djenné

mopti, mali

i can now claim to have seen the world's largest structure built out of mud. cross that one off the existential checklist. but before you go thinking that this was some tacky construction or dubious honor (such as the world's largest ball of yarn or largest prairie dog-arguably the greatest raisons d'etre for states like nebraska and kansas), i'll try to offer a little better perspective.

djenné, my most recent destination, is one of a handful of malian towns that can claim to have a long and distinguished history as a center of islamic scholarship. centuries ago, when the chief of the island converted to islam, he erected a massive mud mosque. though this did not survive to the present day, in 1906 the present replica was built on the exact same site, measuring in at fifty feet at a minimum and having a capacity in the tens of thousands. each year, thousands volunteer at the end of the rainy season to help repair the town's centerpiece and source of pride. if the mosque alone is not impressive enough, then you must realize that the entire town is composed of mud buildings, many with modern aesthetics and multiple stories, densely cast along labrythine streets.

as planned, the visit to djenné was timed to coincide with the big market on monday. people from near and far come by bus, car, moped, horse, donkey cart, or foot to buy or sell their wares. nearly as impressive as all the rice, fish, spices, goats, donkeys, music, hardware, and cloth for sale, among other goods, was the fact that this market was for locals and by locals. this meant that while i was offered a fair share of jewelry and heard 'toubab' frequently, i was not the center of attention and was able to observe just as much as i was observed for a change. if you've been to africa, you understand that this is rare.

mali-utiae: shout-outs to mali
1. inshallah (god-willing)
we (english speakers) need this word or to create its equivalent. while we in the west are accustomed to telling others that we'll definitely go to their uncle's potluck or come back to kearney next summer, west africans have a good failsafe. all you have to say is 'until next time, inshallah'. this way you put the onus on the deity and don't have to hint at your complete lack of interest.

2. the cfa
the currency in west africa is the cfa (west african franc), which is currently trading a bit less than 500 to the dollar. while the numbers are high, the coin:paper bill ratio is among the best in the world. with coins for 50, 100, 200, 250, and 500; bills for 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10000, the cfa is very friendly on the pockets. while argentina has you pining for coin, london has your pockets weighted down with metal, and zambia has you needing rubber bands to hold the wadded stash for even a simple gum purchase, the cfa has a wonderful balance that doesn't stretch the wallet leather nor put piggy banks in your trousers.

3. fellow travelers
having just said fare-thee-well to nine interesting fellow toubabs, it seems that mali attracts the travelers that yours-truly prefers as company. for one, as it is landlocked, it is rarely the first stop for someone on a tour and rarely the only destination. this means that the traveler is able to confront and get over the afro-shock in senegal, the gambia, or ghana and come to mali a little bit hardened. for another, as it is poor and in africa, it is rarely the first stop for someone in their global stamp-collecting odyssey. this means and was evident in the people i met who 1) had interesting stories from places they've already been all over the globe, and 2) didn't bat an eye yesterday when the driver of the car we worked so hard to arrange pawned us off on a slow, steamy, unsympathetic bus. when ten people can take it in stride like that, it makes a potentially frustrating situation much more endurable.

4. alcohol
perhaps the worst combination in the world is poverty and alcohol, and i again must give islam its props. mali, though poor, is extremely safe because its population is devoutly religious and therefore overwhelmingly dry. so while people may be without means, they are not threatening or belligerent in the way that only the sauce can transform someone. also, as an added bonus, they actually do have beer here for the thirsty.

le pays dogon

sévaré, mali

picture me caked in mud, riding on the back seat of a moped with a stupid grin on my face, and there you have my past three days in pictoral form. it's not just that i witnessed an ages-old culture in practice, albeit one staring down the barrel of history's cruel six-shooter. it's not just that the creations of man and nature were so breathtakingly beautiful. nor is it only because the people i met, from the guides to the villages elders to the fellow toubab trekkers, happen to be salt-of-the-earth, sweet people. there's just something about dogon country that has it standing head-and-shoulders above any experience i've had thus far in west africa.

