Officially known as Eid
al-Adha "festival of the sacrifice",
is the second of two religious
holidays celebrated by Muslims worldwide each year. It honours the
willingness of the prophet Ibrahim
(Abraham) to sacrifice
his young first-born son Ismail
(Ishmael) as an act of
submission to Allah's command and his son's acceptance to
being sacrificed, before Allah intervened to provide Abraham with a Lamb to sacrifice instead. In the lunar Islamic
calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah and lasts for four days. In the international Gregorian calendar, the dates vary from year to
year, drifting approximately 11 days earlier each year. It is a BIG deal here.
The mood as we drove along the roads today was like
Christmas Day for a westerner. It was
festive, the women were in the hair salons in their droves, young girls were
dressed in their finest clothes, with newly done hair with colorful beads
hanging around their faces and the young boys were dressed in their Muslim
shirts and pants, new looking westerner clothes that constituted a pair of
jeans and a collared shirt or in some villages they were new camouflaged pants
and top, which seems an unusual option, but hey-kids these days right. These were the kids aged to about 7 and 8 and
then the teenage girls we all dolled up with small purses under their arms, less
beads in their awesome hairstyles and then the ladies were adult versions of
the kids. You could tell that everyone
was sporting new clothes and everyone seemed in high spirits, this was viewed
the whole day as we travelled through the country and I am not sure if that
contributed to happier people, in turn making them more receptive to our waves,
either way, Ian and I kept waving, and we now have a competition going on who
can get a distance wave, meaning the longest wave from a person, generally
working in fields. Ian won the day with
a 300m wave from someone and then Rich fell in second place by default with
someone distance waving him and I take the cake on trying a long distance wave
in a rice field to be told by Rich that he thought I was waving at a
scarecrow!!!! As part of the celebration
is the slaughtering of a sheep, which I saw 2 of on my side of the truck during
the day and the others saw 5 from their side.
Ian being a fellow waver; is also a fellow sun lover and
we change sides of the truck each day to what side the sun will be on for that
days travel. This was it keeps our tans
even firstly and secondly we are cracking along with said tans and we are
turning a lovely shade. I know people
say tanning is bad for your skin, the chance of cancer is high blah, blah,
blah-but I have always been a sun lover and I am sure I will continue to do so
as my years pass. I guess we should make
the most of our time at windows as we can as the new group joining looms next
week and then the seating will change and the flexibility to move around will
be limited with 7 more people on board.
We are making a lot of newbie jokes, and it is always hard to welcome
new people into a group that gets along, even after nearly 3 weeks now and the
dynamic will change when we add in the extra people. Adding people to groups can be a good thing
if you have a bad dynamic, but it is hard when you have got a good group. It is even better for me that the couples are
going all the way through to Dakar, so I’m not on my own meeting another new
group for the last 3 weeks of the trip; I am meeting a new group with 4
friends.
I’ve always liked days on the truck as it gives you time
to think and reflect. Today I was
thinking about the Miracle Babies back home and the changes that I hope to make
in their lives and being able to spend more time with them next year,
especially when I get a car-the city of Nairobi will certainly become my oyster
then and my social life will be able to expand that little bit more with the
freedom and not as high cost to move around the city. I have a few ideas up my sleeve that I will
need to discuss with Irene when I return, but I am looking at possibly getting
a sponsor for each child for their education.
I am not sure the cost, but I figured if I can save Irene some money in
what she pays for their fees (if she even pays), she can reinvest that money
into the babies, and then the MB will also know that somebody else in the world
cares enough for them to support their schooling and I think that can only be a
positive influence in their lives. These
poor kids are stuck in a bureaucratic mess from no fault of their own and if I
can help just a little, then it will all be worth it. This then got me thinking about the local
people that I am looking at as we pass their homes. Maybe it was thinking about the MB and then
the people that I am seeing out of my window, but a tear just sprung out of
nowhere!!! Most of villages we are
passing through are not rich, they are mainly farmers, and they work hard. The children look after their siblings, kids
looking after kids, but they make do with what they have, a roof over their
head, hopefully food on the table and maybe a cherished item (a mobile phone or
headphones seem to be the going item) and when we wave their smiles would light
up a city, no matter what, they still have the time to give us something that
everyone can do and money is not required, a smile and a wave. At the end of the day if you have family
(friends), your health and food on the table-everything else is probably moot
really. Wouldn’t you agree?
