Toubab Dialaw Senegal

‘We have no milk. We have no milk’, she repeats, ‘go to the shop and buy milk’. Lazily, and slowly I make my way down to the main road and one of the many small shops. Nothing ever happens in this dusty village. The shared taxis rush back and forth, dodging the children whose football game spills onto the only surfaced road. The slow charette, the carts pulled by horse or donkey trundle past, delivering water or rice or cement.

As I come out of the shop I see my friend Vampire. Always happy, always smiling, always on the verge of dancing. ‘Bonjour frère. Comment ça va? Come to my house. We are going to make some food. Come and eat’. We head down the hill between the houses. The goats eye us suspiciously as we pass, then return to whatever important matters occupy goats. Vampire is a legend in our village. A famous singer, he once recorded a song in the studio in Dakar. Vampire, that’s his artist name. Hip hop reggae in a dance hall style, that’s his game. At his house, that he shares with two friends, we sit and smoke a little ganja. Very nice. A Bruce Lee film plays silently on a computer screen. He is fighting with another guy on a wobbly table top. I think Bruce will win. 

‘We have some meat and rice but no potatoes,’ one of the friends announces. Vampire puts some music on his phone, moves to a clear space in the corner of the room, starts to dance and sing. ‘Coronavirus, coronavirus. Ce n’est pas nécessaire.’ He has a clear strong voice, smiling as he sings, and dances with natural grace. ‘Let’s go to the community garden and buy vegetables,’ someone suggests.

We take the sandy track out past the gendarmerie and we are joined by Fallou. ‘Salamalaykum Baye Fall. All fine’. The greeting is important. ‘We go to the garden for vegetables. But first we must go to see my mango garden. It’s not far. OK’, Vampire decides, and no one objects. We leave the village past the football ground and half finished new houses. Fields and bush open up either side of the trail. A tall majestic Boabab tree stands solitary, looking like a god. The massive trunk, scarred with age, rises into a twisted mass of boughs and ends in sparse branches and few leaves. Parakeets chatter around nests in the treetop like adoring worshippers until the magpies come and chase them off. Then they perch on the highest branches cawing, ‘My tree, my tree, my tree’

The path leads through the scrub, strangely marked out with numbered concrete blocks and we approach a walled garden. Fallou stops to sprinkle sugar around an ants’ nest. ‘They are good workers and help everyone, so we must feed them.’ The mango garden is crowded with lush trees. Large ripe mangoes hanging everywhere in the dark green canopy. And a small house nestling in the corner. More friends. Ousman and Soli Sindé invite us in, a sullen girl staring at her phone neither speaks nor moves. In the cool shade we get comfortable. A broken chair, a plastic can and an old paint bucket the only furniture. Before long someone brings out maracas and a bongo, a gourd instrument with a thumb piano for picking melodies and drumming rhythms. The music starts, the maracas shushing a funky dance sound, and the bongo fills the rhythm section with layers of complex beats. Of course Vampire has to sing, it is what he was born for.

We leave the orchard, with a bag of mangoes and a seedling, and cut through the garden of a fine large house. The track becomes a narrow path through thorn trees and finally joins a wide, rusty red, laterite road. The Community Ecological Garden, the worn sign reads. Neat grids of potatoes, onions and carrots. Tall straggly manioc and tufts of peppery basil, sweet green peppers and spicy hot orange ones, being watered by a woman with a bucket. Most of the garden ladies are lounging on a low stone wall, glaring at us. We manage to negotiate some onions and carrots from some friendlier workers deeper into the garden, but there seems to be an atmosphere of recently ceased hostility between the different groups. It comes to a head when Vampire casually asks one of the fierce women if he can taste a radish. Voices are raised, accusations fly, and we make a hasty exit.

Time to go back now and cook the meal. No, wait, another detour. Let’s pass by the hotel with the beautiful garden. It’s not far from here. A long red track, past uninterested cattle and black birds with long curved bills flitting from tree to tree. The track ends at an impressive entryway. We push open the rusty iron gate, and enter a magical garden. Swathes of blood red blossom and striking blue-black birds adorn dome shaped huts. Sculptured human figures finished with hundreds of sea shells, are scattered amongst the trees. An amphitheatre,with tiered stone seats and a pillared stage, is decorated with an abandoned tarpaulin and fallen leaves. Vampire mounts the stage, his face transformed for a moment as he feels the cheer of a remembered crowd, and moves to the memory of the music. At the highest point of the garden stands the music room with its ornate arches and balconies. Inside, wind blown dust forms mounds in the corners, the metal supports for Djembe drums now stand empty and a spiral staircase leads up into the darkness.The natural swimming pool is green with algae, and a tattered poster for a yoga class that finished long ago. The whole place a crumbling homage to the visitors who no longer come.

Our mysterious path twists and turns, forks and merges, becomes a cattle trail, a road where motorbikes leave a trail of dust, and becomes a path again. And suddenly we are at Vampire’s house. We eat a tasty meal gathered round a shared platter, shaping portions of food with our hands, to pop neatly in the mouth. Nonchalantly dropping the tastiest pieces in front of a friend, so everyone gets their share.

Well fed, we take to the street again. Down into the village. Vampire swinging a giant bluetooth speaker in one hand pumping out a familiar tune. His theme tune, the sound that identifies him wherever he goes. ‘Vam-pire, Vam-pire.’ Dancing his way through the alleys. People call out his name. Down near the shore a group of children join in the dance, jumping and stamping, kicking up the dust. A group of beautiful girls peer from behind a gate, just for a glimpse of their idol. Vampire swirls between the boats pulled up on the beach, he dances over a pile of wood spitting his rhymes. The children follow, never missing a beat. ‘Vam-pire, Vam-pire’ they join the chorus. 

The sun is dipping toward the sea. I should take the path that leads home. Oh, damn, where did I leave the milk?