my three-day, two night trek took me to a very small-n sample of the entirety of dogon country, which stretches for well over two-hundred kilometers. i don't want to say i got the gist of it, but i'll claim to have gotten the gist of what i did see. after an early departure and an 80 kilometer moped ride from this town, the daytime primarily consisted of riding between villages. of the four we saw during the first day and following morning, each consisted of about four clusters of one hundred families, surrounded by arable land (though not by appearances) with a small yet prominent mosque in the center. we would drop our bags off at a campement, then climb up about fifty meters to the base of the massive cliff, where the prior village was. each of these abandoned villages lies beneath the overhang of the escarpment, protected from the elements yet amazingly accessible to water. a few generations ago the whole operation got moved below (to the present location) because hauling millet up uneven rock-strewn paths was determined to be inefficient, if not exhausting. between the hours of noon and 4, guides provided mattresses and told the toubabs to chill. in short: don't mess with malian sun.


following thursday's naptime, we abandoned the moped and walked through a chute in the escarpment, then followed a path to the top and the village of begne matou. from here, we had amazing views of the entire escarpment, which basically rises from endless miles of flatland to this enormous, continuous cliff, at least 100 meters tall and level throughout. we visited the small compound of the village ogon, or chief, and saw the various skulls demarcating the hunter's residence. other than that, we pretty much took in the sites of the sunset, the geology, and the village, all the while mindful not to step into warm execretal contributions from donkeys, goats, pigs, or any other four-legged defecators.

each day was better than the prior, with the true magic falling on friday's return. we walked two kilometers from begne matou to a neighboring village at the top of the escarpment, just in time to beat the storm that was heading our direction. before the full cast of thunder, lightning, and massive quantities of precipitation took the stage, we were treated to an eerie, almost pre-tornado atmosphere. the incoming winds shook up the soil and dirt, creating an adobe red sky at 9 am with winds whistling through the narrow alleys between huts and homes. when the rain began to relent, we started our descent through a narrow crevice in the escarpment, at times crawling on all four's down the wooden ladders provided. the rocks were not too wet, but let's just say that many portions of this path had a don't-look-down edge nearby and we were careful, to say the least, with each step we took. after a brief repose at the bottom, we fired up the moped and at times had to wade it across the stream that had been a road just one day prior.

1000 things you must do before you michael jackson/farrah fawcett (just learned...wow!)
i'm not a big proponent of those books or of people who like to give such blanket statements (i.e. you haven't lived until you've tried their shrimp scampi, etc.), but having said that, i think i have a contender. the best part of the past week (including my homestay in sévaré) has been that i've been sleeping on a mattress in the great outdoors, on rooftops while i was in dogon country. i think i can say that one night of gazing at the african night sky is justification in itself for the airfare (and the malaria). with little- to no-light pollution and rarely any clouds, laying flat on your back gives you an all-access, front-row pass to the best views of the inverted compass imaginable. so while i would never say that you haven't lived until you've seen the night sky in africa, i can say that only sailors could claim to have had a better view of the stars.

if you can't play travel scrabble...
riding nearly 100 km on a moped can be exhilarating, but it can also be a bit hard on the tush and may have you wanting for distraction. as pocket board games are out of the question since the pieces would fly off and your prospective opponent is, well, steering the moped, i thought of a different game. the first step is to eat a mango. at least one gap between your teeth will invariably have a piece of said mango stuck in between. the game, then children, is to guess how many kilometers will pass before you are able to free the stubborn mango morsel with your tongue. yesterday, in my case, the answer was the entire journey, plus a few centimeters of the floss in my backpack. i think this means i was disqualified.

timbuktu, mais n'est pas timbuk-moi

sévaré, mali

timbuktu is synonymous with the end of the earth. the dusty settlement at the northern bend of the niger and the southern shore of the sahara has a mystic calling to travelers, from those seeking its wealth or knowledge to those seeking its isolated existence. it was an immediate goal of mine to reach the ancient city when i decided to come to west africa, yet its with only slight disappointment that i decided not to pursue this destination.

