Saly, Senegal

A lot of people had recommended I see Saly while I was in Senegal. The beaches in Saly were immaculate, as you can see in the pictures. They are tended to daily by the hotel staffs that work the beach and also heavily patrolled in a way the Gambian beaches are not. There is an upside and and downside to this, as I will go into...




I remember the last day I tried to go to the beach in Gambia. It was unusually cloudy that day, but it was my last available day for going to the beach there so I was determined to make the most of it. When I arrived the beaches were FLOODED with people. You could hardly walk. Basically what I found out was that there was one day a week when Gambian locals were free to spend their day at the beach, and the rest of the week the beaches were primarily for tourists and Gambians who worked along there. However throughout the week you will still find locals who don't have liscence to be there. Some are treated harshly, for example I've heard when the soldiers decide to they will take in some of the Rasta's hanging along the beach and chop off their dreadlocks leaving them bald. But the good news is many pass freely. I say good news because they really add to the culture and atmosphere along the beach. It would be lonely with just tourists.





A lot of times in Africa they have laws just the same as we have in America, the difference is a lack of resources and organization to enforce those laws at times.

Anyway, in Saly, Senegal the beach is beautiful, yet lonely. it is perserved mostly for tourists. They don't take kindly to locals hanging around. There was a time in gambia and senegal, just 10 short years ago when tourists rarely came and couldn't even walk the beach freely without being harassed and hustled every step of the way.

I visited some of the local shops in Saly. I stopped at an internet café to check my flight schedule, but it was no luck on those french keyboards were kind of frustrating.

I arrived at the beach and took some pics and video's, swam in the ocean to cool off at sunset, stopped at a restaurant just offshore over the ocean.

































The hotel I stayed at in Saly for a night was easily the most comparable to what you find in an American hotel, as far as air conditioning, cleanliness, toilet, shower, even television. The top was made of straw so they all looked like about 20 individual cottage huts surrounding the lobby and swimming pool.




The only thing that it was lacking by American standards was a cash register, I remember I had to look around for a clerk, and nobody really seemed interested in taking my money. I told one of the staff I'd just leave the money on a table there in the lobby and he just kind of shook his head that that was okay and wandered off in another direction.









Anyway, I was grateful for the hotel because it allowed me to get cleaned up well and sufficient sleep, because I had a long trip ahead of me back to America.

I Get 2 days In Senegal Before Leaving

Accompanied only now by my friend Idiboy, I would leave Gambia for Senegal. Idiboy told me on the way back with a sigh,

"It's going to be different going back to Gambia (after dropping you off at the Senegal airport). And I know your going to feel it when your headed back to America."

What he meant was him and I had been like brothers for a month straight, hanging real tight everyday. I could picture him and I making our way back to our respective homes, him in Gambia, myself in America, both feeling the void seperation from a dear friend.

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In Senegal, once again we visited the home of my friend from back in America, Shiek: and ate and relaxed there with some of his family and their friends, Khady, Ibrahim, Matee, and the many people coming and going from their home, which also housed a salon that Shieks wife had bought for the family to have work.

There we were met by idiboy's cousin Dawda who rolled up on a motorbike, and appeared angry...

"You are bad", he said. "I've been calling you guys, you never call back, or anything."

I tried to explain, he argued with idiboy briefly in Wolof, told me he about some difficulties he was having at work that day, but promised hed try to get off early so he could spend the evening with us.

He made good on that promise and that evening and night we went to see the capital biuldings of Dakar, Senegal. On the way we stopped for something very important to me. I had to get a cd of the music i'd been hearing throughout my trip. Something I could listen to in America when I wanted to escape into my memories of Africa. One song had been playing everywhere we went, from cell-phones to ringtones, and car speakers everywhere and that was Titi "Musica". Also I had to get some songs from my favorite Senegalese artist Viviane Ndour. It seemed like Titi was the alternative for people who had grew tired of Vivianes overexposure, but for me being a tourist I didn't feel that way and it was clear to me Viviane was the number 1 artist in the country. Ofcourse Yosou Ndour is the most popular choice of the locals young and old in Senegal and Gambia, and also their most well-know artist worldwide. He even appeared on the Bullworth soundtrack with Wyclef John and Canibus (a soundtrack I'd actually had since 1998 when it came out, but of course I knew nothing of him then, or of Senegal. It was interesting to realize Id actually listened to him years earlier). Still though, for me Viviane Ndour is the number 1 musical artist of Senegal and Gambia.

But getting the music wasn't easy. its not like going into best buy in America and looking up the album.

