Internet's tough to come by now, and expensive as all get outm plus it's really really hot, so I'm gonna keep this way brief even though this has been the best part of the trip.
After Bamako, I went to Mopti - the hub for the Northern part of the country. It's a really neat city, all made of mud including a multi-story mosque. It's near the edge of the desert, melds many different ethenic groups.
From Mopti I took a 4 day trip to Dogon country. A beautiful set of settlements running for miles along an escarpment the Dogon cities are untouched in some ways by modernity and in other ways, untouched even by the 5000 year old advancements of agriculture. Climbing through what looked like a seizure of the earth was a lot of fun and not enough people have passed through here yet to make it seem like a tourist trap.
After I returned, I went to Djenne a city dominated by the Puel ethnicity. The Peul have tattoos on their lips, mohawks, hanging earlobes and interesting jewerly. The city has the largest mud structure in the world - it beautiful mosque. On Monday there was an enormous market that brought people in from the surrounding desert/Sahel plains. The most interesting by far were the Tuaregs. Blacks with Arabic or European features, they wore indigo, purple or blue turbans that are never removed. They walk around with cockiness despite their title as "The Devil's Muslims", probably because of their scabarded swords strapped across their middles. They get my vote for collest people on earth.

Okay - I know this was the lamest entry of all time, but it's dying of sweat in here. Yikes!
I'm off to Tiimbuktu, then Burkina Faso, which should be colder. Burkina - not Timbuktu.

5/4/02 - The Markets

I hooked up with another tout-type guide thing today after vowing not to. We walked all around Bamako, a vibrant, none-too-poor-despite-expectations, African style city that seemed like one big market. Not too much French influence here and a much chiller pace thatr Dakar. I saw the rose walled Grande Marche' and traipsed through the fetish market. Parrot and shrunken money heads, rabbit's feet, piles of herbs and cotton, and metal plaques for writing the name of someone you want dead all available and really for sale to the 20 percent of the population that didn't practice Islam.
Afterwards, we went to a peak on the outskirts of the city and gazed down on the partly pastoral city of Bamako, caough between the bend of River Niger and some hills.
But boy is it hot here. I think we were tipping mercury at around 104 degrees without air conditioning anywhere. I don't know about the humidity thing, but I was certainly making my own clothes humid.

5/5/02 - Mo' Bamako
Last night, a fierce wind brought in a fast, hard rain that cooled the city. I checked out the museum today a pleasant walk up town. Then Mami and I walked around the mud covered streets (the rain) I saw more of the winding markets that started reminding me of the Jerusalem Souks. In the afternoonm the sun burned of the clouds and it got hot. I hung out by some outdoor street music that was for a wedding. Malian music seems more sensual that the dance focused Senegalese variey. More intricate guitar lines, more singingm less layers of percussion. It was a really good show. At night I met Carter, my pervious day's guide, for a goosechase for some live music ending in a fwe drinks at an outdoor place with a radio.

5/6/02 - Bye bye Bamako

Today I'm off to Mopti for hopefully the highlighs of my trip (the Angkor if you will). I have to figure out how I'm gonna work the guide thing, so we'll see how I negotiate that tricky slope of thorns as a guide is necessary for Dogon country.

A few general impressions of Africa I might not have already revealed:
The dress is great - Islamic robes, but with the colorful vibrancy of African patterns punctuated by the occasional all white or all Black burka and topped with tall twisting hats. The streets are a painting.
The music is great - No bad music, except for the occassional Western import. It's all over the place, as it should be when music's fun like this.
The people are tough to deal with - I'm tired of saying No, and negotiating the tricky territory of knowing who's a frined and who's after my cash, but every time I'm about to give up on talking, I meet one good person.

