THE LONG, LONG ROAD TO CASSALOL

Back in Sao Domingos
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11am found us back in Sao Domingos where we were to get some transport to Susana, then a four kilometre walk to Cassalol and then onto the beach resort of Varela; from here I was assured we get transport back to Senegal. Dear reader, you know that this is not going to be as easy as that, I have Lucas Jatta as a guide and optimism doesn’t power vehicles. My priority was to get something to eat, we’d had nothing but the very small fish with rice of the night before, Africans don’t have the same five-a-day fruit and vegetable needs as us Brits. Lucas’ priority was MORE KANA! Guinea-Bissau has the best kana in the world and he wanted to find some more!

Container Shop
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           Sao Domingos has two very good bars, the one near the Varela road provided us with some very fine kana, it also had a brown liquid sold in jam jars. I asked Lucas what was in the jars, “You want to try?” he asked, as there was nowhere to go just yet, I agreed to try cashew wine. This is the product of cashew nuts that have fermented in a dark place for about two weeks and has a very distinct cashew nut aftertaste, quite a pleasant first impression, very different to the stronger distilled cashew kana. After several glasses we went to find out if the lorry to Susana was filling up. We’d already left our bags in the driver’s cab, he was waiting for twenty people to climb aboard before he’d drive the 50 kilometre mud road, at this moment we had seven. Lucas spotted a young Rasta man, who could prove a likely source of ganja, he’d not had a hit for two days, so he badly needed a blow, to keep him in the holiday mood. I was more interested in buying some fruit and vegetables, Sao Domingos’ main street had only onion sellers and a French bread baker. We followed our Rasta guide to the edge of town and into a small grove, where a circle of Rasta men were puffing away, Lucas’ idea of paradise. After about an hour I thought it time to check on the lorry passengers, as our bags were still in the cabin and I foolishly thought it might leave with out us. Three more people had joined the queue, including a rather odd old man named Pappa Jigga, who only seemed to speak in English. He was complaining of the price of medicine to heal his heart disease, Lucas told him that he knew a herb that could cure his condition in one application. Naturally Pappa Jigga wanted the herb and he wanted it right now, I thought Lucas might have been exaggerating his bush medical qualifications somewhat. To pacify the very excited Mr. Jigga Lucas led me into the bush to find the herb; well it was actually someone’s garden. That someone got very agitated when he discovered a tall Rasta and a very ale white man digging at the root of one of his trees. Lucas warned the landowner and myself not to touch the rather evil looking fungus he’d dug up with a stick, which he rolled into a plastic bag, before asking the astonished landowner for some clean water to wash his hands, in case he may have inadvertently touched the thing. He then told me that he was going to put it into a fire and grind the ashen powder into an infusion for Pappa Jigga to put on his tongue. The old man was still game to try the potion, even though he told us that his brother had died from a wrongly administered dose of bush medicine. Lucas told him it would be fine but not to take until the chest pain was really bad and, as I thought, when we were miles away from here. I spotted that someone was cooking in a shack near the bus stand, so suggested we go eat. There was only one choice on the menu, fish and rice, with no sign of a vegetable, other than a small onion.

The Lorry to Susana
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           By 6pm nine people were waiting for the lorry to leave, so the driver announced that he wouldn’t be leaving today and to try again in the morning. Someone suggested we might like to spend the night at the hotel, which was a surprise to us, we’d walked around the town seven or eight times that day and not seen one. There was indeed a four room hotel that had so little custom; it had no need to put a “Hotel” sign outside it. The rooms were very spacious and had a mosquito mesh on the windows, he owner even managed to find some clean sheets. Lucas changed into some fresh stepping out clothes and I went for a shower. The one bathroom which was shared by the owner’s family left a lot to be desired, two very large water butts which never got fully emptied, just continually topped up and one toilet bowl which had never been connected to a water supply. Bottled water was rather expensive in Sao Domingos, so I didn’t want to waste it on brushing my teeth and I certainly wasn’t going to put the contents of the water butts into my mouth, one night without brushing my teeth wouldn’t hurt. As I finished my bucket shower, the sound of disco blasted from outside the bathroom window, it seemed that our hotel was next to the town nightclub and it was Saturday night, Lucas would be ready for action. Sure enough, he was ready for the off, having covered himself in some perfume he’d asked me to by him in Ziguanchor and sprayed his bonnet with my anti-bacteria solution; he was feeling irresistible. After a few more kanas from the town’s other bar and a few beers to long lost relatives that had shown up, we hit the nightclub. As soon as I went through the door, I just wanted to turn around and leave, it was a pre-teen disco! With West Africa having a reputation for men of a certain age coming to look for intimate, juvenile companionship, I did not want to stay here. Lucas couldn’t see the problem and was happy to stay, I said I’d be happier back at the bar watching a West African version of MTV. Joy of joy, I found a woman selling deep fried cassava, a vegetable at last, washed down with some 500ml cans of Portuguese beer, they were actually cheaper than the bottled water. I later awoke wishing I had paid the extra for the water as I was getting pretty dehydrated. As soon as the shops opened the next morning I bought some water, I was beyond caring how expensive it was. We found someone selling coffee and French bread, with a choice of butter or mayonnaise and the use of his bedroom for Lucas to roll up a joint. We got to the bus stand to find that we did now have twenty people and could take the rugged road down to Susana.