one reason is the river. the mighty niger is an impressive sight, but she's not flowing like she will deeper into the rainy season, meaning that the pinasse trips there take about 4 days instead of 2. with about a week at my disposal, that means the next option would be a 12 hour ride in a land cruiser. the guide book calls the ride 'tough', and based on the rides i've taken that did not warrant the same description, i think i have enough of an idea.

the other reason is that i've been persuaded by something better, and importantly, closer: dogon country. the dogon are a people who've more or less eschewed modern ways and live in villages above, below, and within a massive escarpment. tomorrow morning i'll have my daypack ready and set off for 2 or 3 nights (fine print yet to be settled) of trekking through and sleeping in some of these villages. so while i will not get to say i've been to the famous name, i should return from the few days of radio silence with a story to tell.

snapshot of why the 7-hour bamako-mopti ride on sunday took 14 hours:
somewhere close to midnight ( we departed around 2 pm), the bus driver suavely dodges a long, thin, inanimate object in the right lane of the 2-lane road and gradually brings the bus to a stop a moment later. he gives some instructions in bambara to the attendants, two of whom descend from the bus with flashlights. we reverse slowly. the attendants shout at a certain point and the bus driver stops the vehicle, then descends himself. after 2 minutes, i decide to see what is going on. the object in question was nothing more than a thin plank of wood, i would guess that it would be an excellent canvas to paint the name of a lemonade stand upon. the attendants at this point were reshuffling luggage in the compartment below to accomodate the plank of wood so coveted by our chauffeur. up above, 30 passengers are in various stages of exhaustion and perspiration.

potential suggested slogans to the malian tourism board:
eat with the right, wipe with the left, that's the way we keep it deft!
come for the kora, stay for the escarpments
it's 120° outside but we'll never wear shorts.

favorite malian roadsign:
! literally, a triangular sign with an ! on it. i have no idea what it means, partially because the road does not curve nor does there appear to be anything remotely significant nearby.

chez cisse

bamako, mali

if i had to build malaria into my trip itinerary, i can't say that this time slot and its actual arrival would have been any different. i couldn't have planned it better myself. not just because i have a few notable reunions in the coming weeks and not just because i happened to be sedentary in a capital city. mostly, the falciparum rocked my system (and has since thankfully departed) at the same time that i was a guest with the family of an nyc friend, mariam.

at chez cisse, i have been provided with a guest bedroom (with ac!), couches to laze upon, meals to graze upon, and pleasant company, to say the least. so while i had originally intended to high-tail it out of this surprisingly verdant river town a few days back, malaria and an invitation prolonged the punching of any tickets for onward passage.

this invitation was from a family cousin, a geologist, by the name of mega (that's how it's pronounced, anyway) to visit the site of his company's mine in sikasso, to the southeast of bamako. so yesterday, with my fever gone and my stomach in the process of recovery, i was gone from the house for 12 hours, 10 of them spent in the shotgun seat of the car. they were perfect. there're few things i love more than sitting stationary in a vehicle (provided the seat is reasonably comfortable) and watching landscapes change. sikasso, zigged and zagged by various tributaries of the niger river, is the most fertile region of the country and was delicious for the eyes. red dirt road clashed with lush, green vegetation. simple mud huts and sporadic brick homes among rice paddies. people: walking to who-knows-where, bbq'ing, biking charcoal to market, or simply staring at the traffic pass by. while our ultimate destination had its appeal, the ride alone justified the journey.

and so tonight i spend my final night under the cisse roof and with its clan. it has been as enjoyable a week as one could be that included malaria, but the time to move on has come. before that, a dinner at some friends house and then mega has personally assured me that he will find a bar where i can hear some traditional malian music. i have health, now need to hear the kora in the heart of its kingdom.