5/1-3/02 - God Laughs When Man Plans Especialy When Said Man is in Africa

The train, the train. This magical mystery train that was to whisk me off effortless across 500 miles of countryside was not to be. The Magal festival was so widespread that all trains were rerouted to Touba I found out late in the day. And rerouted they would be for 2 weeks until after the elections. (I have this incredible ability to be in these 3rd world countries for their elections, no?). The choice before me: fly to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and back track or try to string together my own route. I chose the later and this began my many-stepped journey from Thies to Bamako:

Stage 1: Thies to Kalok
I booked over to the "bus" station to see what I could find, hoping to get as far East as possible or even going to Dakar and flying. Nothing doing to Tamabaconda, a major Eastern thoroughfare, but a seat in a Peugot 405 to Kaolak was mine for the taking. Grabbed it, I did, on the word of a tout who promised that I could connect to Tamaba from there.

Stage 2: Kaolak to Tambaconda
Without leaving the station, I purchased a seat in a Mercedes van bound for Tamba. A few hours passed painfully as the sun dipped out of site... the van filling up slowly. I ate some eggs, some bread, whatever there was around till the van filled at 10 PM and off we went. The journey wasn't too bad aside from the large stuffed dog on my lap and the passengers were nice - although at this point, right now, it's more of a blur of nice, curious, fellow passengers wondering what I was doing in these random towns.

Stage 3: Tambaconda - Kidira
Needless to say, I'm in Tamba late and take a cab to a hostel called Chez Mama Dessert. Greating me at the door was a large shirtless woman (Mama Dessert?), knockers swaying side to side. I got my sweltering concrete box for the nightand slept a few hours. The morning I grabbed another 405 Station Wagon to Kidira at the Senegal border. I was last there, and had last choice of seats - in the back with 2 black woman with perfectly hips for bearing many large children. My pelvis crushed between Nene and the side of the Peugot, we arrive in Kidira and Nene introduces herself and invites me to join her on the journey to Bamako - her destination as well.

Stage 4: Kidira - frontier
Nene, Nene's mom, daughter and I pile into a 60s model Renault where I get my passport stamped, but not before a slight repair to some hose with my trusty swiss army knife. It looked like but 2 or so people passed through this border crossing each month - a passport photo glued next to each line in the log book.

Stage 5: Border - Kayes
I thought things had been tough and inconvenient, but today was killer. We waited for hours and hours on tyhe other side of the border for 22 people to collect to that the small minibus to Kayes. It was sweltering (How hot is hot? When Africans complain, when passports melt, when my bottle of water becomes perfect for making tea.) but finally we're off. It think I had the worst seat on this Cambodian-bumpy ride in a sun-warmed steel box that didn't seem to end. And hey, don't forget the crying kids. But the landscape began to change - splashes of greem interspersed the lush yellow (lush yellow?) countryside. The flatness of Senegal began to show some curves and the Baobab trees, the stocky lone trees that dotted the Senegalese landscape, disappeared. We winded around dried river beds with its interesting organic twists. We finally arrived at 8 but the last train was gone.

Stage 6: Kayes - Bamako
Kayes was a very neat little town and I finally had a decent meal after subsisting on bus station nuriture: eggs, bissap juice and bread. At night, I slept on the on a straw mat on the roff of a locals-filled hostel. Thie birds and sun woke me and I went to buy my ticket for Bamako, knowing this was finally the last leg, but expecting disappointment. After a breakfast of an... EGG sandwhich and Nescafe with consdensed sweetened milk (yum, but you should see the bad teeth here because of all the sugar these Africans eat) I go to the station. Rumors abound of the train benig full, but Hark, another car was added. A crush of people, I squirm may hand through the ticket window, hoping it was a ticket for Bamako I was getting - even if it was 2nd class. The train came! And apparently I was lucky because it was supposed to have left late night after I arrived and the next one wasn't leaving for another few days! I grabbed my seat (reserved!) for the beautful ride South-East. Stark rock hills, wacky vegitation; lively discussions gonig on all around me about I-don't-know-what and though it was hot, it was fun. Villages of clay of mud brick houses withe straw thatched rooves which we stopped at often to buy food and fans through the train windows from villagers streaming railside. This was Mali and this was finally fun.

