Africa cried; the world didn't listen

Aug. 14, 2005

Africa cried, the world didn't listen

In May, one aid agency sent out a news release saying that 800,000 children in West Africa were facing hunger. But, as Karen Palmer discovers, few people noticed until the pictures of starving young ones began to flood in

KAREN PALMER

For a local aid worker in far-flung Timbuktu, the first sign of the impending food shortage came in open-air markets around the dusty main square, where butchers sharpened thin, curved knives over bloody masses of beef as swarms of flies buzzed overhead.

Meat prices plummeted — even the choicest cuts sold for a couple of cents — as the nomadic cattle herders around Mali's famed trading city began selling their animals and flooding the market, trading protein for grains such as rice or millet, which had already disappeared from their meagre stores.

That was in March of this year, two months after United Nations entomologists saw breeding pools of locusts dropping eggs around the chain of mountains in Morocco and in the isolated North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

Weather conditions aligned to produce a plague of literally Biblical proportions, which headed across the desert, as far east as Niger and as far south as Ghana. It was the largest locust invasion in 15 years.

Then the rains didn't come for the third consecutive year, and the few plants that survived the locust onslaught dried up and died.

Now, as pictures of toddlers with hungry eyes and bloated bellies flood in from the largely unnoticed desert areas of western Africa, experts the world over agree the continent's latest food crisis could easily have been prevented.

"This is one of the classic cases of all the lessons that have been learned — and all have been ignored," says Otto Farkas, emergency relief and disaster mitigation program director at World Vision, which is distributing food in parts of Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

Warnings about the impending food shortage were overlooked; calls for aid went unheeded.

The latest estimates suggest that the United Nations will help feed 2.5 million people in Niger alone, and neighbouring Mali and Mauritania seem poised for similarly devastating food shortages as well. No one is clear on how many people have died from the food shortage, since aid agency personnel still haven't visited parts of the dry, undeveloped country.

"We're careful not to call it a famine," Farkas says, noting the word has political implications that few nations want to acknowledge. This week, Niger's president denied that anyone was going hungry in his country, going so far as to say his people looked "well-fed."

"We don't want to call it famine, but pockets of famine-like conditions," Farkas says with a laugh.

"It's ultimately that famines are a political phenomenon. It's not about natural disasters. It's very political. It's the responsibility of the politicians when we don't pay attention to the issues."

The result of not paying attention to early warning signs is that a U.N. appeal for a couple of thousand euros to pay for pesticides snowballed into a multi-million-dollar drive for food aid, says Marcus Prior, a World Food Program spokesman in Dakar, Senegal.

On a fact-finding mission in Mauritania last year, farmers showed him dusty granaries emptied long before the traditional lean season commenced. One woman showed him her bare hand and told him she'd hocked all her jewellery so her children could eat.

Mauritania and Mali are among the world's poorest countries; Niger is the world's second-poorest country. Coaxing a crop out of the Sahelian countries is a challenge at the best of times.

"It's a land-locked country of no strategic interest to anyone," Farkas says. "When the political will is not there to give enough support in time, then you have to wait for the media to come forward and then the response will come."

World Vision spokesman Philip Maher has a news release taped to his office wall, one sent in French and English on May 23 alerting Canadians that 800,000 children in West Africa were facing hunger.

"We sent it out to every single media outlet. Not one phone call," he says.

"I think part of the issue there is that, in terms of the popular response from the public, sometimes they really need to see those images" of starving children.

"On a broader scale, it's the responsibility of governments to prevent those images from happening."

The attention paid to other recent disasters may have contributed to the slow response to the food shortage, says Mia Vukojevic, who co-ordinates humanitarian efforts at Oxfam Canada. Resources were already stretched by the Darfur crisis and last December's Indian Ocean tsunami, she says.

Oxfam is pushing for new money from the United Nations that would be dedicated to emergencies, since many countries in need can't access donated funds until after the crisis has passed.

"The situation in Niger shows how fragile many countries are. They're so close to a disaster situation that one or two years of drought and the locust situation overwhelms those countries," says Mark Rosegrant, environment and production technology director at the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

"It seems very hard to mobilize the commitment (for food aid) internally and externally until we do start seeing the kinds of pictures we've been seeing," he says.

Rosegrant and his colleagues are pushing developed countries to focus African funding on long-term development projects such as roads, irrigation systems and education, all of which do little to help in the emergency of a food shortage but can prevent food shortages in the first place.

"That would help avoid the fragility we've been seeing in these kinds of situations ... and help countries move away from the breaking point that seems so easy to reach," he says.

Liberians trade guns for money

Liberians trade guns for money; But slow funding hinders plan to retrain ex-rebels Pastor helps teach gunmen who killed mother and sister
Karen Palmer
TORONTO STAR
1678 words
17 October 2004

Kakata, LIBERIA -- Albert Walker begged for mercy as rebels shot his mother and sister.

He watched helplessly as they sprayed bullets at a group of shrieking children, their little bodies falling one by one.

With an assault rifle trained on him, his family dying nearby, the diminutive, bespectacled man pleaded for his life, turning his pockets inside out to show he had nothing - nothing of value, nothing to hide, nothing left.

He was spared, probably because of the stiff cleric's collar around his neck.

The Methodist pastor, who is vice-principal of the country's only vocational school, figures a divine power kept him alive so he could play a central role in rebuilding his decimated West African homeland.

A year after Liberia's three warring factions finally agreed to end a brutal 14-year civil war, Walker finds himself in the curious position of helping the very rebels who killed his family, pillaged his home and ransacked his school, clearing it of computers, textbooks, even the window panes and corrugated roofs of the residence buildings.

The sprawling Booker Washington Institute, once the alma mater of politicians and businessmen, is now the training ground for hundreds of ex-combatants who laid down their guns in exchange for the opportunity to turn their lives around.

Walker reveals no bitterness for his new trainees, who will spend eight months living in his community as they learn carpentry, masonry or other trades at his Kakata school, a 90-minute drive southwest of the capital Monrovia, past lush, green jungle along a paved road rutted by rocket-propelled grenades.

"Unless they're trained to get out of the street, we're going to have further problems," he says simply, shrugging in a blue pinstriped suit too big for his small frame.

"They're used to grabbing. Grabbing people, grabbing people's property. They took whatever they needed with their guns."

Since the peace accord was signed last year, Liberia has been run by a U.N.-appointed transitional government and patrolled by the largest-ever peacekeeping mission.

More than 83,000 ex-combatants have turned over their arms or ammunition to peacekeepers, but only 30,000 have been paid the promised $300 (all figures U.S.) in return, a serious funding shortfall that is threatening the country's fragile peace.

The soldiers are also supposed to receive school-based education and training in skilled trades, but as school begins this month, there's only enough money to pay the tuition fees for 2,500 people, one-fifth the number who are registered.

The ex-soldiers responded with demonstrations that devolved into rioting and looting

"Every day in Liberia, there is rioting because the combatants want to get into school, but we don't have the money," says Molley Paasewe, spokesperson for the National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration.

"The tension is there. There is real apprehension that, if the funding is not there, we could slide right back to ground zero."

Money promised by the United States, the European Union and two international aid organizations has slowed to a trickle.

At a meeting in February, $520 million was pledged to the United Nations to help rebuild the country, including $200 million in aid relief from the United States.

Last month, transitional government chair Gyude Bryant pleaded with international donors to fill a $44 million shortfall in the disarmament program. About $38 million has been received, but Paasewe says only about $10 million has actually reached Liberia and it has already been spent.

"The tendency for people to regroup is very high and the country is still going through a transitional phase," Paasewe said, noting that donors are balking at the idea of paying soldiers while non-combatants get nothing.

"We tell people, don't feel bad because these combatants are getting a new lease on life, because if these guys weren't given a second chance, they would harass you and you won't have time to build schools. What they know best is holding guns."

For more than a decade, the business end of an assault rifle fed and clothed the ragged, starving and sometimes drug-addled fighting forces that terrorized the country.

A Christmas Eve coup in 1989 turned the country into a bloody arena for three factions fighting for power.

Although the conflict initially broke out along Liberia's northern borders, warring militias carried their deadly assaults to every corner of the country.

Liberians experienced a short-lived peace when warlord Charles Taylor took the presidency in 1997, but old conflicts were soon renewed.

Over the next seven years, three separate forces fought for supremacy using fearsome armies mostly made up of young men and women who were kidnapped or blackmailed into fighting.

By the time a truce was declared and Taylor was forced into exile in August 2003, nearly 400,000 of Liberia's 3 million people were dead and another 350,000 had fled to neighbouring countries.

Another 100,000 men and women are estimated to have fought for one side or another.

The youngest to disarm so far was a 7-year-old boy; the oldest an 85-year-old grandmother.

During the war, Taylor's fighting forces commandeered Walker's school and used it as a training camp for the hundreds of boys and girls forcibly conscripted into his army.

Mohamed Wayee was walking home in Monserrat County when he was grabbed, thrown into a car and forced to join the president's band of personal thugs.

Ask him about the glass studs he wears in both ears and he grins and laughs like any other 24-year-old. But ask him about what happened during the war and he stutters almost incomprehensibly.

What emerges is that he fought for Taylor for four years, even here in Kakata, where he is now learning to make cabinets. He has no idea what happened to his family and he won't attempt to find them until he has wrestled with his war demons.