'whodya think marty, the libyans!' -dr. emmet brown
so you want a little geopolitical nugget? here in bamako, it doesn't take the most astute to realize who has their paws in the cookie jar. with a series of hotels, the complex that will soon house the ministers of state, malibya, and the presence of oilibya, it is obvious that the northern neighbor holds some sway here. what i learned on a little roll around town courtest of my chauffeur, is that the touareg uprising of the previous decade in the north of mali and the present investment are related. the touareg, a nomadic people, suddenly received arms and began attacking the government. with the presence of oil in the north, the source of their armaments was qaddafi who must have promised them some piece of the pie for their insurgency. however, the uprising failed and a widely popular leader became president, whereupon qaddafi decided his new tactic would be to buy up as much of mali as he could. maybe he's seeking leverage, or maybe these buildings are the evidence of the success of the uprising he purchased?

la malaria

bamako, mali

it was more a matter of when and not if, i suppose. my fourth extended trip to africa, and the pesky parasite spread by the anopheles mosquito has finally made its introduction. i take the malarial prophylactic daily, wear dark colors at sunset, take a russian bath in bugspray each evening. but man has not completely overcome nature in this arena.

felt a tad lethargic yesterday morning, though that's not too far from the norm (a friend once commented that i have two speeds: slow and roll around in the dirt). but soon i heard the chamber below give a little rumble and my egg sandwiches no longer wanted to stay down there. then the malaise. i spent the better part of five hours lying prostrate in the guest bedroom, with the occasional interlude to determine which end the next 'movement' was going to come out of (the score is close to tied).

as per my experience with the illness, i think it closely parallels the insect that it comes from. nobody becomes enraged at the mere presence of a mosquito, they're just annoying. you try to swat them away, try to get them to stop buzzing in your ear, but it never really overwhelms you. with malaria, it's that nothing hurts, but everything aches. all you do is rest, but you rarely sleep. i haven't found it overwhelming or getting the best of me, i just find it annoying. go away!

but i have it lucky. millions die in africa each year from the parasite while i should be more or less good to go tomorrow morning. the consultation at the clinic, the bloodwork, and the medicine set me back close to $40. i'm happy to pay it to get rid of this pest, but there are millions of people who cannot afford such treatment and public health care facilities do not have the funding to pick up the weight. death and disease are always sad. death from preventable disease is tragic. so while i will be back to a clean bill of health in no time, i have a much stronger sense of compassion for those less fortunate.

mes amis

bamako, mali

everything would have been fine. i could have paid for that one room, even if it was a bit too demanding of my cfa, and i would have dealt with it. but i certainly wasn't in a position to turn down local knowledge after finding out that the hostel i was going to stay at was no longer a hostel.

this was kayes. 100 km inside the malian border, and somewhat of a midpoint between dakar and bamako. this made it a reasonable place to rest and recharge between grueling days of buses and sept-places, if not for the weather. as sunset neared, the time when i was walking around with my bags in search of a place to sleep, i was still sweating torrentially from the heat.

so i found the aforementioned hotel that asked too much. then i asked the two gentleman standing by the bridge (under repair) about a certain hostel. it would have been enough had they just pointed me down the road and told me the name of the establishment (and that it abutted the region's prison). even further, just keeping me company on the walk there would have been sufficient.

but then while souleymane went to negotiate an even better rate from the proprietare, fann ordered the first round of beers and told me to relax. then when we realized the kitchen was closed for the day, souleymane went out to the street to buy some delicious street food for me (i hadn't eaten since breakfast) while fann ordered and paid for the next 12 ounces of tranquility. we ate, fann kept ordering beers (not sure how, but the engineer earns and comes from some money), and we chatted for the next few hours, listening to guinean music and bob marley in the moonlight shadows of palm trees and the courtyards lone baobab. when all were content, my two new friends went off into the night to get ready for work the following day and i got to take a long-sought shower.

and when i woke the following morning to the sound of the seasons first rain, i soon found souleymane, asleep in a chair under the thatched roof, waiting to guide me to where i would find the bus for the long trip to bamako. i bought him breakfast and lunch and gave him one of my favorite shirts, but am still at a loss for how to sufficiently repay someone who transforms a harrowing day into an unforgettable night.

