Back bloging again

I know, I know its been a while. Works been so busy lately that the spare time I do have I want to do anything but typing so ive been off the blog for a while. However ive finally got a free ish weekend so it about time I gave an update. So what been happening over the last few months,

Well ive been in South Africa again, this time for a two week conference in Joburg. It was a nice mini break and the chance to go somewhere different for a little while. Most of the time was spent cooped up in large town like hotels, but I was able to get out a little and try and have some adventure. Most of it seemed to centre around airports. One of my team travelling with me only had a temporary travel document which didn’t pass muster with the South African airport authorities who detained him for 5 hours. After some negotiation over the phone and another tip to the airport they eventually released him.

My biggest treat in South Africa was the shopping. Both places where we stayed were near huge shopping malls so it was a great opportunity to stock up on books, DVDs and other stuff you cant get in Senegal. Being South Africa they also had some English foods…..English mustard, tea, and peanut butter along with chilli bovril .....yes chilli Bovril..... were also snapped up.

I did get at least one half day in Joburg to do a little tourism. A group of us spent the morning in Soweto. Ive been once before, but it’s a very impressionable place so I was pleased to get back and soak up some of the atmosphere. We took a tour passed Nelson Mandela’s former home, Desmond Tutu’s current house and some of the other key landmarks of Sewoto. Last stop was the Hector Museum on the spot where actions against apartheid reached their peak.

meanwhile back in Senegal…….

So what been happening here. Well over the last couple of month with had a cold snap…..ish. It got down to at least 12oc and for the first time in 2 years I actually had to put on a jumper ! Unfortunately the heats now back and rarely below 25/30.

Other exiting events have included finding my local football hang out place in Kaolack. Its actually someones home, but in the courtyard they have set up 4 TVs. On a Sunday you can pay 100CFA and go an whatch a game. They usually have and English, Spanish, French and Italian match and always a good atmosphere with 4 games going at the same time.

Anyway im off there now, will blog again soon….promise.

Interesting Journey

This week I did what called around here the bone shaker, Kedougou to Dakar. Its about 700km of mostly bumpy roads lasting about 12 hours. It sounds like a great adventure but ive done it several times over the last few months and it was in danger of becoming a ‘commute’. On Wednesday I set out to do the journey again, it turned out to be a memorial journey, for two reasons.

Firstly lions. Kedougou is the other side of the national park. It requires a two hour journey thought the middle where there are no village and not may cars. The park is really amazing, its not particularly remote or difficult to get to and a tarmac road runs through the middle so its surprising that wild animals exist. I had heard people say that the park is home to wild lions, but never really believed them…until now. We left the small town of Kedougou at 6am and at around 7am were in the park. I was just about to nod off when someone shouted lion !!!. We stopped the car about 10meters from a lion just sitting their in the middle of the road. A few minutes later another came out from the bush and sat behind the car. We then sat there for about 1Omins in a weird Lion v 4x4 stand off. They often moved, circulating round the car checking us out. It was amazing to see them and it was obvious they rarely meet cars as didn’t seem at all afraid of us or the car. After a few more minutes a lorry came and they trotted off into the bush. Further down the road we also saw a heard of warthogs and lots of monkeys……who needs to go on safari?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFgMSa2are8

The second event happened some 8hours later, now far outside Dakar. We came down a hill to see a car accident. There were several cars involved an a few hundred people milling around. We had just passed the accident and saw a lorry come down the hill after us and smash into more cars. Often lorries here don’t have good breaks and this one obviously couldn’t stop. We saw it push a car about 100meter along the road stuck under the front wheels. The drivers jumped out before it stopped and ran off. Rough justice exists here and people are often beaten or killed by locals after accidents. The whole event reminded me of being in an episode of road wars !

It was anything but a routine commute !

My TV

I finally had a weekend at home in Kaolack and decided I need to populate my house with some stuff. At the moment some of my rooms are a bit sparse. my lounge has only a computer table, couch, fan and an exercise bike. So I did a bit of decorating and put my country flags on the walls to add a bit of colour.

I also bought a TV !!!! My wonderful driver (Habib) took me to Adama FALLs shop, (the kind of place where you can by any thing electric from the last 20 years) Where I choose a new LG TV for the sum of 125 000CFA…….sound a lot but about £130 for a 22inch TVs not a bad deal.

So im now typing this blog while in my slightly more homely lounge watching TV. I have a wonderful array of things to watch on it all brought to me through the mind boggling offer of…. one channel (RDV) that I can pick up here. That’s why I find myself typing this blog while watching the Koranic word for the day…….Hopefully Mr FALL will return next week and fit the satellite dish offering he says, 250 channels……249 on the Koran but hopefully one more worth watching.

Ok better go, the call for prayer is about to start, don’t want to miss this, it not like it’s the same thing every day !

Tennis Coach

Ive been feeling very expat this weekend as ive had two session with my tennis coach ! Ive decided to get back on the tread mill and do a bit more sport, so tennis seems like a good way to go. Despite not playing properly for about 10 years I surprised myself and realised that im not that bad. My friend in the office Paul is a keen tennis fan so ive had a few games with him over the past few weeks. However our schedules don’t seem to match up too well so Paul gave me the number of a tennis coach, so I can keep practicing if he’s not there. Mr Sow…or Dr Tennis as he likes to be known changes £4 a hour to whack a few balls around ad give tips on my racket position and stance.

Im actually quite enjoying it and it seems to be really good excise especially as its very hot here at the moments, even roasting at 8am when we play. Now if only I can find someone to practice with in Kaolack???

