I love going to West Africa because I love the music. I am playing the Djembe, a knee-high, vase-shaped drum that is covered with goatskin and played on with the hands. I have contacts with many African musicians and among them are drummers from the south of Senegal. This region is called the Casamance.
Lamin meets me at the airport. We go to a little hotel where we can leave our baggage and spend the night in a dark discotheque in the city. Before sunrise we take a cap to the great bushtaxi parking lot. From there rotten cars overloaded with people start their trip to far away parts of the country. We take a Peugeot with seven seats in which five overtired passengers are waiting for departure. The baggage is piling up on the roof of the car and you can see the sandy road through the holes in the bottom. First of all, our journey leads us to Banjul, the capital of Gambia. Gambia is a largely stretched country around the Gambia river and it divides Senegal into two parts. After several hours of neck breaking slaloms on sand courses with deep potholes we reach the checkpoint in Gambia. I take my passport and walk into the office to get an entry stamp. They ask a lot of questions, search through the baggage and finally the stamp that should be in my passport is put on the desk. I see it, but do not realize what is happening because this goes beyond my imagination. Before we cross the Gambia river by ferry, our passports are checked for a second time. My entry stamp is missing. I am now an illegal immigrant. The head clerk shows me the prison and tells me to pay or otherwise he would arrest me. My passport is in his office and I do not know what to do. So I tell him that I am seriously sick and that I feel very bad. I ask him to allow me to check my blood glucose in his office. I make a big fuss putting my whole equipment on his desk and demonstratively checking my glucose level. He starts to be unsteady. But when I ask him, he hands me back my passport. We manage to reach the overcrowded ferry just in time and it is only then that I check my passport and see that I still do not have a stamp in it. This will cause problems when exiting to Senegal. On the pier Lamin organises one of the yellow and green cabs whose driver he knows. We buy fruits and sugar on a market to bribe the officers on the Gambian border. When we are stopped on the road I have to be as small as I can while Lamin and the cab driver chat along with the policemen. And so we make it to the border to Senegal. At first my missing entry stamp seems to be an unsolvable problem. The others tell me to wait outside the checkpoint and discuss my exit with the help of our bribe. After some time Lamin shows me my passport and the exit stamp with a smile. After we cross the border, we see a very green and fertile landscape. This is the Casamance. I am tired to the bone when late in the afternoon we reach Lamin's Campount. Here I see white rotundas covered with palm leaves. Young people are waiting for us around a fire. They are drinking Kinkiliba, a read tea from the bush. We report on our journey and then I go to bed in one of the rotundas and sleep on a mattress of leaves. The next days we spent on visits and telling a lot. I go to the clinic in Kafountine which is quite near the village. There I want to learn something about the traditional African treatment of diabetes and talk to the doctors. There are many diabetics in the region but they do not have insulin. The patients are treated with tea made out of plants and roots. What causes big problems is the attaya, an heavily sugared black tea drunken at traditional ceremonies. The patients do not want to do without it. I know the tea and drink the first pour without sugar. | I tell them how they treat diabetes in Europe and show them my equipment. Nowadays Europe moved closer to Africa but still there are no European medical aids. I learn that diabetes can be cured with traditional medicine and I get to know a lot of curing substances in plants, barks and roots. In the Congo you can find a mushroom producing insulin called Pseudomassaria which successfully is employed when treating diabetes. They give me some powder made of roots. I have to put it in some water and drink it in addition to my insulin therapy. By and by I was able to lower my insulin dosis and my glucose was very low and stable. But surely the food too was responsible for that. In Senegal, people chiefly eat rice, vegetables and fish or chicken. They seldom use flour products. I always care about drinking enough water.
In the village I can take part in the life. I receive invitations to festivities and baptisms which I accept. In the evening I usually visit the rehearsals of a Djola band playing traditional music with drums, percussion, guitar, singing and dancers. This music reflects gaiety. We do some recordings from which I produce CDs for the musicians. This is my present for their hospitality. Thursday there is women's dance with drums on the marketplace. The women are dancing energetically and seem to dance for relaxation. Men are not allowed to dance.
A very exciting event is the festival of the wrestlers. The strongest men of the country meet on the wrestling arena to celebrate a great spectacle. Trying to impress and with a screaming crowd following them they walk around the village before the fights. They are the best, singles trying to impress young women. They fight embittered and do a lot of show. The audience likes to be involved. Between the fights little boys play wrestling. And finally there is a big party.
Everywhere I go people are extremely hospitable. When I walk around the village about lunchtime, people ask me to stay for lunch. Sometimes it is not more than a handful of rice they can offer me. They are very poor, but what they have they share with me without expecting something in return. The people in the village do speak many different dialects but the official language is French. Communicating with old people and with children for me is only possible via body language. But somehow it works and it is great fun, too.
I enjoy the life of a totally different culture and see that there are no problems that cannot be solved. Everybody knows someone who knows someone who knows how to solve a problem. Difficulties are dealt with in the community and no one is left alone. My friends from the village were always with me when I returned to Europe. They thought about my diabetes and wanted me to be fine. They furnish me with traditional African medication to prevent after-effects. I like being in the village Diannah in the Casamance.
To contact the author: hancl@gmx.net
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