He gave up his gun in April. Now, he goes to school in a community he once helped destroy, at a school his fellow combatants looted.

"For me, because the army spoiled the country, this is a second chance," he says, struggling over every word.

"Maybe after this program , I can work for UNMIL (the U.N. Mission in Liberia) or the government and get a job to rebuild the country."

Liberia was left in such miserable shape that it isn't included on the U.N.'s human development index. Literacy rates are only 53 per cent and about 80 per cent of Liberia's residents live on less than $1 a day.

Outside Monrovia, where buildings are pocked with bullet holes and streaked with the signs of neglect, there is almost nothing left. Entire rural villages were picked clean by soldiers, then burned to the ground.

"The farther you drive, the more you will see that the country is destroyed," Walker says.

Squalid "internally displaced persons" camps dot the landscape, filled with families from the farthest reaches of Liberia's forests. They fled toward the relative safety of the city and now find themselves crammed into one-room mud huts.

In the space of 12 city blocks, more than 7,000 people have been squeezed together without running water at a camp near the airport. The camp's children are crowned with white spots on their scalps, a sign of malnutrition.

And there is a sense, mostly among Liberians desperate for peace, that things are not moving fast enough. So far, the U.N. has secured only four of the country's 15 counties and recovered about 25,000 weapons, mostly AK-47 assault rifles.

The heavy artillery, like missiles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, has yet to be uncovered and the disarmament process is scheduled to end by Oct. 31. In November, Paasewe says, peacekeepers will sweep communities, forcibly removing weapons as they find them.

Today, the peace process is at a crucial but delicate stage.

This month, almost 200 refugees returned to Liberia from Ghana and Sierra Leone, the first phase of a three-year repatriation process that will see more than 300,000 people go back home.

It is the third time refugees have returned to Liberia after being forced to leave by renewed fighting.

"This is our last opportunity and if we miss this opportunity, we're doomed," says Wesley Johnson, vice-chair of the transitional government.

"This day is extremely important because it symbolizes peace, that real peace has come to our country."

The refugees who came back to Monrovia face an uphill battle in a city without running water, where the electrical grid is only partially repaired and the unemployment rate hovers at a staggering 85 per cent.

The U.N. High Commission on Refugees, which organized the return, will provide household items like tarpaulins, blankets, pots and jerrycans - but not money.

That worries Alvin Kpoto, who has to feed his wife and their two children, ages 12 and 5.

The Kpotos fled Liberia in 1990, after rebels torched their home. They returned in 1997, only to flee again when the fighting became too intense.

Kpoto ran a foreign-exchange bureau and sold rice here before the war. As a refugee, he sold fish and fresh water at a camp in Ghana. Now, he's not sure what he'll do. But he is determined.

"If they give me a loan," he vows, "I'll be able to pay back the loan."

Illegal mining a threat in Ghana

Illegal mining a threat in Ghana; 'Galamsey' gold scavengers bring mercury pollution Miners say they must steal nuggets to feed families
Karen Palmer
Special to the Star
1291 words
10 October 2004
The Toronto Star

Tarkwa, Ghana -- Deep in the lush forests that cover Ghana's lucrative goldfields, 19-year-old Nana Yaw squeezes a drop of metallic mercury onto his hand before rubbing it into a nugget of gold plucked illegally from land belonging to an Australian mining company.

Around him, a maze of tunnels and trenches snakes through the slope leading to a slow-moving stream. A rickety conveyor belt, run by an ancient generator spewing oil, shakes the rich, red dirt to reveal particles of gold. The mercury binds with the gold to separate it from the soil's strong grip.

Working surreptitiously and illegally in Ghana's goldfields, "galamsey" miners - as the traditional, small-scale operators are called in the local Twi dialect - say stealing bits of raw gold is their only way to feed their families.

But environmental experts say their activities are more devastating than the large-scale mining concessions they scavenge.

"They go anywhere, any time, on companies' concessions or outside government lands, anywhere they feel there is a gold deposit," says Ransford Sekyi, a senior program officer and mining engineer with Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency.

"They are illegal operators and they are armed, very violent and they don't obey any rules. They use chemicals like mercury indiscriminately. They indiscriminately mine. They mine in river bodies, in streams. I mean, anywhere."

Steps from the impoverished village of Badukrom - an hour's drive from Tarkwa, a dirty, chaotic mining town about 300 kilometres west of Accra, Ghana's capital - Yaw and his fellow galamsey miners have dug a series of intricate and precarious tunnels on land that belongs to the Ghana Australia Goldfields.

As miners search for gold day and night, rivulets of wastewater slick with oil and laced with toxic mercury flow straight into the stream that provides Badukrom's drinking water.

Yaw says he knows mercury can cause skin cancer and the other deadly ailments later in life, but he just shrugs.

"The water has been polluted already," he says. "Even the mining people, when they blast, the dust comes here."

World Bank figures suggest there are about 1.5 million illegal miners scratching out a living in gold and diamond fields across sub-Saharan Africa.

In Ghana, known as West Africa's "Gold Coast" for its fabled caches of ore, galamsey operations are thought to provide 10,000 to 15,000 jobs for miners who can dig out more than 100,000 ounces of gold in a year, most of which is sold on the black market.

Standoffs between large-scale mining companies and galamsey miners have pushed the illegal operations farther and farther into Ghana's forest reserves, threatening habitats of rare species such as the Red River hog, roan antelope and red and black Colobus monkeys.

Sekyi points to areas in Ghana's western region, where veins thought to be 10 times more valuable than the California gold deposits run beneath desolate villages of mud huts and malnourished children.

Galamsey miners have dug into riverbeds, redirecting the flow of the water and in some cases, stopping it altogether, he explains.

"If that thing continues for five or six more years, we will lose the water bodies in the area," Sekyi says.

Although small-scale and illegally mining has gone on since before colonial times, Ghana first opened its profitable gold and diamond fields to foreign investors in 1986, as the country struggled for stability after two bloody coups.

Loans from the International Monetary Fund were tied to Ghana's willingness to attract mining multinationals, which were seen as one of the best ways to lure development dollars.

Today, at least 20 medium- and large-scale mining companies dot the landscape of Ghana's western and northern regions. According to the Canadian anti-mining lobby group MineWatch, mining has destroyed roughly 80 per cent of the country's forests and pushed farmers from their land.

Like many children among Badukrom's 1,600 villagers, 3-year-old Nana Aba Buckman and her 2-year-old sister, Rose, both have itchy sores on their arms, legs and bellies. It's a rash their mother, Adwoa Dede, blames on polluted drinking water.

While the EPA acknowledges that water in parts of the region isn't suitable for drinking, neither Ghana Australia nor the illegal miners take responsibility for Badukrom's water problems.

Between 2000 and 2003, the EPA found that blood, urine, hair and nail samples provided by galamsey miners, as well as some of their wives and children, contained dangerously high levels of mercury.

Mercury had also found its way into the surrounding water supply, the vegetables grown at nearby farms, even into the atmosphere.

"All of them had reasonable pollution levels" from illegal mining, Sekyi says.

"Their actions are a cause of great concern to us."

Wherever the EPA finds mercury in its water tests, he adds, it's clear that galamsey miners have been in the area because large-scale miners stopped using mercury about 50 years ago.

Large-scale miners use cyanide, he explains, and there are strict regulations around how that chemical is used and contained, although he acknowledges that there have been a series of high-profile spills in the past, some requiring the move of entire communities.

Edward Badu, who leads a gang of 35 illegal miners on a patch of mined land near the mining town of Prestea, says people would give up the tedious, dangerous work if the government provided alternative employment that was more fulfilling.

Adds a miner who identifies himself only as Ahmed: "There is no job here to sustain us. Had it not been for this galamsey job, we would be useless armed robbers and engage in social vices."

Yunus Saeed, 24, who began mining illegally eight months ago to raise money for his Islamic education, says he's worried about his safety.

"It is risky; you can die," he says. "Some people have died here."

Some illegal miners boast of making 3.3 million cedis in a year - about $480, in an area where the average yearly income is about $365.

Sekyi figures galamsey miners could band together and buy a mining permit for about $130 each year, allowing them to register with the government and have access to technology and advice that could improve their operations.

"There's no way they can say they don't have the money," says Sekyi." I think it's an attitude."

Registering also would force the small-scale miners to provide an environmental assessment plan, take responsibility for any environmental degradation and follow rules devised to minimize environmental impacts.

But illegal miner Musah Abdulai says that won't happen.

"Even if the government establishes an alternative livelihood, they will not quit mining," he says. "We should be seen as miners. Even if we got to the farm, we cannot farm because we are not agriculturalists.

"There is no way we will stop mining here if the government brought a job for us. We are born here in the gold; it is our main job. It is our forefathers who started the mining."

Accused of witchcraft, women banished far from home

Accused of witchcraft, women banished far from home; Blamed for fever, drought, accidents In Ghana, 1,000 live in colonies
Karen Palmer
TORONTO STAR
750 words
31 October 2004
A11

Gambaga, GHANA -- In the uppermost reaches of Ghana, where the dry savannah bleeds into the sandy Sahel, the appearance of witches isn't confined to one dark, fall night filled with tricks and treats.