Quamiso Ebeleye in the middle
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           I volunteered to sit in the back of the lorry while Lucas sat up front with the driver and a woman with tender bottom syndrome. My plan was to take some photos of the colourful women sat on the padded bench behind the cabin. As soon as I took out my camera all the women threw scarves over their heads and the guy who was the volunteer bus conductor threaten to throw me off unless I put my soul stealing equipment away. I was punished by a hellish five hour mud track drive, with potholes and craters better than anything the Gambia could offer. After being thrown a foot off the plank seat about twenty times, I sat on a cement sack which I moulded into the shape of my bottom. The road finally stopped on the outskirts of Susana village, it should have run a few kilometres more but the bridge had collapsed leaving an upturned lorry in the stream. As this was the also the road to Varela, Guinea-Bissau’s premier beach destination, all did not bode well for finding transport back to Senegal.

Lucas & Kopasio
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We crossed the broken bridge on foot, the dirt road stretched in a straight line to the horizon.  “Cassalol is down there, by those tall trees, about four kilometres,” Lucas gestured. The road was very exposed, just some short bushes and rice fields making it feel like a scene from a war movie, just before the enemy planes come. I remember reading that the people’s army, the PAIGC (Partido Africano da Independence da Guine e Cabo Verde) had planted landmines in this area to keep out the MFDC ( Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance) who had backed General Mane’s coup of 1998. About two kilometres down the road I couldn’t fail to see a huge crucifix behind a fence, in the fields, I asked Lucas if it was a war memorial. He told me that it was a holy place where people gather once a year, I thought of the Cenotaph in most British towns where people gather on Remembrance Sunday. It was early afternoon, the sun very hot and I was out of water, so that concentrated my mind on getting to the village. There was a T-junction at the end of the road, one branch leading into Cassalol and the other going on to Varela. A mud hut was built near this stopping point, which remarkably turned out to be the village shop and even more remarkably sold bottled water. Apparently the odd 4x4 stopped here on the way to the beach. Just a short way down the village road we came to Lucas’ brother, Quamiso Ebeleie’s house, he was stunned to see his younger sibling in the company of a pale white man with a big bag. Quamiso greeted Lucas as, Ahuben, six years I’d known this guy but only now had I found out his given name. Quamiso’s wife dragged out a sponge mattress from their hut, Ahuben and I were asked to sit down and a bucket of cashew wine was brought for us to drink. Quamiso was a cashew tapper, I hadn’t noticed that the whole area was surrounded by a forest of cashew trees. 

I took some family photographs and we were served our first meal since our French bread and coffee breakfast, fish and rice with no vegetables. The rice was home grown and very tasty but the vegetables, which seemed to be growing everywhere, were a means of local trade. Quamiso and the other villagers paid rent to a Jola society, which provided rudimentary schooling and limited health care. It wasn’t easy to get hold of hard cash as the villagers all grew more or less the same produce, which was usually just bartered for something similar. After lunch we crossed the village to see Kopasio, Ahuben’s oldest brother, who didn’t seem that delighted to see that the prodigal had returned unannounced. Nevertheless, Kopasio brought us another bucket of cashew wine, this time we were to use a traditional cup, a hollowed out shell, looking like a small coconut, with a hole bored right through it into which a stick was poked. I was curious that Lucas told everyone that he met in Cassalol that he was now living in Banjul, which obviously had more cache than admitting he was from Serekunda.   

