The Other Saint Louis

She finally found one she likes. She has since found many more.

Left yesterday morning, 7am, for what was supposed to be a 3 hour trip. The destination, Saint Louis, was the previous capital of the region. The French used it as their center for the entirety of French colonial West Africa. Saint Louis was the hub that administrated over Mali, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, etc. As a result, it's booming with old colonial architecture.

Well, it was. And maybe is, but not during Ramadan.

Conducting business.

After the 5 hours that it took to get there, we dropped Annie off at the university, where she was to conduct a whole slew of interviews. Dirt roads, dirt parking lots. The things that you take for granted. I couldn't imagine the University of Florida with goats wandering the main lot. Later in the afternoon, though, Annie had to worry for her hair as they started to get closer...

(Her hair is ok.)

A moment of repose.

It was good to get out of the big city. We passed people waiting for buses, small-scale farmers collecting their wares, thatched huts inside concrete compounds, twisted trees that seemed to jump right out of a film, horse-carts, children porting water, and the most well-dressed hitch-hikers that I've ever imagined. Especially the women, decked out in expensive fabric, home made dresses.

Most everything was closed for the holy month. The hotels in Saint Louis date back to its glory days, but alas, I was denied entrance. I had two qualifications in finding a place to spend my afternoon.

1: Air conditioning.
2: A toilet with a seat. (I didn't even need TP, had my own tissues.)

First try: small bakery, coffee shop. No air con, no seat on the toilet. But it was inside, and I was hungry, so I sat. Even got some WiFi. Since I had some work to do, I decided to give it a chance. After a half hour, they closed and kicked me out. Dang.

Second try: ran into the taxi driver, who wandered into another restaurant. Looked good, but lacked, again, on both necessities. Plus, I had just eaten a slice of pizza, so no need to stick around. I was hot.

Third try: the riverside pool bar. Yes! Toilet seat! Outside, boo! It was hot, but I was done of wandering. So I sat. A few hours of writing online course materials for UF, and it was time to move on. So, three tries, and no one really passed my two-teired test. I believe that the city has much, much more to offer, and I'm sure I'll be passing through again sometime to check out the old hotels and bars.

Hiding from the heat and hunger of late-afternoon Ramadan.

Ride home? Lots of pictures. Also, waaaaay too long. We managed to find the only taxi driver who wasn't in a rush. He even slowed down to close to a stop whenever he saw an animal to photograph! We were ready to get back to our posh hotel. We eventually did, where we sat on the roof and ate a delicious dinner to make up for the unprecedented hassle of the day.

Tonight we're off to Accra. We leave at 12:55am. Hopefully it will go better than last time...

La Fourchette (The Fork). We found a way to spend over $50 on dinner, enjoying a meal that would have been impossible to afford stateside. I had a "tornado" of beef with vanilla sautéed and puréed potatoes with a glass of cab. Annie had a type of fish that was cooked in such a way that it caramelized on the outside. And, the obligatory giant bottle of water...

Dakar. Check.

You're either on the bus or you're off the bus.

Dakar comes through. It has music. It has roads. It has water. It even has construction with workers doing work, more than I can say for most of the US.

We hit the town hard yesterday. We dedicated ourselves to food. Breakfast on the terrace (it was hot), good coffee, great breeze, perfect. The hunt was already on for lunch. After checking in on some clubs in the trendy Point E district across from the university, we found ourselves at an Ethiopian restaurant. Finally we find some good African food in Africa, but to our surprise, it's from the wrong side of the continent. We eat, injera toasting in the heat of the day. Coffee and ice cream were just right for a finish.

Back at the hotel, I hunt for musical activities while Annie makes her inroads for the week's work. (She's on the terrace now completing her first interview in Senegal.) It took a while, but we decided on an adventure for the drowsy night. It's Saturday, and Dakar knows how to party (even Lonely Planet says so!).

The ocean from the upper terrace. I can almost see Florida from here!

Off we go - the long cab ride takes us to Les Almidies, the Westernmost point of the African continent. After a few questions directed at folks walking the street, our driver finds his way down a dark side street with distant lights. As we get closer, we see no sign, but there is, interestingly enough, a signpost that happens to have nothing on it. "This is it." We pull in to the parking lot and sure enough, it's our spot. For $3, he'll wait. Thank god! As we pulled in we passed a family desperately trying to hail a cab on the empty, black road. As an aside, this may be the first place we've been with a parking lot.