It may be Halloween in Canada, but in a cluster of round, medieval-looking mud huts in Gambaga, some overgrown with pumpkin vines, hundreds of women accused of witchcraft do penance for their past.

Some freely admit they used the dark arts to settle old scores, rendering wandering husbands impotent or eviscerating the crops of enemies. But most say they were blamed for suspicious boils and bites, deadly car accidents, devastating droughts, feverish malaria-fuelled dreams, and epidemics and outbreaks beyond their control.

Twelve years ago, Hawa Mahama's nephew woke one morning convinced his aunt had tried to kill him in his dream.

The boy's father, Mahama's eldest brother, swiftly accused her of witchcraft. Although she vehemently denied the charge, the family sent her from their home in Kparigu to Gambaga, a dusty village near the Burkina Faso border, where the chief agreed to settle the dispute using a traditional shrine ceremony.

To determine whether Mahama was a witch, the enigmatic Gambarana, or chief, slaughtered a charmed fowl. If it died with its beak in the air, Mahama was telling the truth and was not practising witchcraft.

But the fowl flopped forward as it died, landing on its breast and convicting Mahama of being a witch. It was a verdict she says she was forced to accept.

The 80-year-old woman was banished from her home and has been living at the witch camp in Gambaga ever since.

The camp has no cauldrons, no potion books, no cackling old covens. Instead, it's like a perverse retirement community, where emaciated old women rely on their neighbours for food, clothing and shelter.

Nkugosiba Gazari has lived at the Gambaga camp for 35 years, arriving from a tiny northern village. "At first it was not happy for her, but as time went on she got used to it," interpreter Alhassan Mohammed said, translating Gazari's words from her native Mamprusi dialect.

Now in her 80s, Gazari's days are spent shelling groundnuts, drying beans and working in farmers' fields in exchange for a meagre portion of the harvest. Every day she carries her own water from a nearby pump, on a foot that was partially amputated after suffering an infection.

Although witchcraft is a centuries-old concept, born of a widespread belief in animalistic rituals and totems, and sometimes belittled by a population that increasingly sees itself as Christian or Muslim, the number of women accused of engaging in sorcery is actually on the rise.

In 1997, Ghana's Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice estimated that more than 700 women were living at the country's four northern witch camps. Last year, it put that number at more than 1,000. There are similar camps in Tanzania, and women flock from neighbouring Togo and Burkina Faso to Ghana's protective witch colonies.

Gambaga's chief, the Gambarana Yahaya Wuni, claims he can cure the women of witchcraft. From inside the dark mud hut that is his palace, Wuni - who wraps himself in sumptuous fabrics, carries a dark decorated walking stick and watches a 26-inch Sanyo television - won't talk about his powers, which sound strangely like sorcery. It's also taboo.

But interviews with other community members show the accused witches are made to drink a cleansing concoction and to participate in elaborate, secretive ceremonies that involve pouring libations of alcohol made from fermented Guinea corn millet and asking the chief's ancestors to help him rid the woman of witchcraft.

Although men accused of sorcery are cleansed by the chief and immediately return to their villages, few women return home, fearing they will be intimidated, discriminated against or worse.

Human-rights reports are littered with examples of women who were lynched or beaten by community members after being accused of witchcraft.

One of those women, known as Ayieshtu, returned to the Gambaga camp missing an ear after elders slashed it with a cutlass, warning her she would lose the other ear if she dared return.

"They are afraid they will kill them," Mohammed, the interpreter, said. "They are afraid of being killed."

Eradicating Guinea Worm

Karen Palmer & Jos Garneo Cephas
Staff Reporters

TAMALE – Mageed Iddrisu, 12, says he doesn’t know how he contracted Guinea worm: a boil simply appeared on the inside of his foot and three weeks later, a thin, slimy white worm burst out.

Now he has his bandage changed once a day, after volunteer Alabani Yussuf tugs gently on the worm until another inch of it emerges. The child blanches and gasps with pain.

Pulling on the worm, which has likely been growing in Mageed’s gut for more than a year, puts it in survival mode and it digs into the tender skin around the burst boil with hundreds of tiny, sharp spikes.

Mageed walks with a limp. He has stopped walking to the farm and helping with family chores. The sore won’t heal until the worm – which can measure up to three metres has fully emerged, a process that can take up to a month.

Iddrisu is one of 19 people infected with Guinea worm in his small, isolated village of Gbanjola, about three hours from Tamale.

These latest infections are what will prevent worm-fighting institutions like the Carter Center from declaring the disease eradicated next year. Instead, they have been forced to push back their target date by four years to 2009.

In Ghana, the number of cases in endemic villages has actually grown over the past seven years, despite intensive eradication efforts by places like the Carter Center and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Amankwa Iddisah, the regional Guinea worm coordinator for Tamale, the major city in Ghana’s sparse northern savannah, said with new cases appearing this year, it will be several more years before the country can claim the worm has been eradicated.

The parasitic disease is passed through contaminated water. Worms can burst from any part of the body, but are most common on the feet and shins, causing victims to lose mobility for months at a time.

Already the farming community of 2,227 is finding water scarce. The town’s single borehole gives water that’s cloudy, salty and smelly. Volunteers have put chemicals in a major pond, about a half kilometre away from the town, in an effort to kill the worm.

The village chairperson admits that with water so scarce, there’s rarely time to filter it before using it.

“They can’t just wait for a filter or anything because they just want water,” said Issah Tidow, 60, through an interpreter, noting that some women hike three miles through waist-high grass to get water.

At least half the villagers have suffered or are suffering from Guinea worm, which along with malaria is the major sickness within the village, he said.

It illustrates the importance of access to clean water, a basic, fundamental human right. Although lack of access to clean water can lead to other serious disease like malaria, cholera, typhoid and dysentery, Guinea worm is unique in that it could be wiped out without drugs or vaccines, but through simple changes in human behavior.

When a person drinks water contaminated with Guinea worm, they ingest a type of flea that carries the worm’s larvae. Over the course of a year, the larvae grow into worms that form under the skin.

When they get the urge to reproduce, a blister can appear anywhere on the skin and when the worm is ready, it bursts from the skin and simply hangs.

The blister’s relentless itch is soothed only by water, part of the survival instinct of the worm, which waits to release its eggs until its submerged in water, thereby continuing to contaminate the water source.

The treatment is time and Tamale oil, a slick mixture containing neem leaves that is applied to the sore to help the worm emerge. The worm can sometimes be cut out of the skin by skilled medical technicians before it even emerges, if its outline under the skin is well-defined.

“People here are farmers. If you are down with Guinea worm and haven’t gone to the farm, you cannot feed your family. How do you have produce to sell at the market? First it affects your family, but then the district, the region and the nation as a whole,” said Yunusah Alahassan, a worm extraction specialist at thee Wantugu Health Post.

Ghana has come close to eradication twice before, but each time, violence has stopped volunteers from reaching their goal.

In 1989, when Ghana first began battling the worm, the country had 180,000 cases in 8,500 communities. Disease experts though they were on the way to eradication in 1994, when ethnic tensions flared in the northern region. The worm was wrestled back under control by 2001, when a chief was beheaded, violence erupted and people were forced to flee the area.

In 2002, there were 5,611 cases, but last year that number spiked to 8,285 cases.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visited Ghana in Feb. 2004 in an effort to pressure the Ghanaian government to re-double efforts to eradicate the worm. In 2003, Ghana had 70 per cent of the world’s cases, 95 per cent of them concentrated in 15 of the country’s 110 districts.

The challenge for volunteers like Rebekah Vaughn, a technical assistant with the Carter Center’s Global 2000 project, is raising awareness about the worm and convincing people that they should filter their water before drinking it and avoid contaminating the water if they have a hanging worm infection.

“The community needs to see this as a community problem,” Vaughn said. “If 800 people are all drinking from the same water source, they need to understand that they’re all responsible.

“It would be different if there was a vaccine, but there’s not, so they have to come together,” she said.

“People here have a lot of health problems,” she added, listing off malaria, malnutrition, yellow fever and polio as examples.

“A lot of the work falls to the women and they’re already doing the cooking, the cleaning and taking care of the children. They do everything and this is just another extra thing to do in their life.”

A typical family needs to gather10-12 five-litre drums of water a day for cooking, washing and drinking. Filtering all that water through a special mesh screen into a giant calabash can take up to 10 minutes per drum.

“It’s for their health, but if they don’t consider it important, they won’t do it,” she said.

Vaughn said the endemic communities, which are mostly confined to northern Ghana, need constant supervision and constant support in order to keep eradication efforts going. They need praise for using their filters and need to be rewarded for making use of the borehole instead of a contaminated water source

“Sometimes people don’t even believe it comes from water,” said Abednego Chigumbu, a sanitation and hygiene officer with UNICEF. Some think its witchcraft, or a curse, he said, while others feel they’re immune because no one in their family has ever had the disease, despite years of drawing water from a contaminated source.

Village chairperson Tidow said part of the solution might be to increase the access to pure water in Guinea worm endemic communities.

However, Chigumbu said some communities have eradicated the worm using simple behavioral changes, like filtering water and drinking through a filtered straw.

Tidow said politicians are aware of the problem and have made a lot of promises while campaigning in the area for the Dec. 7 election. “They promise and promise, but never return to deliver,” he said.