Back in Mombasa

Well im back in Mombasa again, I didn’t think I would get to go to Kenya once let alone twice in six months. Im here again for another talking shop…..actually that’s a little harsh its actually been a really interesting session looking at ways to do our work better. There were about 100 of us from all around the world and the best parts always spending some time hearing about development challenges from others in places like, Cambodia, Indonesia, Ethiopia etc. There was even a team from LA here, hearing about the same development work but in completely different contexts is always a great privilege of this job.

As for non work stuff, well there wasn’t really any. We were in the big hotel with restaurants, beach etc, which was lovely but meant that you spend all of your time in ‘hotel world’. Also as with WV life most of the non workshop time seems to be taken up with additional meetings.

Still I did get chance to have the odd beer (tusker) at the end of the evening and chill out a little. As it was a big hotel they put on ‘entertainment’ in the evening. This seemed to vary significantly in quality….the acrobats were great but the Kenyan actors didn’t seem to go down too well with the tourist crowd.

I though I would end by writing about flying…..as im seeming to do a lot of it at the moment. I particularly like observing people who obviously don’t fly too often. There is lots of opportunity to observe these first time flyers (lets call them FTF) in Africa and its always makes me chuckle. My flight from Senegal to Mali on the way to Kenya was especially funny. We took off at evening time and the crew served food about 7pm. However this is Ramadan so most people don’t eat till about 8pm. Everyone refused food while flying but then after we landed in Mali (after 8pm) proceeded to try and get a feed while the plane was stationary and waiting to take on the new passengers from Mali. This lead to chaotic seens as people were fighting there way back up the plane for their meal while other were trying to board.

My other funny flying moments from the trip was a English couple in Kenya airport….looking at her visa stamp she said to the Kenyan immigration official ‘its only a visa for Kenya, I though you would give me a visa for all of Africa’ ……like somehow all countries in Africa are the same !?!

Drinking Um Bongo in Lisbon

Normally travelling to Senegal seems to pass off without much fuss, this time has been a bit different, nothing to do with Senegal or TAP airlines, but dam Heathrow and the British weather. It meant loads of flights were delayed and mine eventually took off 4 hours late. That meant I missed my connection from Lisbon to Dakar and would have 24hours in Lisbon until the next flight.

Still could be worse…..24 hours in a city like Lisbon not a bad deal. The airline have put me and some UNICEF passengers on the same flight up in the Roma hotel in downtown Lisbon. Its comfortable and nice……and the best bit free!

So a day to kill in Lisbon what’s there to do? Well I picked up a bunch of leaflets from the hotel reception and perused the things to do while tucking into my free breakfast. I decided on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the town, given that I didn’t have an awful lot of time and don’t know the city too well.

The tour took me through the downtown and seafront areas, past lovely 16th century churches, castles and monuments (see facebook for photos) My personal favs were the Torre Belem, and the Castelo Sao Jorge. I hopped off a few times and strolled around the twisty steep streets that run down to the waterfront.

One very odd thing that did strike me while walking around was the huge number of Um Bongo ads, they seem to be everywhere, bus stops, streets, shops….i thought Um bongo had disappeared. Coincidently im also reading a book on the Congo at the moment, perhaps all the Congolese are here drinking their um bongo?

Anyway back to more serious sightseeing my last stop was at the church Se de Lisboa, very nice 16th Century church (might not be 16th century, but if in doubt say 16th Century everyone believes you) up one of the steep side streets. I had a ramble around in and out of the church before finally heading back to the hotel.

Ok see ya, off for my free diner and hopefully home to Dakar tonight.

Hangin out in Kaolack

Ive finally got a chance to spend a few day in my home town of Kaolack. Work means that every couple of days I travel which is an amazing experience but does really tire you out and occasionally is nice to just chill at home

So what there to do in Kaolack….well not an awful lot. This is what some bloggers wrote about Kaolack

"Kaolack was a nightmare. trash everywhere, people screaming for your attention, trying to get you to jump into their cars"

"Coming into town, we passed a dump with goats wandering all over it and the worst smell! Kaolack is desolate and poor. It is the most impoverished place we've been so far, and we haven't seen much of the town yet. It is in the desert on the Saloum river. I don't know what, if anything, you can grow here. It is not the oasis town you might imagine."

"Crossed the bridge over the Saloum River to spend the night here in a hotel on the fringe of this chaotic noisy dirty apology for a major town. A must-pass-through place that most travellers must surely regret!"

That’s my town they are talking about !! still they might be right Kaolack does have some not so nice aspects….still when you get to know it it does has a few redeeming features. Here is what you can do for fun in Kaolack,

- go to the beach, well its not really a beach, Kaolack is situated on a river estuary about 150km from the sea. Its got a really high salt content a bit like the dead sea so you can go and just float in it …if you avoid the rubbish
- we also have the second largest covered market in Africa….i dispute this a little as it doesn’t look that big to me but its nice to claim it all the same. Its also not a tourist market and sells just about anything you need for a Senegalese lifestyle…..no angle delight though unfortunately.
- There are also two hotels here that I frequent, the hotel de Paris and the Hotel de Relais. Im writing from the latter now. Its got a pool wireless access and is not a bad place just to go and chill out in.
- The Bluebird Restaurant, unlike Kaffrine Kaolack has a few restaurants. The bluebird is home to the famous Tyson burger. A burger with just about everything you can think of stuffed in, nice if you want a change for Senegalese food for a while.
- Salt. Because of the saltiness of the river here the production of salt is a big business. Around the town there are severl salt mountains that look like small snow covered peaks…….alas no snow….still maybe I could start promoting salt skiing ?????

So there you go, how to entertain yourself in Kaolack. Not Manhattan I know but does have a certain charm to it.