mon ami

kayes, mali

money is a stronger barrier than the berlin wall. if you didn't know the economic hierarchy of the global order, you would learn fast upon arrival to africa. seems like everyone wants to be your friend, help you out, or just be in your presence in the hopes that you'll make it rain. this results in the ultimate big-man-on-campus feeling, which can be annoying if not downright aggravating if you're having one of those wrong-side-of-the-bed days.

perhaps that's why my experience in toubab dialao got extended from 2 to 5 days. i seem to have found a kindred spirit in the form of an illiterate djembe drummer from the congo (brazzaville) by the name of samba. i couldn't explain it or do it justice, but we somehow found a way to connect through more than our broken french conversations. maybe it was because we were both away from home or maybe because neither of us ressembled the caricature of what a traveler or local should be like. basically, while toubab dialao is a tranquil fishing village, it also caters to certain types of foreigners. let's just say that i saw enough mulletted, paunchy french men with massive surgical scars paired off with beautiful senegalese women, and the same with female tourists, to be able to put two and two together. so maybe it's as simple as that ageless bond between two people: laughing at sex tourists.

for whatever reason we became friends, it never ceased to amaze me how much samba went out of his way to help me, even when not necessary. he made two trips (2 hours each way) to negotiate fares for my trip east and help me manage the bustle of the hideous gare-routière. he took me on a sweat-inducing four hour walk to a nearby village where he said there was the best view, even if he could have avoided the soleil on the veranda. he scolded the small children who called me toubab (means white person, but is not perjorative) and told them to call me john (i think it's funny and kinda enjoy it). he even took the cell phone number of the passenger next to me and called hours after i left, just to make sure that i arrived safely.

for all this, he never asked anything of me, except for a little money when we departed in dakar so that he could make it back to the village. i gave him the biggest bill, not so much as a payment for services rendered or some payment to get out of my space (which many people do), but just a gift to a friend who can now either visit the dentist (had some molar issues over the weekend) or start buying djembes to markup for sale to tourists.

this is why i travel. for everything i wrote earlier about how massive the world is, there are those opportunities where you form bon connaissance that transcend borders, cultures, and poorly spoken languages. so while there is certainly still the great monetary divider that keeps me seul in many legs of this trip, i did learn that you find the warmest of hearts in some of the poorest of places.

perdu en traduction

toubab dialo, senegal

a plan in africa stands as much chance as a fart in a hurricane: even if it's well-executed, there are so many external variables to contend with that the whole act becomes captive to chance. such was yesterday's 7-hour trip to the bank.

the first part of the plan went seamlessly: get taxi to rufisque, arrive, withdraw money. check. but my new ami samba wanted to do some investigation into prices for an upcoming journey i have to make towards the malian border. we went from chauffeur to chauffeur, inquiring into prices for the journey that should be in the cfa 5000-10000 range. each offer included an extra zero and i helped samba by either laughing or grimacing at each offer. yet have no fear, samba assured me, we would get better prices la-bàs.

la-bàs didn't turn out to be so much la-bàs as it did dakar. specifially, the gare-routière. picture a square kilometer of cars, buses, and vans that would receive shudders on any american highway with the attendant smells of various petrol products. sprinkle on top of that a mélange of aggressive touts, indifferent chauffeurs, peddlers of fake watches, duffel bags, cigarrettes, oranges, and knock-off q-tips. not to be left out, bien sûr, would be an oppressive sun, swarms of flies, and the occasional pour soul missing a limb and just looking for a little change. that's right: i took a monday field trip to the seventh circle of hell.

to make matters worse, we negotiated a reasonable fair and i handed the money over to an indifferent man wearing a conical vietnamese hat with the expectation that i had just arranged a pick-up for wednesday. to make this long-rendition of a short story shorter, this was not the arrangement that had been made. we had just booked an immediate passage to tambacounda.

we explained the situation to the man and we would get our refund-so soon as two more people arrived to take our place. this meant an hour of sitting/standing in the soleil while i shot the hatted-man viscious looks and recited the panoply of english curse words not entirely under my breath. two more passengers eventually arrived, we got our money and left, only to take the slowest, most crowded bus possible back towards rufisque.

