The initial signs were not good: as the manager led me in to the hotel he didn’t feel it necessary to comment on the unconscious figure sprawled in the lobby. Checking to see if the first room was available we obviously disrupted a prostitute and her client, judging by the noises coming from within but the next room with a dusty motorcycle parked outside in the corridor was deemed suitable. I was welcomed by the death throes of cockroach in…
If you were to judge a city by its outskirts you would have turned round a long time before getting even half way into Conakry and called in a tactical nuclear strike. Lurching at crawling speed over the 4×4 test track, which is the main road into the city, along with far too many road users than it was designed for, you are surrounded by the clanking of improvised industry amongst clouds of dust and smouldering heaps of plastic and…
It has taken much time and effort to find just the right words to encapsulate the true essence of this country and after much consultation of dictionaries and thesauri, contemplating adjectival comparisons and literary metaphor I believe I have captured concisely the quintessential Guinea: absolutely fucked. For a nation that hasn’t suffered war it suffers a level of decrepitude rarely matched in African nations. If you have not had the opportunity to become a connoisseur of relative levels of fuckedupness (this is my opening bid…
Dear Allah I am very sorry but I may have inadvertently insulted your great religion. Please allow me to explain. I know being omniscient you already know this but I would just feel a bit better about it if I put it into words, if you don’t mind. Ever since George Bush decided that Islam was a bad thing I have sought to better understand your religion, after all I wasn’t going to take that dimwit’s word for it was…
With Mali’s musical reputation having spread far and wide you could be forgiven for thinking that this might be reflected in the night clubs of its capital Bamako. The reality is however at the opposite end of the spectrum to that presented in the comfortable confines of the European world music media. Purely in the interests of research, naturally, I embarked upon a few nights of club crawling with some fellow English speakers. With free entry and taxis at a…
Let me take you away from the headline grabbing suffering in Africa and go down to the simple realities of everyday existence, to my friend Mamadou’s home: a one room mud brick shack with a corrugated iron roof, in a small town a few km outside the capital of Burkina Faso – Ouagadougou. Apart from a lucky few who could afford concrete blocks, all houses are built like this, so every rainy season brings some new collapses. Here, where I…
I extended my stay in Boukoumbe in northern Benin to join in International Womens Day celebrations: aside from witnessing all the traditional singing and dancing to compliment the interminable speeches, I ended it in fine style lurching out of the village nightclub at 4 30am having jumped around like a sweaty loon for a few hours to some great music, virtually none of which would conform to the European idea of African music and was much the better for it….
At a café in a small town in Northern Benin, a young man asked if it was ok to share my table and I had to assure the waitress that I was only too happy to chat to a stranger who she assumed would only bother me. He introduced himself as Paulin and we spent a few hours discussing life, the universe and everything. It’s always rewarding to find someone interested and knowledgeable in African politics to get a better…
I have been checking out the local wildlife, not to look at, but to eat though, principally agouti, which is a like a huge plump rat but actually of the porcupine family and a common bush meat in West Africa. The first time I tried it there was an overpowering, rancid stench which was a tad off putting, but I later discovered that this was just the way some country folk preferred it: once killed you leave it sitting around…
By the time I got to Burkina Faso I was beginning to get disappointed by the lack of sacrificial poultry action, so was delighted to discover the Sacred Fish Pond just outside of Bobo Dioulasso. Philipe, a French man I had met kindly let me tag along with his guide and 4×4 for a couple of days. After a short hike over wind eroded rocks, carved into a myriad of interesting shapes, we descended a narrow fissure in the rocks…