Iddisah, however, said the political will is there, where it wasn’t before.

They understand that their economic actions don’t move when there’s Guinea worm, so they’re willing,” he said.

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Jos Garneo Cephas and Karen Palmer are volunteers with Journalists for Human Rights in Accra, Ghana.

Basse Casamance

After snagging a beautiful ocean-front room at an auberge for $25 per night, I changed into my bikini and was horrified to see raised, red welts all over my back, like I’d be swarmed and stung by angry bees. I’m not even sure when it happened, but I had obviously been scratching, as some of the bites had swollen bigger than quarters. I had a delicious fish dish for lunch and was perusing the bookshelf for an English copy of anything when Erika, the owner walked in. One of her staff asked if there was anything in English and she replied rather snappishly: “it’s very simple. If you look and see there are English books, then I have English books. If you don’t, I don’t.” I was rather stung, not to mention surprised, as she’d been so warm and welcoming when I first arrived. She later apologized blaming her outburst on fatigue and a general feeling of fed-up-edness and the non-stop barrage from her staff. I merely smiled and told her not to worry I am all too familiar with my own displays of often shocking rudeness and, in fact, had several bouts of it that afternoon. On a walk down the beach, I was approached by maybe five men, all vendors, all wanting me to leave my walk and my shell collecting to come look at their merchandise. One man, a guy from Ghana who walked up wearing only one shoe and cupping his crotch, would not take no for an answer and I ended up wading into the water just to get away from him. Initially he just kept saying, “but I want to get to know you!” but on my way back he called out about having something special for me that he wanted to show me. I was just hoping it wasn’t what he’d been cupping earlier and kept walking as though I hadn’t heard him.

I walked into town, a place packed with restaurants, to check email and miracles of miracles, found two English books at the bookstore for the bargain price of $2 each. I was the happiest girl in the world. I had a delicious pizza for dinner and headed for bed with a book and the sound of the ocean.

Spent most of today bobbing in the water, cold at first but quickly warming. I relented and decided maybe at least looking at the shops was easier than fending people off. I walked down to Club Med just as the latest planeload was arriving from France and I was a little overawed, like a country bumpkin or something, just by the sheer decadence of it all. The gift shop was gorgeous, selling Club Med line of clothing, Snickers bars, and way overpriced souvenirs. The pool was sparkling and empty, ringed by Frenchmen in tiny bikini bathing suits and greasy, topless French women, the sun and cigarettes having already ravaged most faces. The restaurant was ringed by activity boards announcing movies, archery and themed soirees. A traditional band and women with clappers greeted guests as they streamed in from gleaming white minivans. A table full of pineapple topped frothy pink drinks awaited them and the buffet room, a gorgeous mix of dark wood, paper lanterns and African art, showed the terrible excess of breakfast. The whole thing made me want to cry. I’m not sure why.

Lunch in Elinkine

On Monday I was up with the birds to arrange for a bike ride into the countryside. I walked into town for water and an omelet and was surprised to see the flood of children in school uniforms. Diana, the Belgian woman staying at the campement, said Senegal has one of the best school attendance rates, particularly the Cassamance, where religious beliefs don’t prevent girls from going at all. I was also surprised to hear a whistle blow and watched in amazement as everyone absolutely froze. My blond head bobbed in bewilderment until the omelet vendor explained they were raising the flag at the prefecture. Another short blast from the whistle and everyone carried on as usual, as though nothing had happened. I found it an odd gesture from a people who fought for 22 years for independence from that flag. All around, there are still signs of the conflict: police checks out of town and before bridges, heavy artillery at checkpoints, truckloads of military with automatic rifles. The Cassamance was crippled by their bid for sovereignty: some parts still do not have electricity, others only get a few hours a day The roads are in a deplorable state, restricting movement and hindering trade. The road in the Gambia was worse, but apparently that is also a way to keep the Cassamance down, as Senegal refuses to agree to financing a bridge across the river.

Anyway, full of bread, egg and Dijon mustard, I got on a bike and negotiated the tarmac, the sandy shoulders and the rutted, corrugated remains of road. Not more than three kilometers out of town, a group of monkeys streamed across the road, the ugly kind with the pinched-looking faces and long, orange tails. Other than pigs, goats and cows, they were the only animal life to be seen.

I covered the 9 km to Mlomp faster than I expected and hopped off my bike at two simply massive ‘frommagers” that had roots taller than me that snaked around like a serpent. They were gorgeous, ancient and seemed to be eight storeys high. Beneath them was a tiny museum, no bigger than my living room, made of dried palm fronds. Inside was a dozen artifacts from early Jola days: shields of tortoise shell, protective layers of hippo hide and steel-tipped spears, fetishes, jawbones, a half-calabash hat worn by women in a secret society who want babies. From Mlomp, it was a hot, hard ride to Elinkine, a fishing village about six kilometers away. I sat for a while under a frommager, already feeling sore, and watched life unfold at a riverside market. As I was walking up the street in search of a cold drink and a place to stash my bike, I came across Pascal and Melanie, the French couple from the taxi brousse, who were headed by pirogue out to Karabane Island with a guide named Pape. They invited me to go eat lunch with them at Pape’s mom’s house, a delicious all-from-the-same-bowl serving of thiou with rice and legumes. Pape told us all about the Cassamance conflict, the difference between north and south, and the way the region suffers while his mom braided a sister’s hair – painfully – and a non-stop parade of children came through to laugh or shake hands or stand shyly in a corner, staring.

We stayed for tea, then the three headed for the pirogue and after a half hour I climbed on my bike and headed for home, following the piste road. A small race with a moped and I was at the turnoff, to a dusty sand track, rutted in some places use making it smooth and hard in others. I passed tiny collections of huts and had children come out screaming to meet me. Cows and goats grazed in rice fields waiting for the next season’s rains and planting. The vegetation was lush and packed with palms and if it wasn’t for the cool breeze, I could have been in Vietnam. The riding was rather difficult, the tires getting stuck and twisted in the sand and my bum and crotch felt bruised and my knee was paining rather ominously. I returned the bike, popped some Advil, had a shower and headed for bed. Outside my door, the owner and a friend provided a “plop plop” suctioning sound of banco being smacked onto the impluvians supports, a noise easily blocked out by earplugs.

The next morning I had a rather slow start and waited maybe half an hour for a ride to Cap Skirring, on a tro-tro loaded with older women and empty plastic cans. The mates overcharged me, of course, and tried to flirt with me. My policy is you gotta pick one or the other, so I was rude to the point of hostile.

Impluvium

Eleven days! I’m enjoying the Basse Cassamance, but I can’t stop counting the days! In fact, it’s nine days until I’m in Accra, exactly two weeks until I have a home. Oh, I can’t wait!

After a yummy lunch, a long nap and some repacking, I walked down through the village, into the market and around to the chichi hotels where I browsed through their souvenirs. At the Artists Village, I mostly stuck to the line that I was just looking and would return before I left so I could buy things but not have to carry them. I bought a piece of fabric for a skirt that I think Mom will love, and befriended a seller named Boubacar, who took me around to all the stalls and spoke to the vendors in Wolof or Jola when my French failed me. They had lots of interesting stuff and almost no pressure to buy. In the end, Boubacar and I swapped addresses. I gave him a Canadian flag pin and he gave me a little caving. I left feeling rather in love with humanity generally.

By the time I got back, it was already dark, so I had a shower, did some laundry and headed for bed, remembering it was Saturday and I was staying at the hottest place in town only after I was in bed and could hear the faint backbeat. I was tempted, but didn’t want to spoil my generally good mood with a night of fending off unwanted advances.

But I had one last encounter at the gare routiere, which spoiled things anyway. It’s like now that I’m wise to the ways of travel here -- or getting wiser, perhaps – I’m far less jovial about being ripped off by hustlers and touts. Or maybe these guys are just simply paying for months of built-up frustration.

Either way, after a rather cantankerous exchange, I finally got in the car hand headed to the very tranquil village of Oussouyme, where the living is easy. Most people have been incredibly warm, welcoming and friendly. And the auberge is one of those rain huts, so that’s kinda cool.

Thru the Gambia

Dinner that night more than made up for the morning’s disappointment. Amadou, the owner, told me he likes to feed his guests absolute feasts and turns out it’s very true. We started with fish soup, a dark brown, spicy, salty liquid packed with fish flavour. There was grated Emmental to sprinkle on top and a half loaf of well-buttered garlic bread. Yum! Next up, grilled shrimp, about 30 of them , doused with lime and grilled in garlic butter. A platter of fries and buttery rice accompanied it, along with a platter of leafy green salad with slivers of onion and garlic and a vinaigrette dressing. I ate and ate and ate, finishing all of the delicious shrimp and half the rice and a handful of fries. I barely made a dent in the salad, the one item I need most. Dessert was a chilled banana. I literally had to go and lay down afterward; my stomach was so full it hurt. But I slept like a stone for about three hours afterward, waking up at midnight and laying awake until after 2 a.m. I was up and dressed by 7:30 a.m., having decided I was going to try to push it Zinguinchor in a day. I just needed to get money and check my email for news. I just needed to get money and check for email from Mom. The ride out of Joal was quiet and somewhat comfortable. My hosts asked me to come back with my parents, but I have to admit there’s almost nothing to draw me back to Joal, even the couple and their pelicans (which grunt like pigs). As I left, Amadou told me he was certain I would meet my husband soon.

