Happy New Year. It is the first day of 2012 and Sarah and I plan to celebrate with pie, chips and gravy! This is Sarah’s idea and I think it has something to do with coming from Durham back home. Over here, Sarah is Basse based, a town even further up country than Soma. When we come down to Kombos a shared aim is to make the most of the foods and restaurants available here. We are staying together in a friends’ house while they are away in Dakar.
Last night Sarah and I (along with Phil, Lilly and Kebba) saw in the New Year at Poco Loco, a beach side restaurant, on the nearby northern edge of the Senegambia tourist area. Midnight was marked by fireworks all along “the strip”. We stood on the wind swept beach, wrapped in blankets, with our backs to the sea, looking along the line of hotels’ competing displays. It was lovely but we did miss the traditions of Big Ben and Auld Langsyne. Amidst this unique experience we noticed that our blankets came from Ikea!
As we left we saw that hordes of people were thronging the area and traffic jams filled the length of the highway. For those travelling on foot the journey home must have been worrying and difficult and we were grateful that we had booked our friend, Lamin, to fight his way through the crowds in his taxi to pick us up from right outside Poco Loco’s front door.
This morning Sarah and I started the day with grapefruit supplied by an old friend, Phil Hart. I’d visited Phil and his teenage son, Andrew, at their home in Gunjur on the two days following Boxing day. They picked the grapefruit from one of the many trees Phil has planted in his compound since he first began developing the site, twenty years ago. At that time Phil would have been in his early twenties and I can only marvel at all he has achieved, often living in conditions I am grateful not to have experienced myself. The wedge shaped plot, originally bush land, is now well laid out with a mixture of rectangular and circular buildings including meeting room, kitchen, separate bedrooms and toilets. Phil explained that his first task had been to dig the deep well, taking advantage of the good natural supply below ground. This gave him water for both drinking and cement making, vital because all bricks here are cast from cement.
All water is still pulled from the well, a considerable task, given the range of trees, shrubs and flowers that need tending. The latest to be planted are nasturtiums that although looking hardly will probably not survive the attention given them by two recently acquired energetic puppies. There is no electricity and so Phil has brought over good solar powered lights. These and the bonfire made the one evening I spent there inviting and cosy. We shared a Benechin food bowl and drank wonjo, chatting and puppy watching until bedtime. I was surprised to find that my bed was a solid cement block. Fetching a good foam mattress Phil explained that termites would get through a wooden bed in no time!
Electricity pylons are now lining the roadway, outside the compound and so power may soon arrive, making life easier for Phil and Andrew. They certainly deserve it.
I wish them, Phil’s parents, Peter and Anne, and all friends, both old and new a very Happy New Year and all the energy needed to make the most of 2012.