It was a truck lunch at 1pm, tuna and onion sandwiches
made on the truck. We are becoming a
lean, mean sandwich making team and we have usually Rich and I in the making
department and then everyone else is on the packing department. We are getting that good now that we don’t
even use plates, so the washing time in the evenings is cut down and the
sandwiches now just get passed out the window for people to stretch their legs
and get off the truck while they munch.
We can usually get away with a 30-40 minute turnaround, which on days
like this when we want to make a destination is a great thing. These lunch breaks are also another toilet
opportunity for us all and I got more than I bargained for when I went to find
my bathroom and I rounded the corner on the track and saw more of Rich than I
had bargained for, just his cheeks, but just as I was apologizing profusely and
averting my eyes, a motorbike also turned the corner and also copped a white
man’s cheeks and we both couldn’t stop laughing!!! Talk about getting caught with your pants
down, literally, and if that was me I would be mortified, but typical Rich
fashion couldn’t give a shit, pardon the pun and just took it all in his
stride!!!
Seeing the condition of the roads today, it was a good
move to stop in Dodge last night. They
were still in a bad way, pot holes and broken tarmac for 85% of the day. We had a few more police checkpoints and then
we got to a pretty muddy section of a road, just past a small village and up
ahead there was a checkpoint if you will, but it was put up by the locals as
they worked on one of the muddiest parts of the road. So we couldn’t pass, and there would have
been 15 men all around, some with spades as they worked in shifting some of the
mud. Zoe spoke to them and they were
asking for something for us to pass.
Both Zoe and Sam don’t believe in paying out money, but I was clear these
guys weren’t going to take a no, so short of just driving through their makeshift
boom gate; Zoe offered them a bottle of Sam’s Lucozade, which seemed to be the
magic password and the rope was dropped and we were allowed to pass. I am not sure how far a 375ml bottle of fizzy
energy drink will stretch between the 15, but I guess that is for them to sort
out as we passed through with waves and smile like we had given them 100
bucks.
We finally made it into Kissidougou at 3pm. So definitely a good call last night to stop,
with the road conditions and the additional 6 hours travel we would have not
done it in one day from Macenta. We saw
the town sign as we came into the city limits, but it was faded and you could
barely read it, so we kept our eyes peeled as we passed through what was a
large town, unsuccessfully. It was very
quiet due to the public holiday with 99% of the shops closed and the markets
closed, which was a shame as we had hoped to visit a fetish museum here, but
assumed it would be closed and at 3pm, we still had tracks to make to get to
Faranah tonight. It was cool to see all
the people dressed here in this city and the holiday feel continued. When we passed out through the other side of
the city we were rewarded with a tarmac road again, and it took us a while to
get used to the smooth roads after rocking and rolling for 7 hours!!!!!! It’s like trying to find your sea legs but
overland legs instead. We finally
arrived into Faranah at 5.15pm. It was
busy, considering it was a holiday; there were a lot of people walking
around. Here there seemed to be flocks
of kids, in groups, out and about showing off their new clothes and hair, and
they were very welcoming to us, smiling waving and when we were stopped they
were more than happy to have their photos taken from the truck. It was here that we heard for the first time
a local word for foreigner which was baboo.
They seemed to be saying it in a nice way and we would check with the
hotel staff what it actually meant. It
really did feel festive and I guess when it is the most important day of their
year, so it should. It always concerns
me when you see so many children walking around without adults. Do their parents know where they are? Do they care?
Again this is my western upbringing and a few times I have seen adults
say something to kids that I don’t think are theirs, and I think it is that
sense of community, that everyone is on the lookout for each other is a good
thing and I think we could learn something from that, not that I think kids
(6-8 year olds) walking around after 6pm is a good thing, but then that’s just
me.