At about 4pm the whole village got very excited, a minibus had stopped at the T-junction, it must have driven across that broken bridge in Susana! Lucas said some hasty goodbyes, I left Quamiso enough money to pay three months rent, about £10, he was amazed by my generosity.  The small bus was going down to Varela about another four kilometres in the direction of the sea. On the outskirts of Varela the bus driver pointed out a hotel, owned by a Portuguese man but Lucas insisted that there was a nicer, locally owned complex down on the beach. Varela centre, where the bus stopped, had two small shops and that was about it. The bus driver said that once the vehicle filled up, he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. This was worrying as I needed to fly back in three days time and I noticed that there were no vehicles, apart from a tyreless van, to be seen anywhere in the village. Lucas told me not to worry, after all I was on holiday and we should concentrate on finding the beach hotel. The roundavel style complex was closed up and only opened for four weeks every Christmas, when the German owners came down with their friends. The rest of the time it was just occupied by four caretakers, who were not prepared to let us have a room. We decided to go down to the magnificent beach for a bathe and to watch the sunset. It was rather cloudy, so nature didn’t put on much of a show and Lucas didn’t want get sea salt in his dreads; we settled for cleaning our feet with the pumice stones which littered the sand. The huge stretch of beach only had three other people to watch the dying light, a young local couple and one of the German complex’s caretakers. The caretaker suggested we go back to the Portuguese hotel, which had a fine restaurant that served every kind of food with cold beer and fresh water. I pictured a bowl of vegetables and a plate of fresh fruit. When we got back there the rather grumpy Portuguese landlord told us that his restaurant had been closed since his Italian chef had disappeared and that anyway the hotel was closed to visitors, it was just too much work to keep it open for the occasional blow in. What a pity, it looked a really nice place but that’s what seems to happen to many people’s dreams when they invest in Africa.

The caretaker was still with us and said that he thought he knew of a woman who took in lodgers, so we trudged back into the centre of the little town. The lady eyed the pair of us suspiciously, not sure she wanted such an odd pair in her house and sent us off with a live chicken as some kind of compensation. Ahuben then remembered that he had a little sister living up near the Portuguese hotel, honestly I can’t keep track of African family relations and it seemed that even Lucas wasn’t sure how many siblings he had. His late father and mother obviously had a very hectic social calendar.

Before finding his sister’s house he had to find someone selling kana, this done we set off, still with the caretaker, who turned out to be Akoli, Lucas’ nephew’s brother by a different mother. Their father was Lucas’ late brother, who died just after Akoli was born about twenty-seven years earlier. I was more than confused as the caretaker, who was never introduced to me by name, must have been as old as me. We found Little Sister’s mud brick house but no one was in, being Sunday evening I thought the family might be at church. Lucas and the caretaker went off, with the very patient chicken to find them and I sat by the tin door admiring the stars. There are some advantages to a town with no electricity, unless you’re a hotel property developer. Within minutes Little Sister, her husband, their three children and a very drunk man I assumed to be a relative, were herded into the compound by Lucas and Mr. Caretaker. Little Sister opened the padlocked door to bring out some cups, which seemed to be prize possessions in an almost empty hut. Her husband stepped on the chicken’s head and took three attempts to pull it off, the chicken made up for its earlier silence by naturally squawking it’s protest about being decapitated.  The small fowl was soon boiling in a pot, I didn’t think it was really big enough to feed everyone there, particularly as another young woman had turned up to help with the cooking and get a bed ready for Lucas and myself. One thing was certain, the kana wouldn’t last much longer as everyone, including the women were passing around the cups. I gave the drunkard a CFA1000 note to go and buy some more, pandemonium broke out when the family knew what I had done. Why I had given the town inebriate so much money, I told them that I assumed from the way he was bouncing their little son on his knee, that he was an uncle. They all said he was nothing to do with them and a hunting party went out in all directions to look for him. He was dragged back about fifteen minutes later, with the kana bottle in his jacket, he had obviously been returning from my errand when he had been waylaid and his reputation for honesty besmirched. The new supply of kana soon went down; no one wanted to give the drunk, who turned out to be from Senegal, anything to drink. I pointed out that he had gone to fetch it, so I shared my cup with him; Lucas looked at me in disgust, telling me that I knew nothing of African ways. When the food was served, bizarrely with French bread, the poor drunk was elbowed out and started crying pitifully, I gave him some bread dipped in rice; everyone else pretended not to notice my foolish white ways.

           After supper I asked Lucas how far it was to the Senegal border, could we walk there along the beach? If we followed the coast it would be thirty to forty kilometres but much less if we walked in land. I didn’t see that we had any other option, if I was to get back to the Gambia in time for my flight. I was feeling very positive about the trek, tomorrow was going to be my 56^th birthday and a day I wasn’t likely to forget. As it was nearly midnight and we planned to start the walk at 4am, I thought it time we turned in. Lucas was having none of it, if we were to have a long march we needed ganja to fortify us for the day and help us sleep well that night. It was 2am by the time we got onto our straw mat, having walked all around the town, knocked on many, many doors and woken up a lot of people before we found the local drug dealer. Exhausted and dehydrated I wondered where I could buy water at 4am; it was going to have to be well water laced with purification tablets. Monday October 15^th was going to be a hell of a birthday!