Back in Mbour, I got cash out of the ATM and hopefully didn’t put myself in overdraft. I walked back to the gare routiere, and ran into the three idiots who dropped in Toubab, but I just acted like I didn’t know them, a rather rude gesture, but one they deserved considering how ill-mannered they were practically groping me in the backseat, scratching my palm and demanding 500 CFA for 10 km of driving. Unreal.

At the Internet, I had little news from home. I was hoping for a reassuring note from Bill, but of course, there was nothing. I don’t like ending my time on a down note. There was a note saying our drug series was nominated for a CAJ award, but the conference is at the worst possible time in the worst possible city. As my time here winds down and I think about things to bring back for people, I’m rather surprised about who’s been silent. Helen, Tess, Katherine, Nicholas and Rita and Tanya have been great about sending updates and notes. Rhonda, of course, and Georgia to a lesser extent. Joanna always came through with a good, info-packed email and Rich too. Even Sammy and Leah on occasion. But I rarely heard from my brother, not at all from my aunts or cousins. Romana and Karen, two women who’ve lived abroad and should know how vital and valued emails from home can be when you’re away, sent a mere one note each, both saying “too busy to write, more later.” Same with Jill. Showwei was good for a note or two, as well as virtually everyone from Ghana, including the new JHR. I am going to have to do something very grand for the people who supported me so well when I was away.

From Mbour I had about the best ride I’ve ever had to Kaolack, smooth, quiet, quick and comfortable. But at Kaolack, eyi! Chaos. I’m getting better, though, at navigating things. Someone else paid my cab fare, after I’d made a point of getting in a shared taxi where it would be cheaper. I was met by the usual hustlers, kept my pack on me and my wits about me and got into a car bound for Ziguinchor after much debate about how much I would pay for my baggage -- a rather good spirited exchange that made me puff up with pride not only at my improved French but my growing savvy at negotiating travel. After I got in the car, a young French couple arrived, totally easing my worries about crossing the Gambian border and the woman, Melanie, reminded me of how amazing it is that I’ve managed to backpack alone in West Africa! Sometimes I forget – I mean, you do what you’ve got to do, right – that I’m managing despite language and cultural barriers and I’m doing it alone. Sometimes I’m very proud of me.

The ride, by my poor standards, was pretty good. The road out of Kaolack was so scarred, rutted and awful that at points it felt like my teeth were chattering. The lumpy backseat had a few too many rounded, steel objects poking out of it and so I’ve got bruises on my legs and arms. We had no problems crossing the Gambian border, I didn’t have to pay in fact, as the guard had an affinity for Canadians but things slowed considerably on the Gambian side, with one of the worst roads I’ve encountered in a long time. At the ferry crossing, we waited probably 45 minutes for the boat to return – filling up on sandwiches filled with greasy, tomato-flavoured macaroni, soft potato chunks, tomato, lettuce and grilled chunks of chicken, all sprinkled with pepper and piment, folded into a half loaf of fresh French bread and wrapped in an Arabic language newspaper.

On the other side, we encounter a corrupt border guard and paid another thousand francs to leave, then drove like the dickens – why, when it’s dark the drivers speed up I’ll never know. In total, we probably spent two hours in Gambia, half of it waiting for and riding on the ferry. After dark, we were slowed only by a giant fallen tree. We arrived at the same time as the chainsaw and it was quickly cleared away. The driving got even more maniacal after that and we nearly hit a cow crossing the road.

At Zuiginchor, things got decidedly strange. Two hustlers who met us off the bus got into a fight, then the one got in a cab with us – something I never allow – and came to the hotel, where he showed us our rooms and generally acted very annoying. The French couple could tell I was unimpressed and I told the woman I’d never seen hustlers do that and I was uncomfortable not only that he knew where we were staying, but in which rooms. I had a very anxious night’s sleep, even though I was dead tired.

But now, I’ve moved downtown to a hotel with a gorgeous courtyard, where I sit and write amid the squawk of birds the sounds of relaxing Cuban jazz filtering out of the Bar Americaine. I’m going to have to remind myself that this week should be very vacation-like, because it’ll be a long time before I get the time or money to take a break again.

Riding in Cars with Boys

Left Toubab Dialow after another restless night’s sleep. I swore I heard the munch and crunch of little mouse teeth and sure enough, when I got up to use the toilet, I surprised the little sucker and he came right at me before scurrying out the door. I don’t know why I’m okay with lizards, but mice freak me right out. On the way out I asked for directions and ended up being escorted by a man who told me his name was Martin Luther King. He just happened to be drinking wine at the bar when I started to leave at 10 a.m., but swallowed in gulps so he could accompany me. Things started out fine enough: we got to the “gare” and waited only a couple minutes, then backtracked to another town where he arranged for a private taxi. But things started to go off the rails when we stopped at the bank. It soon became apparent this old guy had a few errand to run and he was using my need to get to Mbour as an excuse to do them. At the bank, he insisted I come in so he could get faster service. Then we drove down the road a small way at a speed suitable for retirees and stopped at a gas station, where the old guy bought a bottle of merlot and a can of Heineken. We weren’t more than 20 minutes down the road before he vomited out the passenger side window, spraying the back window in the process. I was seriously grossed out, but felt merely sad for him. A while later he got out to stumble around and pee. Then we finally arrived at his destination, a resort town that seemed cute enough and he got out again to buy pineapple and bananas, then we went to his friends house, after picking up another sketchy friend of his. It’s terrible to say, but I thought both girls were prostitutes. One, with fuzzy red hair, was wearing shorts so tiny initially I thought she wasn’t’ wearing anything at all. The other was rather heavily painted, with arched eyebrows and a paunchy belly. The woman with the shorts took one look at me, realized I wasn’t too happy to be sitting on her mattress on the floor rather than in a car on my way so she explained I should be going and we finally got under way. The ride was pretty gross, like Grand Bend, with lots of toubabs in shorts and low-cut tops living rented 4x4s. The entire coast was lined with timeshare-like complexes. We stopped at bank in Mbour, where my heart sank to realize the bank had “declined” my transaction. Luckily, the ATM took my debit card, but I had no idea what was in the account. I headed straight to the Internet to send off a note to Mom. Hopefully she lets me know what’s in the account because I plan on stopping again tomorrow. I just need maybe $200 to see me through to Accra.

After another restless night, I got up to walk to Fadiouth, the little island described by the guide as “fascinating’ with a wicked combination of rather unusual things like granaries on stilts and middens made of seashells, a sacred baobab and a griot cemetery. What a crock. It was such a disappointment. I made plans to leave – not only the island but the entire town – after only a half hour there. As I approached the bridge, a man approached to say he was a guide on the island and would be happy to accompany. Not interested, I told him, and don’t bother wasting your time. Fine, I’ll walk with you to the bridge, where he insisted I greet the representative of the syndicat. Fine. After a little spiel, I explained again, I wasn’t interested and made for the bridge, where I was promptly tailed by an extremely aggressive young tout who tried to tell me I had to hire either him or an official guide, but I couldn’t go on to the island alone. I stopped, I explained, I told him to go away. I stopped again. Finally, halfway down the bridge, he left me. But it was essentially the same on the other side. No one seemed to be able to grasp the idea that the tiny, overcrowded, smelly and filthy island was navigatible without an expensive guide. I would hire one if I thought s/he would provide any interesting insight, but I have yet to meet one who earned his money. Plus, without fail, about half an hour in, being guided goes from being merely educational to fending off very unwanted attention. I’m just fed up with it. So I ignored and evaded everyone, wound my way around the island to the cemetery, where I was very happily shooting away when Charles arrived and proved once again that “no” is a very difficult word indeed. A very lengthy discussion did little to impress upon him that I didn’t want his company and would not be paying him “small money” for explaining the obvious, like “this is the Christian cemetery” and “this is the Muslim cemetery.” Gee, thanks Einstein. The crosses and the crescents certainly had me baffled. In the end, after finally shooing him away, the experience ruined and my patience shot, he had the nerve to demand I give him something because he’s hungry. Sometimes, and thankfully it’s not often, I feel like saying to these guys: You are not my responsibility! And yet if the bank doesn’t come through, I could be in similar circumstance. Still, I’m surprised at these men who beg from white women. I understand that work is scarce, but come on! I had no sense from Charles at all that he was trying to make money in any other way. And guys like him literally spoil it for everyone: his approach pesters tourists, his demands cheapen the experience and he undercuts the men and women who are playing by the rules and are legitimate guides. In the end I gave him 100 francs, enough to buy bread. Then I stamped back across the bridge, cut an angry swath through town and returned from whence I came feeling utterly defeated. I considered packing up and leaving immediately, although I wasn’t sure I would make it all the way to Ziguinchor before dark. But a very pleasant conversation with the auberge owners convinced me to stay and I spent the afternoon sweating – the power was out all day – and reading an English guidebook. Man, I miss books!