We paid a motor taxi to take us to our hotel, which after
driving us back out of town admitted that he didn’t know where it was, and
after a chat to someone else, turned us back around into town and took us to
the right place. Well it gave us a
chance to have a look at the town itself and the vibe of it as some
celebrations were just kicking off. The
truck was too big to fit into the courtyard of the accommodation, so after
parking across the road and offloading our bags into our basic but comfortable
rooms we were given 45 minutes to freshen up and then as the place didn’t have
a restaurant we had to drive back into town for dinner. The rooms apparently had working aircon, but
when I tried mine, it switched on and nothing came out and it was the same
issue with everyone’s rooms. When we
enquired about this we were told later a larger generator would kick in and
then the unit would work. Well we were
about to go out anyway, so we would see when we got back but it didn’t instill
a lot of confidence when just before we left the guy bought fans for us
anyway. I actually didn’t mind, as long
as I had a fan I would be happy. The
rooms were on the afternoon sunny side of the building, so they were little hot
boxes and a fan was definitely needed.
You lose the option of opening windows with so many mosquitos around;
otherwise I would have also been quite happy with that option as well.
We drove in the truck the 10 minutes back to town for
dinner. We were recommended a place from
the hotel as he doesn’t do food and after asking a few inebriated locals, we
found the place, parked the truck just down the main road and walked up. Even though we were the only whites in town,
we were given our own space as we walked which was nice and we found some
chairs and table outside and were seated with a menu. As we sat down watching the town walk past in
their finest garbs, there were a lot of children getting ice-creams’ from the
place where we were eating. It was a
soft serve machine that the restaurant owner had and there was a steady stream
of kids all night as we ate. As it was
still quite warm, even after the sun went down, some of the small kids would
walk away, take a lick and then the ice-cream would fall off the cone. The 3 second rule seems to apply here and the
kids picked up the now melted goo as much as they could and then would continue
walking enjoying whatever was left in their cone. It was a roaring trade, and it again gave the
feeling that this was a treat for the kids, something that wasn’t done each
night, and we later found out the cost was 2000 (.30c) for a single cone. Again we were left alone during dinner, the
kids would stop and stare and then continue on their way. There was one point a cocky 7 year old came
over and shook all our hands which opened a flood gate of kids all doing the
same thing until the owner came and shooed them all away. The food was delicious and the people that
ordered the ‘hamburger’ were presented with a Guinean version that was not what
you would expect a ‘burger’ to look like and it came with a small piece of baguette
instead of a bun, but apparently it tasted good and at the end of the meal,
there was a tip left, which we think isn’t done often, as the server always
gives us back the excess money until we tell them that the left over was for
them. The same happened tonight and so
we told him to shout a few kids an ice-cream with the remaining money when he
tried to give it back. We remembered to
ask what baboo meant and the restaurant guy said it means literally ‘white’ so
it made sense that we were called baboo, but every time I hear it I think of
baboon, but that is just my brain having a play on words.
When we arrived back to the hotel, there seemed to be a
nightclub located in the large courtyard of the hotel. You would have not picked this place to be a
nightclub, it just had a non-descript door with loud music thumping from what
seemed like a small room. It was party
time for them and we were sure tomorrow was a public holiday, so I could
forgive the party that ended up pumping its way through till 1.30am. There was no aircon as we expected, but I did
have the fan that looked relatively new, so I blogged for an hour and then
flopped into bed and to the beat of the music.
There is no way in overland hell we could have made it from Macenta
today, where was the recommended stop last night, so the itinerary seems to be
working out just fine and what we lost a few days ago, we will hope to make up
in the coming days if possible. If not,
Dragoman has allocated a few ‘random’ days throughout the itinerary for days
like we had and we also heard last week that our 2 nights in Tiwai Sanctuary,
where the largest concentration of primates live was cancelled, so we now have
2 more nights up our sleeve should we need in the coming weeks.
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