at one point, after the hour wait through dakar traffic, the chauffeur and attendant had gone awol for a good 20 minutes while we all waited impatiently and sweated profusely. it turns out that the gendarmes had told the chauffeur that his permit was invalid and demanded a bribe to clear things up. such is africa: just when you can't imagine your own discomfort any greater, you see someone who loses a days meager wages because of the whim of a hungry official.

this perspective pacified my frustration and the bush taxi we took back to town seemed to be a reward for an unpleasant day: an endless expanse of baobab's against the pink hue of the day's last hour of light and the warm breeze coming off the atlantic. samba and i walked back down towards the beach, less like returned passengers than disheveled seafarers. somewhere during this odyssey i decided to stay an extra day doing nothing more than swimming, reading, and eating delicious seafood. tomorrow: the gare-routière and tambacounda, bien sûr.

chez nabou

toubab dialo, senegal

guide books are excellent places to start, but terrible places to finish. without the wisdom of the advanced scout team at lonely planet, i don't know how i could have possibly discovered the beautiful hostel of sobo bade or this pristine fishing village of toubab dialo. the description was enough to get me to haul my bag and negotiate dakar's unfriendly gare routière to come here. but had i entrusted myself completely to the advice of those three tiny paragraphs, who knows if i would have ventured beyond those walls.

but i did. hunger conspired with frugality to send me beyond the confines of sobo bade's kitchen yesterday, where i found a quaint local eatery in restaurant le rocher: chez nabou. nabou herself is a big, vibrantly dressed african mama straight out of central casting. she prepared my poulet and then gave me the traditional café touba. i don't know how exactly it happened, but a slow lunch turned into about five hours of sitting on their veranda, watching the waves hit la plage and lending minimal percussive support to my new friend samba, a djembe drummer.

when i returned for dinner a few hours later, i received an offer i couldn't refuse: a room with a full-sized bed and all three meals for cfa 9000 per night ($20). i accepted and am glad i did. while i slept well up the hill last night in the dorm across from a random french dude named diego, i don't think it'll hold a head lamp to the experience of getting to dine with real senegalese people and laying my head down to the soundtrack provided by the atlantic. the drawbacks may include no toilet (but there is a hole-and it's porcelain too!) and the fact that i have to bucket bathe (for retaining readership, there will be no youtube clips of yours truly engaging in this), but i say that if it's good enough for nabou and samba, then it's good enough for me.

a plus tard, mes amis.

cher dakar

île de gorée, senegal

dear dakar,

listen, i think you're great, i really do. it's just....sorry, i'm not really accustomed to doing this.

i mean, we both knew when i came that it would just be for a few days and that we weren't going to make such a big deal of whatever happened. this was never going to be long-term. i just think that it's time we go our separate ways. what? all of a sudden that's not good enough for you? fine.

okay, for one: you don't make me feel special. there, i said it. i knew i wasn't the first westerner and that i wouldn't be the last, but you don't really acknowledge me. i know that you're seeing other westerners (and i don't think you should let them treat you the way they do, but that's beside the point), but you only pay attention to me if need a fare or are trying to sell me sunglasses. have you ever thought about how that makes me feel?

what? you need another reason? fine. you never finish anything; it's almost as if you can't commit. i know, i know: you have the tax credit for building so that it is more economically viable to always be in construction. but still, you've hardly finished your infrastructure and it's not making you look good. i need someone who can go the distance.

you also haven't shown me that you're ready to have me in your life. your streets are too narrow and the sidewalks are non-existent: you know i'm a pedestrian. you make me crawl over that barrier every day in yoff and your bus service is too infrequent. this doesn't allow me to get to know you: the real dakar.

and you know i don't date smokers. your air pollution makes los angeles look like a new age oxygen bar. the sun is always hiding and i can barely see your cliffs, your best feature. why don't you show me your cliffs?

