Yesterday I paid a visit the city of San Louis in the north of Senegal. A crumbling old french colonial city. Nothing remains of what charm it may have had in the towns bygone era. What is left is a crumbling garbage strewn city where sand and goats roam the streets. Horse and carts share the streets with all the rest of the vehicles. 90% of which are all taxis. The majority of other vehicles being large black smoke bellowing buses which lined the streets due to a religious ceremony taking place at the weekend. The main activity is fishing, and along the coast boat building, welding and iron forging was taking place. Some people were mending and making new nets. Generally the town smelled like an old fishing boat. A mixture of sea salt rusted metal mixed with diesel and oil fumes with a healthy dose of smelly fish to boot. On one corner ladies sat on the black sand and were completely covered in black soot. I couldnt figure out what was going on so I went for a second pass. The ladies were actually wiping down coals and selling small piles of coal and they sat amongst the black dirt. A strange sight. But everyone has there own way of struggling to make a living in the poorer parts of the Africa. I met some children on my wanderings down a sand filled street. They looked like they were having fun. They were all extremely polite and friendly. One asked me to buy them a football. I looked down and saw them kicking around a rather pathetic looking burst football. So with the oldest boy on the back of the bike and his energetic friend running behind we headed off in search of a new football. When we had picked out a suitable football, the two boys having agreed on which was the best one I handed over 3000cfas (Central African Francs) about €6 and we quitted the shop. To my surprise all the smaller boys had ran down behind us and were excited to see the new ball. They all individually shook my hand and then posed for a photo. After that I headed back to my little oasis. My campsite beside the beach on a campsite run by a lovely Germany lady called Christine. Always be thankful for what we have. Happiness is relative though and people are generally happy. You are greeted with a big smile once you first make the effort of a smile and say hello. Everyone treats you with a bit of caution at first .. as I do with everyone else. Oh yeah.. I almost forgot. And on the way home I saw some monkies and watched their mams scoop up their little babies up and run off only to stop and throw me some dirty looks for having disturbed their afternoon snooze :)
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:26:55 +0000
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