Ile Goree

Goree itself is tiny, less than a kilometer wide and a 3-minute walk wide. But it was picture perfect, with stone buildings mixed with pastel pinks and yellow and fiery red, yellow and purple bougainvillea spilling out everywhere. I get off the ferry, crossed the tiny beach and went in search of a hotel room, but was quickly tailed by a nervous teenager with a terrible stutter, who led one to an artists auberge which proved too expensive. I asked him to leave me because I wasn’t interested in paying his commission and he just laughed and pooh-poohed the very notion of a commission. But he led me to a “keur” recommended by the artist that I would have been hard pressed to find otherwise.

I dropped my bags, grabbed my camera and headed out to find the museum, but ended up down an alley lined with vendors -- I passed them all but the last one, where a little fat girl came running up and telling me to visit her boutique. I asked, laughing, if it was really her shop and she said yes, so I asked how much her necklaces were and she told me 2,000 CFA – a very good price. I was just turning to leave when her mother bustled up, grabbed me by the arm and started plying me with cadeaux. I ended up buying seven necklaces for $20, not a one of which I actually need and all of which will be gifted. I hadn’t even received my change before another vendor was pulling on my arm demanding I come to her stall next. As much as I said no, she just kept tugging at me, unraveling rather ugly batiks and telling me she would sell them for another 5,000 CFA, about $12 and about 4x their value. I walked away with her following and eventually got it that I wasn’t buying, she called me some sort of name I didn’t understand. It was the first of several unsatisfying encounters with unreasonably aggressive vendors, a product of their over-saturation on the island.

I found my way to the museum where a man offered to split his breakfast and we chatted for a few minutes before I entered the museum which was pretty impressive and built right into the existing circular fort. The views from on top were pretty good.

I walked up toward the Maison des Esclaves, a beautiful example of what UNESCO funding can achieve. The building – rose coloured with ancient red bricks and a dual spiral staircase – used he bottom floors for housing “pieces of ebony,” including children and young girls before they were led out a door to a waiting ship and sent off to Brazil or the Americas. The top floor was used as a house, built by one Anna Penin, a signare of mixed heritage who is given rather kind treatment in the women’s museum. The upstairs now contains a rather good exhibit on the slave trade itself, but more interesting were the handwritten signs around the walls, comparing the slave trade to the Holocaust. I don’t know anything about the author’s relationship to the museum or why he thinks people should be reading his posters while at a heritage site. After the maison, I wandered to the beach to find food and ended up eating the most delicious rice with seafood – shrimp, octopus, lotte, dorado. It was divine. After lunch I went to the women’s museum, a pretty surface account of women’s contribution to Senegalese society that seemed not to mention that while they represent 52 per cent of the population, their literacy rate is one-quarter that of men and they don’t – and can’t – participate fully in either politics or religion.

I wandered up toward the castle, hoping for a bit of shade and a breeze, but all I found were ruins surrounded by typically pushy vendors. It seemed every time lane and street was crammed with vendors, all selling the same necklaces, batiks, carvings, masks and bags, none of which I wanted. More than one hissed at me when I refused, but the ultimate was a young woman who’d greeted me earlier in the day and forcibly dragged me to her boutique in the market, where she prattled on about picking something for my mother, my sister, my wife, my boyfriend – “don’t be scared of the price, you’re my sister, you’re my friend” – while displaying the most pathetic and tacky collection of kitschy crap, the stuff made in high quantities from third-quality woods. I gamely picked out a kitschy piece of fabric, figuring it could may be turned into a jokey wrap skirt and a rather ugly batik wrap that could make a good alternative to a beach towel. After much “don’t worry, you’re my friend,” the young woman finally quoted a price of 15,000 CFA, about $50. I was so shocked, I tried to hand the stuff back to her and she kept saying “tell me your price! We’re discussing it! This is how it’s done in Africa!” I told her her starting price was too high, in fact, was insulting and she told me, “How am I to know how much money you have in your pocket?” and I thought, honey even if I had 18,000 CFA in my pocket, why would I spend it all here? Anyway, after much badgering from her and her bitchy girlfriend, I finally told them I’d be willing to pay 2,000 CFA, at which point the girl finally took the things and started packing them away. “What do you think you’re going to get for 2,000?” her friend asked indignantly. Now you know how I feel about hearing your price. I told her I could buy the same things elsewhere for far cheaper and she said fine, go buy them then, as though we were on the schoolyard, so I simply turned away, tossed a casual “merci, eh!” over my shoulder and left, hoping I’d left the impression I wasn’t’ as bothered by the experience as I felt. Even after nine months here, I still have the occasional experience like that that reminds me just how much of an outsider I am to those around me and how I will always be immediately judged on the colour of my skin.

Feeling rather angry, like I wanted to go back and give that girl a piece of my mind, I wandered around the fish museum, too distracted to really take in all the exhibits, which had a distinctly “high school science fair project” feel about them. By the time I left, still not fully cooled down, I took small comfort in the idea that while ultimately I saved myself from spending money I don’t have on things I don’t want and would only have to lug around, this girl lost her first – and I’m willing to bet only – client of the day.

Back at the auberge, I slept for a couple hours, then headed out with my camera to see the sunset. The weather was decidedly damp and chilly and the beach was crowded with people waiting for the boat back to Dakar.

An older, jowly Moroccan man talked at me for a while about how “propre” Senegalese women are and how many interracial mixes here are and how it’s perfectly acceptable to hook up with someone else while traveling without your partner, so long as there are no children at home. A little girl, fat and no doubt related to the girl from the morning, trundled up to ask when I was going to visit her shop. Never, I answered, as I have no money. Fine, how many tresses? No way. Back and forth until she had plaited one braid and I literally pushed her away before her conniving little hands could do anymore. She came back with a little baggie full of rubber bands – the kind that snap your hair off – and tried again this time telling me having my whole head done would be only $5. No. Fine, it’s free if you don’t’ like it. No. And after repeating, “I don’t want braids,” roughly 15 times, she finally flounced away with a cutting “fine, donc!” I bought some bread and headed for bed.

I couldn’t get out of bed when the alarm sounded at 6:30 a.m. – my hope to get up for sunrise – but I was up and out by 8 a.m., when the sun was still rather weak and the beach relatively deserted. I took some photos chatted with the fishermen, then waited more than an hour and a half for the ferry to appear, a very damp and chilly wait. All morning, I was thinking, no problem. I can still get a small car and be on the beach in Toubab-Dialao by 3 p.m. And the travel gods laughed, because it was pushing 5 p.m. by the time I arrived, after a hellish day spent trapped inside a tro tro with three screaming babies – sometimes solo, sometimes in concert, but all the time – squished five abroad sitting by a young punk who actually sprayed perfume under his arms about 20 minutes in the ride. I made a bit of a scene when I got into the van, as I’d been met by a hustler I was convinced was trying to rip me off. He wanted me to pay 2,500 CFA, a price I found rather high, considering Toubab is just south of Dakar. After much back and forth, and zero help from other passengers, who pretended to be mute when I asked if this was the correct fare, I handed over the money and made him write legibly how much I’d paid. I got my revenge on the passengers, sadly, by holding up the van for 20 minutes, when it became clear they’d driven right past my stop. I demanded my money back and insisted they pay for the car going the other direction. Turns out the fare was 700, plus 300 for the bag, not 2,000 and 500 as the asshole hustler had charged. The galling thing about being charged double or triple to ride a minicar is that you’re riding a freakin’ minicar! You sweat, feel hot, tired, cramped, and uncomfortable, just like everyone else. So why should you pay more. And ripping off the whitey who takes public transit is like stealing from a beggar, we’re the ones who can least afford it. Actually, the ones who can least afford it started handing up coins and bills to help me, thinking I couldn’t pay the fair on the next tro-tro.

Dakar

Just when I think I couldn’t possibly love Senegal anymore than I already do, it offers up stunning islands and gorgeous beaches, Dakar even was such a treat. I walked around most of Thursday afternoon, taking in the museum, which was pretty informative. Friday I went to the WFP interview, but arrived early, so I walked for a bit not realizing I was taking in the Corniche Est, which follows the coastline and rings the expat/embassy community. The homes and cliffs were beautiful. The interview itself was mildly interesting but certainly not enough to base a story on. I think I will either have to follow it when I get home, as it’s just too much legwork for the time and money I’ve got left. I walked up the road from the interview to a sandwich shop, spent an hour at the Internet café, then headed back toward my auberge, grabbing a mango along the way. The mattress in the room is so poor, I’ve been sleeping at the foot of the bed, curled up on the last few inches of uncrushed foam in an attempt to give my hips a well-deserved break. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to help and I end up tossing and turning with my joints throbbing. My back, my knees, my hips, my ankles. Everything is a big fat mess that hopefully a nice massage and a few nights on my pillow-top mattress will cure. For dinner I ventured to a restaurant highly recommended by my guidebook and was richly rewarded. Chez Loutcha is Cape Verdienne, with heavy Portuguese influence, and it was heavy in meat, beans and salty sauce, but delicious nonetheless. The restaurant itself was the epitome of kitsch and the poor waitresses were made o mismatched uniforms. But they fed me well.

I had every intention of going to a nearby jazz club afterward but when I emerged from the restaurant the street was pitch black but a bunch of boys called over from the other side of the street. I quickly lost my nerve. Dakar has a dangerous reputation and white I’ve been incredibly fortunate so far. Don’t want to risk it by making stupid choices. So instead I sat on my little French balcony and watched the world go by.

