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.