And so I wrote in my journal about 4 hours into my trip thinking it was to end in 2 more arrival time, dinner. But 2 turned into 3,4,5. Dinner was a half-hour stop where everyone swarmed out of the train to the anticipatory locals. Shouts and burning fires and food being gulped down, I thought it was going to be hopeless for me - I'd settled on maybe some bread as the seats were all taken and everyone else seemed to know that they should take a plastic baggie with them to filled with rice, fish and/or meat. A good idea struck. I bought a hunk of bread and had a woman pile in a load of fishballs! A real dinner.
I was hoping now for a 9 PM arrival when I finally asked someone who actually knew. 19 hours of travel - arrival time, 6 AM. Whew. I tried to sleep or I sat at the back of train watching the big dipper point to the North star as we cut south. A shooting star even! I hung out wordlessly with Mami, a Malian with bad French a voice like Bootsy Collins. And finally we arrived, people swarming off in cacophony. I caught site of Nene and said goodbye. I cabbed it to my hotel and crashed.

500 miles, 9 purifying water tabs and 6 stages later I was in Bamako.

4/29/02 - Food with Friends

Last night, after writing my webblog to the sound of Senegalese James Brown impersonqtors on TV, I met up with YakhYa, the most wonderful person I've met so far. He asks me for nothing and last night, he invited me over for tyea that turned into dniner. We (his family and I) all gathered around a plastic mat on the floor and dug our right hand into a big bowl of fish, roots and rice. It was great, and afterwards I spent a few hours discussing religion and African politics with his Mauritanian uncle and devout sister, then had a quick drink at a bar called the Blue Note. YakhYa is the only person thus far whom I believe completely; everyone else has lied at least a little bit.
Today, I had lunch with Oumar as he tried to sell me a mask one last time, then headed to the gare routiere to catch an old Peugot 405 station wagon to Thies. 7 of us piled in and through most of the 3 hour trip the driver played a monotone voice saying things in Arabic over and over on the radio. The only variation was whether it was the man saying allahamdoulilahi or the woman.
I got to Thies, a seemingly small town that is actually the second biggest in Senegal.
I had Senegalese couscous for dinner - I can't reccommend it like I'd reccommend thiuoudibjan or yassa; The couscous looked liked doody and tasted like mud. Unfortunately I met yet someone else trying to scam me. I hate to stop speaknig to strangers, especiqlly at bars, but I really should. Maybe a languyage barrier isn't such a bad thing sometimes.
Note: to add to my collection of ways to say cheers I now have:
Nan Adjam - Wolof for Drink in Peace
Kindning Kandang - Wolof for ching ching

4/30/02 - Waiting for the Train to come

Thies seems like a railroad town with all the bustle surrounjding the train station. There are lots of shoe and cloth vendors here and I like the vibe - noone seems to care that I'm here.
I started the day in a foul mood, but things started getting funny as the electricity went out over and over. The 100 degree heat sweltered out any other anger I had and by the late afternoon I was playing foosball with some kids. During the day I stopped by a world famous tapestry factory that had beautiful huge tapestries for a few grand. They're made from designs sent in by artists from around the country.
At night, after some good chwarma, I started walking back to my hotel. The lights went out again, but this time it was night. It was pretty freaky with horse drawn carriages still barrelling down the street, but I made it back, trying to find streets lit by places that had their own generators. After dropping off my stuff I decide to try out the dive bar on my street next to the movie theater(a theater like this you've never seen). I walked in ordered a beer and waited for something to happen. A drunk stumbled in, then stumbled out. Phil Collins was bizarrely playing on the stereo and nothing really went down - not even when In The Air Tonight came on. I left to the strains of Sususudio.

5/1/02 - Bamako Bound

The train station was packed. Lines streemed everywhere for this week was a relgious holiday and people were making the pilgramage to Touba. It was more crowded than the Star Wars reopening at the Zigfeld and aside from those waiting to buy tickets were Police men brandishing belts to scare people back, scalpers, food vendors and people just watching. I stood on line for an hour defending line cuts fervently and when I finally made it to the front I was told to come back in the afternoon. So it goes.

- Oh, and on the nature trip, we saw the confluence of the Niger with the Atlantic on a deserted beach as we chased around crabs. And I almost died of thirst because I didn't bring enough water and we had salty salty sardines for lunch. Yikes!