Saturday morning I let myself sleep in for a while, then headed to a grocery store where, I have to confess, I recoiled when a leper begging by the door went to grab my hand. In my heart I know I wasn’t recoiling form his touch. I just simply didn’t want to enter into a vice-like grip that would only relent if I donated. But I’m sure it was misconstrued and I feel badly about that. Inside the grocery store was just a weird mix of mostly dollar store items and the occasional piece of food. There were baby items in the dairy case. I made my selections – cheese and crackers – and headed in what I thought was the direction of the silver market, but turned out to be the train station. I got terribly turned around and it was about two hours before I ended up back where I started after threading through the old medina, where cars were fighting for space among porters and shoppers and cart pushers. It was just a big, noisy mess – in other words, a typical African market. Once I got my bearings, I headed out again and only managed to find the market, tucked into in alley that opens into a courtyard, because a vendor turned in just ahead of me.

Inside it was absolute tranquility. The usual “come into my shop for the pleasure of your eyes” but nothing unusually aggressive. And if you give a polite “merci,” they let you go easily enough. I ended up buying a fertility statue from Cameroon and a fertility god statue for Georgia also from Cameroon. Surprisingly, and a little suspicious, they fit into my bag no problem. I’m worried my bag has turned bottomless and I just haven’t noticed. From the market I walked to the Internet café where I wasted a dollar finding out that bill hadn’t responded to an email about locusts. Neither had the FAO for that matter. Then I walked a few blocks to a quiet but “upscale” Senegalese restaurant where I had – you guessed it – yassa poulet: a big piece of chicken smothered in onions and marinated in Dijon mustard, which normally I can’t stand. The food wasn’t nearly as good as St. Louis, but maybe it was just the ambiance. Just as I was finishing, a guy started strumming a kora, a kind of multi-stringed guitar, which is played with the instrument facing the musician and plucked with the thumbs. It’s sort of a hybrid guitar/harp and while I initially thought it would be irritating, it turned out to be rather soothing. Even the guys singing were quiet nice. From there, back to the auberge, where I laid for a while trying to give my hip a reprieve, but found little comfort. So, instead, I took some self portraits using my camera’s self-timer and a couple turned out really well. It was fun, if not a bit bizarre.

At about 5 p.m., as the sun was beginning it’s descent – the sunset in Senegal being a rather unrushed affair that ends around 7:30 p.m. – I decided to head out to the corniche, which the guidebooks all recommend, but never alone and never at night. But I had no problems, luckily , and found the locals friendly and the children charming and the views stunning and the walk well worth it. By the end, I was thinking I may need a hip replaced at 30. I bought a mango and some yogurt and headed homeward, where I ate it with crackers and cheese, played solitaire and went to bed. By morning, I felt I was the only person left in Dakar. The streets had that sleepy Sunday morning feel, with a few people out buying bread, but otherwise deserted. I walked with my pack undisturbed until I got to the Place Independence, where some kid in a Rasta hat started following me and chatting, which annoyed me, especially as we got tot he ferry and he tried to tell me where to go, only to send me in the wrong direction as the horn was blowing. The ride was short and unexciting but the view of the island was gorgeous.

Thies by tro-tro

After leaving the auberge, I walked to a shop that was closed, then the post office, then the Internet, also closed, over to another café, where I spent an hour, then ran into Oussou on my way to the travel agents, where the visa machine wasn’t functioning, so back downtown to the other travel agency, where they couldn’t issue the ticket, some lunch at the chawarma stand, where the chawarmas wouldn’t be ready for another 30 minutes and finally to Khady’s to say goodbye. Her children are downright adorable, about the kindest little things you’d ever meet. I took a couple photos and posed for a couple photos and then said my goodbyes after Khady gave me a gawdy blue ring and Marie slipped a bracelet on my wrist. Oussou’s sister had already given me six plastic bracelets and two bracelets made of cow horn. Oussou gave me a weird looking pendant thing and preached for a minute about how it would give me protection. During the cab ride, he kept muttering stuff about how he would say prayers for me and write out my name with cock’s blood while chanting the prayers and whatever my heart desired would come to fruition.

At the gare routiere, I paid my fare, said thanks and goodbye, then climbed in. About a minute later, Oussou was calling me over, a gesture that seemed conspicuous to me and put me on edge. Turns out he wanted money, claiming the electricity company was on the verge of shutting out the lights and I needed to help them pay a 7,500 CFA bill already two months overdue. I balked. 7,500 CFA is a lot of money to me right now and I have to admit my nose was out of joint at the idea that this idyllic African experience was being marred by a last minute pitch for money. I even wondered momentarily if Oussou was one of the men who can work, but doesn’t, preferring instead to sit around smoking, drinking a coffee and talking, writing and reading as though he were a great scholar, not someone with a large family to feed. In the end, I gave him 5,000 CFA, then felt horribly guilty as he promised to send anything I wanted: necklaces, blankets, anything. I told him they’d already done enough, but he didn’t agree. We thanked one another again and parted ways and the more I thought about it, the more sheepish I felt. I still have not budged the cultural divide that separates the individualistic Western society – where everything I have is mine, I earned it and I’ll decide where it goes and how it’s spent – and the African mindset that doesn’t have the same concept of property and ownership, nor even the same sense of family or familial obligation. In Africa, families rely on one another and if you’ve got money or a good job, you’re expected to share it. It’s like eating in public: almost no one does it, maybe because they don’t want to share, but more likely that they’re uncertain they’ll have enough.

I just wish, though, that that money was actually going toward something, like Grace and her business. I have a feeling I could send money and clothes and they would be used for more babies, more cigarettes and more coffee.

The minicar – Senegalese tro-tro – took about an hour to fill and once we were back on the highway and away from the water, it was hot and dry again. The trip took about two hours and the only event of note was a flat tire.

Thies is quite beautiful and quiet, quite live-able, in fact. I checked into the cheap hotel, then went in search of dinner. The rest of the night was spent in my room, hovering near a toilet and hoping the toilet paper would last.

I woke this morning feeling exhausted, packed up and moved to the more expensive hotel, then ran errands until lunch, when I made myself a sandwich and had a nap. The whole reason I stayed in Thies a full day to visit the museum and the tapestry factory, so I was some pissed off to discover they’re both closed for renovations! I will likely scrounge for a more solid dinner and head off to bed early, as I’m off to Dakar tomorrow.

St. Louis Family

Back by the auberge, I could hear drumbeats and whistles and women hooting and I remembered Khady said there was a “tam tam” for women at the Tennis Club that night. I headed inside not knowing what to expect. The lights were bright and there were dozens of women resplendent in patio chairs forming a square around the tennis court. The music was three djembes and a tam tam tucked under the arm and pounded with a small, curved stick. And on the dance floor were half a dozen women literally shaking their ample booties.

Senegalese dancing is aggressive and wild. Legs move one way, arms move another. The women lift their shirts and hike their skirts for maximum effect and at one point, a woman brought one of the chairs in the circle and did a rather sexual dance with it. One woman, in a flouncy boubou, hiked her skirt to reveal a fake penis, which had some women literally falling off their chairs. There were judges, including the French consul, who decided on five women, including one who got down on all flours and another who was classically beautiful in the African sense, meaning she was curvy, about 250 lbs and at least a double D cup. And when she got going, she really got going.

After the dancing, they invited the men to the dance, and as there were only two men there, the band members danced. The two men were excellent, jumping and kicking in a style that looked like Kung Fu set to music. From there, the judges invited the best dressed forward and it was quite a hard choice, I expect. There were women in purple, peach, red, black. Most had covered collarbones, a few had glittering sequins. All were bedecked with earrings, necklaces, rings, brooches, and bracelets and those that didn’t have elaborate, plastered hairstyles had beautifully arranged headscarves that seemed to bend and fold and fan in a way that defied gravity. They paraded for a bit in their finery, then the judges focused on hairstyles and head dresses. One woman, my favourite and the eventual winner, had braids snaking around her skull that ended in a gorgeous bundle of twists ant the base of her neck. Another had her hair divided in six perfect sections, each then braided in dozens of tiny, tight braids. There was one white woman in the competition, which seemed to be mostly organized by ex-pat French who sat in one corner and didn’t mix or mingle with any of the Wolof-speaking women around them.

At the end of the night – at midnight – the consul announced the winners amid much media. The winners, who spent hours at the salon, God knows how much on fabric and patterns and sequins and jewelry, as well as make-up, won tins of tomatoes and T-shirts. No big cheques or new cars or products provided by the good people of Proctor-Gamble. Just bragging rights and the base of a sauce. There weren’t even men around to admire their beauty or their dancing. The competition was truly for women only.

The morning I woke feeling ill – damn yassa! – but down to Khady and Oussou’s, where I met their daughters Marie and Daba. Marie, Khady’s oldest, is 13, meaning Khady started having kids at 16. It was only much later when I asked about the whereabouts of the other children that I learned only Moctar and Miriam, a 2-year old, are Oussou’s children. The rest were fathered by another man and they stayed with him when Khady married Oussou. Miriam lived with an aunt, also named Miriam and Oussou told me that is a Senegalese tradition of you name your child after someone, they’re invited to raise it, sort of like a godparent. Miriam’s children were grown and gone, so she opted to take the child at three months and will feed it, clothe and educate her. Oussou assured me everyone was happy with the arrangement, including Khady, although I don’t see how that’s possible.

