Rivers I Understand

I left Dakar this morning, adorned with the two bracelets Khady made for me, nails stained by henna, and a fantastically glittery ring that my hostess, Soda, presented to me at breakfast. Did I tell you about the night when she and I were talking up on the roof terrace and I told her I'd woken up early in the morning to the sound of the birds...it was a turning point in our friendship and the week. She told me her mother used to put out a plate of water for the birds to come and wash, and Soda was entranced by the scene of them all flying away at once. Her mother had learned this from her own father, which made the act that much more endearing. But, she told me, 'when I put out the water, no one comes chez moi!' As a gift of thanks, a very small token in return for the welcome that has made Dakar approachable and memorable in so many ways, I brought home a flowering Baobab tree for the terrace. Maybe with a few flowers the birds will come...

Yesterday, after we went to the market to get gifts for a wedding (a mortar and pestal, three sieves for making juice, a plastic dish rack, a giant metal bowl, slatted spoons, good-luck nuts to take to the mosque, and black hair oil to dress up for the wedding party), I took off first for the tailor, and then for Ngor, the beach-side village where I'd wandered around a week before on my first day in Dakar. This time, I knew exactly where to turn, retracing the steps I'd taken with that wonderful woman a week before, and found my way to the beach sans problem, where I got in a boat to go over to l'Ile de Ngor. There I found myself on cabana blankets beneath palm trees, French military families all around, and women selling necklaces and fruit, winding their way through the tourists' blankets. I read uncomfortably on my rented mat, feeling I was about to be bombarded with sunglasses and postcards, and noted that I never imagined this to be the tropical vacation it suddenly felt like. The best part of the afternoon: riding home in my beloved car rapide, the radio dial spinning, and the seats filling up, the wind coming in through the windows, and heading home to the family for dinner. In the evening Khady's boyfriend taught me how to make Senegalese tea while we hung out and watched an American spy drama dubbed in French on the télé. The other night I sat up there on the roof while Khady applied henna to my nails, and I waited for the stain to take hold while the evening call to prayer sounded and the sun went down on the city. The other afternoon Tonton, my homestay father took me out to la Mosqué de la Divinité...the sun was again slipping behind the cliffs, and I was able to take photos of all the pirogues pulled up on the beach, and noted the girls braiding each other's hair, and a boy running back and forth with a bucket of fish, and the doors to the mosque were closed for prayer, and a wedding took place just next door, outside. At every point I have been taken in again and again by this family who has put up with my poor French, and fed me so many meals, telling me always to take more food, 'you've hardly eaten anything!'

This morning, adornments sufficing as a sort of protection, Soda put me in a taxi headed for the bus station. More mayhem than expected...found a car to St.Louis and squeezed into the way back seat of the aged station wagon. Through the windows people tried to sell us Q-tips, bags of oranges, surge protectors, singing light-up key chains, packets of tissues, bags of water, radios, bels, cell phone covers...The woman on my left took up 3/4 of the entire back seat, and another young girl (who quickly became my friend in transit) tried to arrange ourselves...every time even a toe moved back there, everyone felt it, and while the grande dame tranquily fingered her prayer beads, the two of us tried varying positions of cramped muscles and curled shoulders that easily surpassed any of the most crowded subway rides, intense thee-tier sleeper cars in India, or near-death taxi experiences in Beijing.

It took 3.5 hours to get to St.Louis.

...which I love for it's calming rivers on either side of the little island. I'm staying at l'auberge de jeunese, an adorable colonial building that feels so Meditteranean French...in the early evening the bank of the river is occupied by game after game of soccer. We are walking more slowly here, and feeling far less pressed than in the craze of Dakar.

More tomorrow on the river, the fishermen, the music, and the ever-present river spirit.