4/26/02 - Meet me in St. Louis

I spent today exploring St. Louis itself, getting my glasses fixed (broke in Bara's apt), looking for new sandals (lost a teva on the trip from Dakar) and checking out the museum.
The museum was way below average but the city itself is really sah-weet. It's very well kept up and oozes with French colonialist style and riddled with a few mosques (there's a large one right next to my hotel as is apparent by the 5 AM call to prayer I hear if the window's open) and a bit of an Arabic aesthetic. I spent a lot of today talknig to people in the streets, visiting stores and playing with kids. As I've alluded to earlier, the culture differences are significant - much more so than Asia. Simple examples include formally saying 'hello, how are ya?' to every person in a small group when you arrive and complicate when it comes to commerce and gifts. People are constantly talking to me, though usually with the purpose of getting me to come to their shop. Cynicism would cast this in as simply trying to get my money - which some are - but a subtler interperatation sees genuine friendliness and curiosity muddled with a habit or instinct of povery and need. I obviously can't pretend I'm not a tourist (the locals are Black and my tan hasn't come in dark enough yet) and I don't like ignoring people so luckily I've begun to appreciate and sometimes laugh at these interactions: vendors you've spoken to a few times treating you like their best friend, strangers bumming cigarettes, Senegalse tea available at the asking, being invited to meet someone's family after talking to them for ten minutes, children hassling you for change, adults asking for gifts. The psychology of it is complicated to me and judging people proves difficult when you don't really know the rules, but I suspect that on my return, it'll be these interactions that I most remember.
I also spent some time walking around the fishing village on the Atlantic coast where there are supposedly 4,000 pirogues and 15,000 fisherman.

4/27/02 - A taste of Desert

Today I rendez-voused with Omar with whose house I ate lunch yesterday, for a trip into Mauritania. We took a kalash (horse drawn carriage) to the edge of town and then a few miles more to the middle of the Sahel where we got off and started to walk. We headed north with the Niger on our right and the Atlantic on our left. We passed the town of D'jago, the last in Senegal, and a little girl at a well as the Sahel climate and vegitation started turning to desert sand with sparse patches of desert grass. We passed a row of trees signifying the border and the town of Toombach started growing larger in my binoculars.
We reached the town and Omar paid off the gendarmerie with his sunglasses. The people seemed guarded at my presence even though the St Louis tourist office runs tours here all the time. We walked around town, turned around and south again. A kalash loaded with cheap Mauritanian sugar passed us as we headed back to St. Louis. The sun was now at it's hottest, 3 o'clock, and Omar and I sang and drummed on ourselves to make the journey pass. We had further to go as we had to walk all the way back to town this time. We made it back and I had a great meal his mother had made.
At night I went out with Yaya, one of the hotel workers and Housman, his brother. We went to a nightclub till about 4 where they had this interesting performance of drummers and dancers at around 3. It concluded with a booty-off to raise money for the artists.
No one really drinks here (Islamic influence) and their tolerance is really low when they do. 3 beers and they're getting into fights - I saw a taxi driver and some guy arguing and a knife being pulled but not used. At these discos, they seem to have a natural buzz - maybe from the frenetic dancing.

Today was the best day yet.

4/28/02 - African Sundays

These Africans take their Sundays seriously - all is closed and is quiet. It's weird - I don't know where everyone goes, but you walk the street in peace and quiet. Maybe they sleep all day from staying out till 7 AM the rest of the week. (If you can imagine me saying this: it's too much. I feel like a wimp when I start to fade at 4.) So today, I didn't do much - I hope to either drop in on Omar's mothers birthday (to which I contributed 7 bucks for the festivities as tip for the tour he gave me) or see Housman play soccer.