i know what you're going to say, and, yes, you do have your charms. i will definitely miss the breeze off the atlantic and how you cater to so many of my needs: the diversity in cuisine, banking, the abundance of telecentres, the fact that you have a malian embassy. but don't even think for a minute that you can take credit for the tranquility of yoff or the beauty of île de gorée: they are separate entities. you are frenetic urban energy, for all its good and bad, and cannot claim otherwise.

i'm sorry. i really didn't want it to end this way. i really did have a nice time, it's just that you're not my type. let's just give ourselves this one last night, one more sundowner, one more echo of the call to prayer, and i'll be gone. so let's put the past behind us, let bygones be bygones, and just try to enjoy ourselves.

ne pensez pas deux fois, ce n'est pas grave.

c'est l'afrique

yoff, senegal

traveling to africa must be something like playing in the world cup. you can dream about it, you can plan for it, but there is nothing you can do to be truly prepared for when you step off that plane (or to step onto the pitch). my flight arrived after 3 in the morning and following the passport stamp i was greeted by about 30 taxi drivers beckoning to every potential passenger. i had prearranged a pickup through my hostel and was fortunate to see my misspelled name right away.

stepping out of that airport was like stepping through a time portal in my own life. it has been a few years since i was last in africa (malawi), so i definitely have not forgotten the continent. but there are certain sensations that are ephemeral to the traveler: you can keep the imagery in the mind but there is no way to truly access every rich detail of the memory when not here. conversely, resurfacing here opens up a world of emotions and memories that had been locked away, not deleted, from the conscious. i am thousands of miles away from any point in africa i have been, so geographically it would almost be as if i was describing the memories of san diego that come flooding back upon a trip to nova scotia. but here, it makes perfect sense.

there is certainly a smell to the continent. it is not fresh cut daisies and you would never buy it bottled, but its presence becomes comforting and familiar in the same fashion as a tolerably annoying relative during the right occasions. africa certainly has its own sights and sounds, but the most potent sense is definitely the feel. there is a rhythm to everything from the traffic to the way that people walk to the cadence of their speech. some aspects are frenetic (see: traffic), some languid, while others have a certain grace to them. they are disjointed, but they combine to form some sort of syncronization in the same vein as acid jazz.

these impressions are just from the sleepy muslim fishing village of yoff. dakar is a whole 'nother jar of pickels, something i'll get after tomorrow. i figured that after sleep-deprived weeks of finals and hours of endless travel, i can reemerge into this continent at a slower pace.

a plus tard, mes amis. bonsoir et bonne chance

minha mesinha

lisboa, portugal


it looked better on paper than it was in practice, but yours truly will emerge more grateful than regretful for the 14 hour layover in lisboa. in the end, i would highly endorse a visit here and suggest that the centuries-old iberian capital is worth more than a half-day of your time. if, however, you are also forced onto the half-day plan, sleeping the night before would be highly recommended. so with my return to the aeroporto imminent, i thought it might be helpful to the loyal reader if i could share a little bit of what i learned. entaõ, some lessons and concluding thoughts:

i did absolutely no research into lisboa, not even a glimpse at wikipedia. the biggest con to this was that i had no idea what existed and where it would be found. the pros, however, are that i still managed to find enough to keep me occupied and that i not once stopped on a busy street corner to unfold a map or look at a guide book (are we listening, germans?).

galicia does not hold the monopoly on surly iberian waitstaff.

i definitely slept for a good 40 minutes in a green velvet chair on the second floor of a pretty hip cafe. this is either attributable to the pleasant ambience, or the fact that i haven't slept in two days. maybe both.

blanket generalization based on the limited areas i saw: lisboa is more a dense amalgamation of plazas and alleyways than a frenetic metropolis. the labyrinthine streets may be confusing, but this city does not strike me as intimidating in the least.

i do not look like i'm from lisboa.

if brasilian portuguese (as i wrote last year) sounds like russians speaking spanish, then the lisboan dialect sounds more like italians speaking russian, presumably because of greater contact with the french. even if that sentence doesn't make sense, it's still true.

i smell. badly. i have a caravel of empathy for the poor soul sitting next to me on tonight's flight.

favorite graffiti: nadie podem sonhar para ti

exactamente.