There everything is bootlegged, so a record store is a very small, messy place, where the owner digs and digs for a half hour to hopefully come up with what your looking for. Then idiboy and Dawda insisted he play it for us to make sure it was what he said it was, then there was arguing over the price, and so on.

In the meanwhile some guys were hustling me, telling me to come with them and that my friends were bad, "lol". Like I would just take the word of a group of strangers and leave my friends Id been with all along.

Anyway finally we left there and got a bite to eat at a lebanese resteraunt. There is and has been for a long time a thriving lebanese community in Senegal. I was impressed to see how fluent the store owner was in Wolof, he was really like one of them.

We sat for dinner and listened to some songs on Dawda's cell-phone. I shared a nice moment with Dawda in which I told him it was nice to know whenever I came to Senegal I had a good friend I could trust. We all talked about future plans and all the things we wanted to do in gambia and Senegal in years to come. Dawda said, "Yes, idiboy and I fight and argue, weve always been like that, but he is my boy, we used to be in the village together..."

They told me some stories of their youth, Dawda had me visit with his mom on the phone and I promised Id visit the family next time I came.

We visited the capital biuldings of Senegal, and then made our way to the aiport around 10pm at night.

Leaving Gambia, Destination Senegal

There we are. Crowded onto the bus. Headed back to Senegal. Ironically we had the exact same bus driver as we had coming into to Gambia. We just barely caught the bus. If you don't catch the bus it's bad news, because then you have to ride in these group cars that always break down. I had to deal with that in 07'.

The Afterparty, Reggae Night On The Beach!

It was clear during my going away party at the guesthouse that Idiboy had some catching up to do with his old mates. We had a plan to all head to off to Reggae night. I was ready to go, and had a friend that I was going to go visit and bring to the Sizzla. Normally, this hour of night he wouldn't think it safe for me to walk alone all the way to the beach (which was about a 30 minute walk or so). But he was so involved with hanging with his old mates catching up, that he told me I could go on ahead. It was fine with me, to me there was something special about walking alone there at night, alone with my own thoughts, and being free enough to make my own movements. It's something that makes you feel like a true Gambian, African. You want to be able to just soak up the atmosphere and be in harmony with everything around you. So I set out on my own for the beach and Reggae Night.

I walked to the main road, took a taxi to meet up with my friends group halfway to Fajura. Stopped by my friends house, we went to a low key resteraunt in Fajura for a couple minutes, and then it was off to the Sizzla for Reggae Night. There's no rush in getting there. It probably starts around 9 but most people don't arrive till midnight, then it runs deep into the night till around 3am in the morning.



This is at Bailey's for Reggae Night. For some reason they call it "The Sizzla". But Sizzla is actually a popular Reggae group in Jamaica so this causes confusion. When you come back home to America and meet people familiar with Reggae music or Gambia and you tell them while you were in Africa you went to Reggae night at the Sizzla they think you went to a Sizzla concert because along with many popular Reggae groups from Jamaica they actually travel to Gambia and perform at major concert events. Also, Sizzla is not the name of the place, it is Bailey's.

But anyway, I digress... Reggae night at the beach the biggest night for the Rasta boys in Gambia. They go crazy for these shows and know nearly all the words to the songs, very passionate about the music and lifestyle. The men outnumber the women there probably 4 to 1. I thought it was kind of interesting, because I remember when hip-hop in the 90's used to be dominated by a strictly male fanbase. Sure there were female fans, but the male fans dictated the direction of the record sales and culture. Then it seemed in the late 90's all the rap artists started to realize that females were buying more records then men. So artists started to care less about their craft, and the music making process, and more about their image as a sex symbol and simply making a catchy dance tune. To the point where now hip-hop in America is dead, or has become something alltogether different from what it was in the 80's and 90's.

I remember the DJ's name at the Reggae night was DJ Obama. This was the month when Obama had just won presidency and all of Africa was in celebration, as Obama's father is an African Muslim man from Kenya. There in Gambia, at the Reggae night, a popular song was a simple tune, who's chorus went,

"Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, OYYY OYY, OYYY OYYY".

Very simple, but in the Gambia the song blew up, because it came at the right time! In Africa it's a shared experience for events that happen. For example, in America when somebody like Michael Jackson dies, you can ride around in your car and listen to his songs, and most people will look at you funny. I mean, sure, people were watching Michael Jackson footage on TV, and listening to it in headphones, and talk and argue over whether he was good or bad on occasion. But there was no shared experience. In Gambia, on the other hand, in 07' when I was there when Lucky Dube died, if you drove around listening to his music, people might see you and put a hand over there heart, but definitely nobody would look at you strange. Wherever you'd go you'd hear his music outloud and people would talk about him with a shared passion and sympathy.






