Once again it's xmas eve and I'm nowhere near "The Barrels", my local pub in my hometown of Hereford. Instead I'm sat in the dark in the african bush, listening to the yowls of a pack of dogs fighting over the chance to shag our rather promiscuous bitch. These fucking dogs have kept me up for the last 3 nights, and I mean that literally. The first night I thought someone was undergoing a werewolf transformation in our compound, then I realised they were growls of ecstacy... bastard dog. And it keeps stealing the sugar. Virtually every day I buy another bag of sugar for my tea, then I turn my back for one second and Bam! The dog's had it again. So I've been getting used to taking my tea black and sugarless... which is better than how some people take it here... I was watching one of the guys who's building here preparing his tea the other morning. He was loading in two tablespoons of sugar, and I noticed a centimetre of white stuff at the bottom of the glass. I assumed it was condensed milk, as this is quite common in Asia, but when he started stirring, I noticed that it didn't want to mix, but started floating to the surface. I thought maybe it was off, so I asked him what it was. "Mayonnaise" he replied. Now I've seen some weird drinks in my time, but tea with mayonnaise.. that takes the biscuit (actually there weren't any biscuits).
I you weren't already aware, I'm currently in The Gambia, staying on a piece of land owned by a friend. There's no buildings or anything yet, so I'm staying in a frame tent under a palm thatch shelter. We have a hand pump for water, which I'm hoping will turn me into a muscle bound adonis by the end of my stay here. And we also have the fantastic Mambwe, my surrogate wife/mother, who is cooking for me and generally fussing over my wellbeing. Tomorrow morning (xmas day) we are heading south to Abene in Senegal, where there is a 5 day music festival, so I'm looking forward to that! So far I've managed to jam with a Kora player called Lamin, and that is sounding pretty good to be fair. I've also made lots of other local music contacts so have lots to be getting on with.
The compound where I'm staying is basically in the bush. There are snakes everywhere, and mosquitoes that I never see and yet which eat me every evening. Perhaps it's not surprsing that I never see them, as there's no electricity. Right now I'm sat in the dark, using peter's laptop and seeing the keyboard by the light of the screen while insects flock to read my musings and explore the Windows Desktop. How exactly I will post this is another matter, as there is no internet for miles, and that which does exist is unreliable at best. I do however have a mobile phone with a local simcard, as does every self respecting poverty stricken african! Mobile fever is in full swing here. The only advertising billboards along the one main road here are advertising competing mobilenetworks, showing smiling africans laughing into their phones and proclaiming the latest offers. So while we may well be sat in the pitch black cooking rice over a wood fire under a black and starry sky, the drone of crickets and the rustling of palm leaves is regularly interrupted by the latest nokia rintones and the subsequent shouted conversation: "Hello?! Hello?!! Can you hear me?! I can hear you! Can you hear me??! Hang on, your breaking up!!" etc etc. (please translate into Mandinka, Wolof, Sela or any of the other 10 or so languages spoken in this region...!)
Well, that's all I can think of to say right now. I hope you're all having a fantastic xmas! It's definitely not xmas here, but I can't complain, as it's hot, crazy and fascinating...
will let you know how things devlop! :)
posted by Billy at