4/21/02 - Ile de N'Gor

Today Bara and I took a trip to the island of N'Gor, a small island off the Western tip of Dakar. To get there you leave from a port at the Western-most point in Africa - I was as close to New York as I could be. And port I use loosely. We took a little pirogue (small motorized fishing boat) across the water to a rocky island. (The name Senegal actually dervies from the two words sen and gal both Wolof names for fishig boats.) The day was pleasant and we were given a tour from a French girl who has spent a lot of time on the island the past few years - we had helped her carry the bag of clothes she was going to give out to her place.
The island is a sort of haven for artists with an accompanying vibe. According to our new friend, however, foreign interest is starting to transform the island into a resort, driving out the artists and we saw the beginnings of one hotel. The island is beautiful - on one side, the Atlantic crashed fiercely onto the rocky shore of the isle and on the other a sandy beach offered a view of Dakar.
At night, it was more discoing, more watching of people thriwing their hips around seemingly defying the fact that their pelvises are attached to two legs that are on the ground.
I moved out of my hotel and was now staying at Bara's place.

4/22/02 - Slave trade

Today, I took a completely different trip to a different island. Ile d'Goree is a supposed former debarkation point for many of the 20 million slaves taken out of Africa. Historical evidence reveals otherwise - that in fact very few slaves were ever on the island - but it has become one of the many fortressed former-European islands in this part of Africa that are touchstones and memorials to slavery. The island was very picturesque and retains much of it's former colonial stylings. It is well kept as it's a popular tourist destination; on the boat ride itself which was a large steamer departing from an industrial port, I saw more tourists than I have all trip.
I learned a lot on this day about slavery from a world view - that Brazil was the last country to outlaw it, that France and Englad outlawed it in the 1850s, that the were about 20 million slaves taken in the 200 years of its practice, that about %20 of the Africans died or were killed in transit. I learned of the horrible conditions they suffered through the simple paintings and sculptures that dotted the museum.

4/23/02 - Worst Day Ever

Today, my trust in Bara backfired - or perhaps backfired - I still don't know what to make of the whole situation. I'll leave out the gorey details, but the day was epitomized by me eating some crappy takeout by candlelight in his apartment while he cavorted around with my $20 that was supposed to be for fixing his waterheater that he said I broke. I was tired of Dakar and happy to be leaving.

4/24/02 - Fleeing

Today, I woke up, packed and popped into Bara's room so we could go. I saw a few dollars of what was left of the $20 I gave him lying on the floor, and I thought about taking it. My mind was clouded with the complicated psychological debacle of the past few days and I had lost all perspective on realilty. I snatched the $7 and woke Bara up. We had originally planned to go to St Louis together as it's where his parents are, but I suspected another scam and indeed he said he couldn't leave that day. So I said goodbye, went to the Mali embassy to get my passport and got on the bus to St. Louis.
The bus ride re-affirmed my faith in the benefits of continuing to meet people - I rode next to a bright student who was genuinely interested in getting to know me and asked for nothing - not even for me to visit his uncle's store which I hear over and over again. We talked a lot of gender roles for women in Africa and about what equality meant and about theology.
I got to St. Louis and checked into my hotel - Auberge de Jeunesse. It's a cute little place and I'm much happier here in St. Louis.

4/25/02 - Langue Du Barbarie

St. Louis is geographically very neat. It's a city built where the Niger river flows into the Atlantic. It's at the abutment of the Sahel climate against the Sahara of Mauritania a few miles north and the city itself is spread across the mainland, an island and a penisula that in spots, separates the Atlantic from the Niger by a hundred yards. Today, I went on a nature tour on that peninusula with a few people from the hotel. The guides were great and there were 2 Canadians on the trip so I could finally speak English.
(It actually took me a bit getting used to English again - I believe that I'm actually thinking in French when I speak to people instead of translating. My grammar sucks and my vocab limited especially when it comes to animals and birds, but it's very exciting to not take that extra step when I talk. Linguistically interesting is the fact that I think I am translating in my head when I listen except on simmple phrases.)