Inside, it's an entirely different story. The many tables are empty, save for two or three, but the dining room lowers to within 20 feet of the incoming ocean tide. We settle down right on the edge, a table looking out over the black ocean, surrounded by the sound of lapping waves. It's something, how you can stare out into the sea, just as it's almost impossible to keep from staring directly into a late-night bonfire. Beers, paella, coffee. A bit overcooked, but worth it for this table and view alone.

Souleymane Faye at Just 4 U, the self-proclaimed Senegalese bluesman.

Time for some music. Souleymane Kaye is at a nearby bar, kindly called "Just 4u." Oh the internet, the havoc you've wrecked with the English language. He's a bluesman who listens to a whole lot of Fela Kuti. (As an aside, if you haven't listened to any Fela, go do it. Now.) Great show. The band would kick into a groove, led by the absurdly tall bass player and the Sabar drums, a staple in Senegalese music. Souleymane Kaye stands back, sits in the pocket, you see the sound flowing around him, he's barely playing. Suddenly he's screaming classic blues licks, but he's three, four feet away from the mic. Yet it's loud and clear. The show goes on like this. It's exactly what Dean hears in good bop in On the Road (Kerouac), the book that's consumed my plane rides throughout the trip. This guy has IT.

We're tired. Annie's falling out of her chair. Time to go. Day 1. Check.

As Ramadan passes, sights like this pop up everywhere. Sacrificial animals appear on street corners, in main roads, crossing streets... There's a group tied to a telephone post outside the window right now. One's pretty angry. The pressing decision for every family: buy one now for the feat, while they're nice and cheap, or do you wait until the night before. Most wait, you don't have to feed them, and you keep your kids from getting too attached before the big meal. (PS: check out little brother on the left, trying to keep up!)

Back in business

As many of you may know, next Monday (the 9th), we are heading to West Africa for the first time. I'll be hunting out some of the musical activities of Accra, Bamako, and Dakar as we travel through Ghana, Mali, and Senegal for 3 weeks.

It's going to be Ramadan (the Islamic holy month of fasting) while we're there, and since we've never been abroad during Ramadan, I don't really know what to expect. The days will likely be fairly lazy, with little public activity and plenty of long naps, but after sundown, people bring out the festivities. While Annie is busy working hard, I hope to locate the parties and hunt out the activities. It's my job, after all...

For anyone curious about the kind of music that will be surrounding us as we meander through urban West Africa, here's a short list.

Toumani Diabate is considered the greatest living kora player. The kora is a 21-stringed instrument that comes through generations of praise singers. Diabate is the 71st in his lineage to play the instrument and has a number of interesting collaborations. My iPod has been repeating an album from his Symmetric Orchestra, which incorporates horns, funk, swing, jazz, etc. His recent Mande Variations are more subtle, closer to the acoustic, quiet capabilities of the kora that identify the instrument at its best.

Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal are collectively the sound of Senegal. N'Dour just put out a film, I Bring What I Love, and the accompanying soundtrack is a solid greatest hits album. (The film is available to watch instantly if you have Netflix.) Check this out for a good example, it also shows him as a praise singer (the traditional role of this line of musicians)... His Egypt combines his Senegalese musical style with a celebration of Islam. Musically, he incorporates the sound of an Egyptian orchestra, creating a pan-North African fusion unlike anything else I know of.

Ali Farke Toure and his son Veux Farka Toure are the most famous of many, many Malian guitarists. Their music is often combined with that of blues artists (Ry Cooder and Corey Harris are the most prominent), and many identify this Malian sound as the root of the American blues. Cooder's album with the elder Toure, Talking Timbuktu, won a Grammy a while back, if I remember correctly, and is definitely worth a listen. His son's more recent work demonstrates contemporary trends as tradition is transformed alongside international and Parisian dance styles to form a novel pop sound.

These folks identify the second half of our trip, incorporating Mali and Senegal. I'll get back later with some good examples of Ghanaian high-life and hip-life (high-life plus hip-hop).

We're pretty stoked about the trip, just hoping and praying that our passports get back from the Ghanaian  Embassy with visas intact... We're cutting it close.

Peace