Oussou and I walked to the Independence Parade and he told me about the beggar boys, who are sent by their parents to beg on the streets. Most are from other towns and have no family. The shocking thing was their connection to the marabouts. I am going to have to read a lot more about the marabouts to fully understand them, but essentially Senegal broke from Arabic tradition and they believe that unlike traditional Islam, which states everyone has a direct, personal relationship with Allah, the Senegalese use marabouts as middlemen, believing they have a greater connection with Allah. There are several fraternities in Senegal, some very strict Muslims, some seemingly more like Hare Krishnas. But all have their disciples, who pay them a fee each month to be included in the fraternity and in the prayers. So, essentially the marabouts are very powerful in both a mystical and a political sense. And they’re incredibly wealthy too.

But the situation with the street boys is one of pure exploitation. They are given lodgings at the marabout’s home, but they must pay for it. Oussou stopped two dirty urchins to prove it and sure enough, if they didn’t bring in at least 50 CFA a day, they’d be beaten and forced to sleep on the street. Unbelievably, the marabout provides neither food nor clothing, just simple lodging. The beggar boys take their turn cans door to door looking for scraps often invoking the name of Allah and the Muslim practice of tithe in the process. I find it galling that the marabouts aren’t held to the same standard, but Oussou said they’re too politically powerful to take on. My questions is, what becomes of these boys? When they grow up, uneducated, unloved and unskilled at anything but begging and hand-to-mouth survival, what do they do? Do they get married, get jobs, get money and “real” lives, or is that their existence for all eternity?

After the parade – a rather dull affair featuring school children in blazing white T-shirts marching with military precision and the military marching with their weapons on display – Oussou and I walked to his childhood home and met his older sister. They house was in rough shape and her room was tiny, but it had a television and VCD player and she seemed reasonably content.

We walked back to Oussou’s home, stopping to greet his younger sister, who sold me a necklace for my mom. Chez Khady, they were just putting the finishing touches on lunch which left just enough time for me to meet Khady’s cousins, who offered to braid my hair. I, of course, declined. They also invited me to another tam tam, but by the time I got around to getting there, it was over.

St. Louis

At St. Louis, things got confusing and I ended up walking the wrong direction, then having the police arrange my taxi – who couldn’t find the place and still tried to charge me more than three times the going rate. But once on the island, all was forgotten and forgiven. A beautiful, chilly breeze was blowing off the water. The buildings were crumbling and colonial, with palm fronds and bougainvillea spilling out through gates and over stone fences. The downtown was lined with souvenir shops and restaurants and fancy hotels. The only difference between St. Louis and the Caribbean appears to be the mosques.

After checking into a gorgeous auberge covered in local art, I walked to find lunch at a place called “Le Fleuve,” which also had art on the walls. A plate of yassa chicken and a glass of lemonade later, the taxi brousse ride seemed miles away. I walked for a while, then found an Internet café and headed back tot he hotel for a snooze and some dinner, some rather gross and costly mafe with such strong, dirt-like peanut flavour I could barely choked it down. I think it was to do with the water, which is filtered but still tastes like dirt. As I was waiting for change, a Rasta named Teej came in and followed me on my walk, pointing out local haunts and good places for souvenirs. We headed back to the hotel, where he introduced me to Lupin, a French-Canadian and two Germans named Peter and Morris who had hooked up in Mauritania. Peter had spent four months in Maroc while Morris was trying to get to Egypt.

I flaked out early but was up early to walk the length of the island, which is really falling apart in the non-touristy areas. North of the bridge I ran into a woman with a baby on her back who was throwing out waste water and she invited me into her home. I fought my usual “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly” impulse and I’m glad I did. Khady turned out to be 29 and the baby on her back, Moctar, was her sixth child. We sat and chatted for a while and she told me her husband doesn’t work and immediately alarm bells started ringing, as this was a familiar story, one Grace had used to extract money. But it turned out she was just stating a fact. When her husband, Oussou, arrived, we chatted for a long, long time about Muslims and Islam and the teachings of the Koran and his six years in Koranic school, where he was beaten for failing to remember key passages. But it was all worth it, he swore, because now he spoke French, Wolof and Arabic and could do what he wanted when he wanted, and if thy needed anything, he would simply put together a prayer and ask Allah. That led to a discussion of gris-gris, something neither Khady nor Oussou believe in, which makes them unusual. Every Senegalais sports a gris-gris charm under their arm or around their waist, essentially a prayer written out asking for protection. Khady’s mom bought one for her children, but they don’t wear them. Instead, Oussou prays for them. I left them after several hours promising to return the next day so Oussou could take me shopping at his sister’s roadside “boutique.”

I rebuffed one souvenir seller, but stuck my head into the next shop, where some rough, folkish paintings caught my eye. The vendor was pleasant enough and we had a fabulous Ghana-style exchange which made me incredibly happy, as my French has clearly improved dramatically. The key, with everything here, is to go slowly. After about a half hour of discussions, I bought the painting for $20. Then I walked to a chawarma shop and ate the best sandwich I’ve had in a while and watched a montage on the late Pope. From there I headed to the Internet café, then back to the auberge to drop off my wrap and painting, then walked to the other island which is decidedly dirtier and rather neglected, touristically.

Bakel, Senegal

The scenery wasn’t much, just scrub, thorn trees, yellow grass and rolling dunes. The area around Bakel was much the same. When I arrived, I walked into town to the hotel feeling hot, hungry and tired. The hotel wasn’t much but it was central and super cheap. I had a dollar’s worth of rice and sauce before heading upstairs to read about Senegal – having finally felt like I arrived – and to snooze away the aches and pains in my hips and knees.

The hotel seemed to be run by women, but they had a high school aged boy who delivered my change from lunch, told me he loved me and that hi s name was Ibrahim. As he’d woken me from a sleep so deep I felt knackered, I simply shut the door in his face. That afternoon he spontaneously appeared on the terrace and made as though he was going to just enter the room, but when he caught sight of the look on my face, he changed his mind. He proved to be a real hassle, though, as the next day he was on the terrace dusting by 8 a.m. and I had to tell him to go away. He was back a half hour later and going through my trash, which I found thoroughly embarrassing.

After my siesta, I went for a walk around town, hoping to see some of the river. But along the way, a guy named Samba stopped me and we got to talking over beers. He’s opening a new hotel complex and talked a little about life in sleepy Bakel. Then he told me he’s a Rasta – without dreads – and things started to go ff the rails. He asked if I smoke herb and I said no, but he insisted we would go tot he river and smoke together. Once it got through his head I wasn’t interested, he suggested we get some meat and take it to his place for dinner. We compromised and got meat grilled on the street – some very tasty lamb with salt and mustard. But the dynamic had shifted from it being a simple, pleasant conversation with a new acquaintance to feeling like I was being pursued.

The next morning I was up and out early and walking to the gare routiere without having seen the river. At the taxi brousse station, it was a two hour wait for the car to Dakar to fill and the man taking the money was a swindler and a cheat. (In the end, I paid a reduced fare, so he got what he deserved.) I was only going as far as Podor, about eight hours down the line, but it took about 13 hours to reach. When we stopped for lunch, the car disappeared and wasn’t’ ready for another three hours! Gave me lots of time to study the inner workings of a roadside chop stand, where a cauldron of rice was mixed with sauce, poisson et legumes and served en masse in big silver bowls. It was your choice whether you rolled the rice into balls and ate it with your hands or whether you took it with a spoon. It was delicious, but afterward I watched the boys wash the dishes in the tubs of water where people washed their hands and errant donkeys and goats would come for a surreptitious slurp of water.

The news showed the Pope was in his final hours, and then, because it was Friday, the station played hour after hour of Islam-oriented programming, none of which I understood. I hadn’t realized it, but no one in my car spoke fluent French. They were all Wolof, making Senegal the first place I’d visited where the colonial language wasn’t the common language.

By 4.30 p.m., we were back on the road and any hopes I had of arriving before dark were dashed. The driving was slow and dangerous, with the road rutted and in some parts, completely gone. It was narrow and the Senegalese drive with their brights on. It’s like a constant game of chicken.

I got out at Tjeri, an intersection with nothing of note. The tro tro drivers had me shuttling back and forth, back and forth, before they finally got reasonably full and could leave. No one had to call a stop, as the driver knew everyone and where they lived. I’m fairly certain he overcharged me, but it was only a dollar. The campement listed in the guidebook as near the gare routiere but not sign posted was closed, but I ended up at a clean, empty place that looked like a university dorm. I thought I’d never get to sleep over the sound of the air conditioner but either it got quiet or I’m a deeper sleeper than when I left Toronto. My whole body ached – my right hip especially – and I was worried I’d given myself toxic shock syndrome, as it had been roughly 14 hours since I’d put my tampon in. I had a shower, did some laundry and toddled off to find water after turning on the faucet and finding brown liquid spilling out.

The next morning I was up and out by 8 a.m., hungry but signed up fro the Dakar car, which left after about a half an hour. The ride was excruciatingly uncomfortable after five days, my tailbone, hip bones and knees had had it – and there really wasn’t enough room for three of us. The scenery, again, was uninteresting, although we did pass a car accident. Mostly it was southward sand.