The trip was really nice. We saw pelicans, land tortoises, gazelles, oryx and a few monkees all on foot or in a pirogue. We were a motley crew, though, to say the least. The was an enormous guy from Strassbourg who couldn't walk and I think was attracted to me, 2 Parisians of Swiss origin that were artists that came across as caricatures of French artists and the two Canadian guys who worked for the UN in Sierre Leone. They were a couple, they would later tell me, after the younger of the two (by 25 years) told me he was married. I guess they're used to some pretty hostile attitudes working for the UN despite its image as an liberal organization.
Afterwards, I met the Canadians, Del and Hal, (cute, no?) for dinner and some Senegalese wrestling. It was a lot of fun and had some of the theatrical elements in the WWF, all within the confines of a back alley and all run by an enormous Iddi-Amin look-a-like who would run around the exterior of the "ring" (a net hanging on rope)_pretending to whip all the kids. Again, there were few tourists here and this was true Senegalese entertainment.

4/19/02 - Party till the break of Dawn

I've been here two days but it feels like two weeks. Perhaps it is because my vacationing state was preserved from my last trip, suspended in my mind and not yet disolved, when I touched down and has simply taken me over again instead of having to start from scratch. Or perhaps it's the frenetic almost NY-like feel of Dakar and the busy-ness of the two days that makes me feel this.
I can't pinpoint the exact time of day, but the event that triggered 2 days of whirlwind activity was when I met Moustaffe on one of the main drags of Dakar. Lest you think my ability to meet people have anything to do with me, I should tell you that Senegalese are extraordinarily friendly. There are subtleties to the culture here which is represented in the fine line and mingling of commerce and friendship that I have yet to understand, but there have been several scenarios very remeniscient of my time in Egypt.

Moustaffe and I went on a marathon walk around all the main markets of the city which were filled with all the typical African curios that you'd expect. I wish I could distinguish between good and not-so-good stuff. Ebony statues, colorful dashikis, djembes, fish, fruit, masks in the style of different African countries - we saw it all. We saw a few touristy type buildings, but Dakar is not that kind of a city - there isn't much to "see" (the main plaza, Place d'Independance, is just a razed spot with construction going on), but rather a lot to experience. After our walk, we got a Gazelle beer at a neat open-air bar. That first day, walking around, was a lot of fun. The novelty of everyone being black is jsut beginning to wear off and about half the people wear these extraordinarily colorful robes and headdresses, like the woman next to me on the plane.

After that, I was tired and so I napped. Afterwards, I went downstairs where I met Bara. We chatted as happens all over town if you're alone, and it turns out he lived in Cannes, a French city I know well. I had nothing to do and didn't know the scene while he was Senegalese and seemed to know everyone.
We went out to a bunch of discos and I saw my first African dancing. It's a ton of fun to watch and not that hard to do as it ranges from just rocking back and forth to the most dominant of the polyrhythms in the music throwing your arms around all the way to wild intricate gesticulations to the more suble ryhthms, throwing any and all body parts around in a very aesthetic way. I even already have a favorite song. The group was started by one of Yousou N'dor's drummers and the song has this part where he shouts "bing" and the band comes back with a one-note hit. The he says "bing bing bing", then the band does a three note thing. It keeps going till it it's breaks down into a fast African beat. (Dancing to this involves shaking your pelvis at someone each "bing"). I could go on about the dancing that I'd see all weekend - people circling up and someone throwing their booty around in the middle, pulling and yanking at one's clothes, the seeming sexual connotations of everythin - but I'll stop here.
Eventually Bara and I met up with his pal Paco (Paco 1 - another Paco is coming later). After a bit we left the bar for another one in Paco's white BMW, listening to Tu-Pac. So, here's me, suburban American kid, son of immigrants, great-grand-child of people who never left their Eastern European shtetls and I'm pimpin' in a Beamer down the street of a city on the "dark continent" rockin' out to Tu-Pac.
I ended up paying for most of the drinks that night - even for BMW-owning Paco. Maybe that's why he drives BMW's and I drive Ford LTD's. The night was a lot of fun, and I appreciated the free rides and Bara getting me into all the bars, but mingled with the great fun is this minor frustration of not wanting to be taken advantage of. Same as in Cairo.
I went to bed around 5:30.