Here you can see how the cars just pull up on the sand close to the beach. Again, I apologize, my camera doesn't catch footage well at night. You can barely see me walk in front of the lights of the cars in my African clothes. Atleast I stand out for being white. There were a few tourists at Reggae Night here and there, mostly European and they seemed to enjoy themselves. The stage where the DJ plays the tune is maybe a couple hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean, so everytime I go I never forget to go chill by the ocean, listen to the tunes, and catch the view of the moon laying a thousand diamonds across the ocean. Pure beauty. Perfect weather, climate, sounds.

My Going Away Party

Everyone slowly starts to gather for my going away party. It started off slow, but would end up being my greatest night in Africa. Throughout the month, Idiboy would both purposely and randomnly run into his old friends from the village where he grew up. His childhood friends were spread around in different parts of the city. As we came across them one by one he would tell them, "At the end of this month before he leaves, we're going to have a party for him, so we can send him off... proper way." There were drinks for the people that wanted to drink, smoke for the Rasta's, and a slaughtered goat for all. Idiboy had appointed his brother in charge of gathering all the things for the party. There were side dishes to go along with the goat, such as chicken, rice and so on. In the days leading up I remember seeing the goat outside our guest house. It hung out a couple days before it was slaughtered.

"Would you like to come out and see your goat"- Idiboy said the first day it was brought to the spot

It was a fine goat. Sidi, the owner of the 4 guesthouses also lived on the property along with some of his people, and we all took part in preparing the food and festivities throughout the day.

When the goat was finally ready that night I was anxious to eat. I had kept my stomach empty thoughout the day in anticipation of that goat. However, Idiboy was serving to everyone, and he gave me very little of that goat. It was then that I kind of realized that it was really important to him to show his old village-mates a good time that night, and make them happy; how it was a big deal for all of them spending the evening with each other after so much time apart. I appreciated that the night wasn't just a big deal for me, but for everyone involved. One of the guys there said something very nice to me during the party as we were sitting next to each other listening to the drums...

"We will never ever forget this night."

That comment really meant a lot to me.






My friend Idiboy gave me a nice gift, these traditional African clothes. Earlier in the day I didn't think to put them on. Idiboy insisted, he said, "Come on, where are your clothes, you have to wear them for the party tonight." It took me a little time to get used to them, but after this special night I became comfortable in my new clothes, and ended up wearing them more than anything else my last few days there.

Everything where I was in Africa grows on you with just a little time. At first it feels totally new and your mind can't capture it; but with a little prodding from friends, the environment pulls you in, and suddenly it all becomes a part of you. Often I had to turn my mind off and just experience. There is no frame of reference in one's mind for the things you may see in Africa, so you have to continously be willing to open yourself and experience things like a newborn.




In this video you cannot see the party or the drummers only the light from my porch. Sorry I was only using a cheap cell-phone video camera.

Still you can hear the noise of the drummers. One of the highlights of the night was the drummers. It was interesting how the drumming came about. I was sitting at the beach one of my days, when a young man came up to me and asked if I could help him before I went with some money. In this region, it's common for travellers to get asked often to give money, etc. This was a dude I had seen around many times, and talked to from time to time. There were a few people I was certain to give to before I left, but I honestly did not have it in my mind to give him anything. He was very persistent so I told him, "Later I will give you something". I felt kind of bad telling people, "later"..."later"... all the time, but when people are persistent sometimes it's the only answer one can give to continue on their way.

I mentioned the exchange to Idiboy and he told me, "don't worry, we will work something out". This guy would end up being one of four drummers at the party. And those guys really put on a show, the drumming was spectacular. I had gone to many drumming shows while there, but it was different not being at a show, where they are on stage and your at a table in the crowd. Here I was right next to them, in my front yard, people were dancing, joining in... even Idiboy ended up getting down on the drums and could hold his own with the best of them. Everyone was having a great time as the night heated up. At the end of the night, for their services the drummers just asked me to give something from my heart. I know whatever I gave was way more then I'd have just given him for simply asking me in public. So I guess this was one occasion where my conscience could be clean and I was able to make good on my promise to "give later".

The drummers had many songs they sung, they were songs learned growing up in the village. They would throw my name in at the right time, and personalize things. My nickname with Muslims is Ibrahim, so their song would go something like this...

"Home again
Home again
When Will I find my home again
Ibrahim we will miss you"