4/20/02 - More walkin' and some bar brawlin'

The next day, I met Bara in the AM, moved hotels, then went for a marathon walk by myself. Luckily it was in a quiet part of town so people weren't always coming up to me asking me to buy from them. I went to the National museum which had some interesting African art and an exhibit on African/Arabic women. (West Africa is %90 Muslim). Then, I walked to the southern tip of the town which is nice cape and saw the lighthouse. The walk back took me through the rich part of town. Embassies and homes of UN and French diplomats, a soccer field for their kids, beautiful beachfront houses and empty streets.

This all reminded me of something that gets to me when traveling - the self righeousness of other countries about the US's policies. Not to say I support what we do, but for other countries to act as if it we're the greatest evil the world's seen is unfair. The French attrocities of slavery shown in the museum, the UN-financed gated communities they've set up in Dakar keeping the poor out of sight, the fact that independence was granted only 40 years ago - I suspect more due to a crumbling empire than of noble intentions - should all make the French pause before throwing such vindictive language around at the US and Israel. (I've seen one incident of anti-semitism so far - a spray-painted wall reading "Nique le juifes". I don't know what "nique" means, but I assume it's bad.)

On my way back, I saw Moustaffe again at his store and met some of his friends: Popo, a rasta; Oundo a Wolof that couldn't speak French; and a few others. Incidentally, I've been speaking French exclusively for 2 straight days - it's the 2nd language here and I'll glad I know it. I'm even having trouble speaking in English, now as I think all the basic social phrases in French. Though I do spend a lot of time saying the French equivalent of: "Yeah", "Oh yeah?", "Yeah, yeah" and "What?"

Okay, I'm running out of time here and I'm gonna skip to tersen up a bit.
- We saw fireworks
- Turns out Mustaffe and Bara actually know each other. Dakar seems small.
- I have 4 or 5 people to see already in my next destination - St. Louis
- The party I went to tonight was a lot of fun - tons of dancing. And fights kept breaking out. Luckily I wasn't injured, so, everything was fun and not scary.

Okay, I'm okt of time folks - I wish I could right more.

Till next time.

4/16/02 - France

The French love putting things on their shoulders or around their necks. Why else would they cling to the 80's style of holding their sweaters over their shoulders, knotted below their neck.

Meeting my cousin for lunch in Paris on my way to Dakar is not as glamorous as it sounds. No. Wait. Yeah, it is. I was smelly and tired from the flight, but I met my Mom's first cousin at around 11 after taking the bus from the airport to Porte Maillot, 40 yards from the Champs Elysee. We drove around and saw the Eiffel tower, the Opera, the Touillerie gardens and the Bastille before parking in front of a couscous restaurant in my Mom's old neighborhood. We ate, then I went back to the airport.

I spend the entirety of what remained of my 7 hour lay over with my nerves on edge. The waiting area is black and what isn't black is French. And the French seem to be looked on favourably by the Senegalese. Curious... the formerly colonized being fully welcoming of the former colonizer. Do Indians look upon the British the same way? Congolese the Belgians? Syrians on the French? The Cambodians didn't seem to have a positive attitude on the French so there must be something different going on. West Africa, for some reason, clings tightly to it's former tie.

The boarding line forms, I smoke a cigarette and wait till it's nearly passed through the gate. I queue up and then that new autoamtic ticket registering machine doesn't like what I have to offer it. Wrong flight? Wrong day? When I'm nervous, I start forgetting things, which makes me more nervous about having forgetten something important. Was I supposed to have checked in again?
I hold my hand out flat, in front of me, to see it shaking is perceptible. The attendant starts pecking at the keyboard as a step out of the line. E-T-T. E-T-T-L-I-N. E-T-T-L-I-N-G-E-R. She hands my my seating stub, manually torn from the ticket she keeps as I ask:
"Il y a un problem?". My tongue, tired from 2 hours of French talk with my cousin, is having trouble negotiating the French-trilled "r".
"Non. Bon voyage."

I attempt to hand in my passenger manifest form, causing more confusion.
"Only for American voiles ." I'm told, taking a few seconds to translate the last word.
Voiles... voiles... Flights! my brain clicks just as a attendant repeats the whole phrase, this time in English.
My cover's been blown for sure. I thought maybe my hiking boots had already given it away - I had decided that when I scanned the dress shoes and sparking white sneakereveryone else was wearing on line. My tucket shirt, gone to waste.I thought now, for sure, everyone knew where I was from.
I pass through the gate and meander to the plane doors with everyone else. People start passing by me. Am I holding things up, yet again? I'm keeping up with the guy in front of me - what else can I do? - until someone starts to wedge in front of me. Have I been aggravating the person behind mew/ my lack of line aggressiveness? I keep moving along and everyone's addressing my in French. Maybe I'm maintaining my anonymous illusion of not being the only American on the flightor maybe they just assume I must know French, American or not, if I'm flying Paris-Dakar. I mentally give myself props for inciting a quizical look from a steward I asked for a disembarkation card when we arrived at Charles-De-Gaule. "Vous zvez une passport Americaine?"

I head towards seat 27C, looking at the colored flowing clothes of the Africans, mingled with French styles. I see a large woman in a flowing light-purple robe and lavender Badu-esque head-dress. She's in the middle seat and engulfs half of the two adjacent seats. Her air-line blue seatbelt comically encircles her waist - rather, middle - like a ring of Saturn.
Hm... turns out she's in row 27.
I take my seat next to her after waiting to let her move her robage. She leaves it there, so I sit on it.

Next ensues a number of exchanges about the overhead bin, the empty seat next to us, etc. all in French. I deal okay, but am self-conscious of the 1 second delay that precedes all my actions and responses. Throughout, my tongue hopes I won't need any "r"s.
Some Africans are wearing colorful traditional garb, others are colorful, Africanized Western dress clothes. Even others are wearing urban-American outfits. The girl next to me has red Addidas, stone wash blue jeans, a sleeveless red tshirt and tight braided hair. Another guy is wearing a doo-rag.

Even before we take off, the lavender-clad jabba, her hands clasped in her lap, starts slouching towards my shoulder as a small snore buzzes through her nose.

The next few images are jumbled in my mind due to a sleep induced haze as my body tried to recoup some of the 6 hours of my night that was stolen in last night's flight which was neatly, 6 hours long as the plane ran opposite the sun's westerly path. It was 6 hours I'd get back in 7 weeks - like a deposit in a bank.

Image 1: Instead of slouching towards my shoulder, my neighbor was now stretched out over 2 seats with her bare feet pressed against the side of my thigh. I think it was them that was smelling, but it had a certain familiarity that made me think it was my boots.Maybe my feet smell like African woman feet.
Image 2: A tall goofy guy bumping ingto the steward causing him to sppill coke on my arm, shirt and pants.This is a genetic trait as my mother gets spilled on during flights, especially when she's wearing white.
Image 3: I started coming to while I tried sponging out the coke with Schweppes as I lazily stared at the 6'3" guy standing 6'0" feet away from m, waiting for the bathroom, wearing a perfectly clean white suit. I bet he's glad he didn't get coke spilled on him.
The woman next to me sat up and started shifting around inside her light purple robe,. making it billow as though several midgets were wrestling inside. She pulled out a passport eventually, but not before almost falling out of the robe.

The flight was moving in slow motion, but the level of intersting experiential detail kept my minds off of the question of whether I should brave the bus into town, or if not, how much I should try to bargain with a taxi driver.

I made it to my hotel which is expensive, but has hot water.

4/18/02 - Dakar

I don't have a handle on the city yet, but it is overflowing with the color of the African clothing. Vibrant is a good word to describe it. You certainly know you're not anywhere in America.

04/17/02 - Off I go

So, today's the day.
My bag's are packed.
My plane ticket's purchased.
My reservation made at Hotel D'Something or other.
My mass email's been sent with this URL.
I'm flying a red-eye into Paris and leaving for Dakar that evening. The time zone for West Africa is GMT on the button and I'm supposed to get in around 8:30 PM.
I suspect I'll just check in to my hotel and go to bed.
Wish me luck! Not with the bed, just with things in general.

-Marc