In Search of Lost Flip-Flops and Family-Part Two

A Calabash Tree

Still in Cassamance, we headed from the river back towards the coast to Cap Skirring, a town noted for "the most beautiful beaches in Senegal" and a richness in the traditional ways of life. Cassamance is incredibly tropical and lush, a far cry from the dry, sandy streets of Dakar.

Our first day on the beach, which was indeed gorgeous, we met a guy who said he could take us a traditional drum and dance circle that evening. As always, I was in search of traditional music and a place to dance. So, at 10:30 that night we met him under the archway of the campment where we were staying. It was myself, Libby and Amy (2 teacher friends) and Noah. Before we ventured out into the wilderness, the owner of the campment checked out our new friend and gave us the a-okay that we were safe in his company.

The sky was velvet black with no moon, a blanket of stars and only the bright orange hue of Mars to guide our way. Our guide led us through a maze of giant plants down a narrow, dirt path that seemed to go on forever. At one point we all stopped talking and noticed how silent and dark the night was, and we became more and more dependent on our sense of touch to guide our way.

Just as I began to wonder why we were not hearing drumming in the distance, our feet landed on a somewhat smooth, paved road. We learned that because of Korite, the holiday to celebrate the ending of Ramadan, all of the artists had gone home to their villages and there wouldn't be any drumming after all.
None of us were terribly disappointed, as we were exhausted from our long day. We had especially enjoyed the unexpected night hike and turned around to retrace our steps, this time with a little more confidence.

At one point, Noah took the lead and began to run, but managed to take one wrong turn and ended up in a hole full of sticky, wet mud. Once he pulled his feet out, he realized that he was missing his shoes. After feeling around in the mud a bit, he retrieved his left flip-flop but, once again, his right flip-flop has gotten away. We decided that between now and the morning, no one would be interested in stealing one left flip-flop caked in thick, brown mud, so we left the shoe and he walked home wearing his new mud boots.

He was terribly distraught and again, the suggestion of buying brand new flip-flops was out of the question. He just wanted to go to sleep so that morning would come more quickly and he coul return to find "righty."

Up as early as possible, we headed out in the blinding sun, in search of the mud puddle and ultimately, the shoe. Although there hadn't been rain in a few weeks, the puddle was still there and it was impossible to tell how deep it was. "Lefty" was nice and dry by now, with an extra pound of mud caked on the bottom, top and between the straps. But "Righty" was nowhere to be seen. Since there were no strong branches around, I grabbed a piece of orange plastic pipe lying on the side of the trail and started to feel my way into the depths of the mud pit. It wasn't looking to hopeful. Suddenly, deep down, I hit on something hard and thought it was a rock or a piece of metal. I tried to move it but the weight of the mud made it almost impossible to lift. I continued to dig and finally, I was able to pull it out. I handed the pipe to Noah, with his flip-flop hanging off the end, covered toe to heel in pasty brown sludge and completely brown. He was so shocked and a huge, surprised smile came over his face. "Thank you, thank you!" he yelled!

On our way back to the camp, carrying one dry and one wet muddy flip-flop, a man working at a house near-by suddenly appeared in front of us and motioned for us to give him the shoes. Noah looked at me with concern, not sure that he wanted to let go of them again. If there was any chance that this man (George) would wash these shoes for us, I was willing to take the risk. A few minutes later George returned with the most beautiful, worn-down, blue flip-flops. Unfortunately, we had no coins to give George as a thank you, but he didn't seem to mind.


Later that day we headed into the small "downtown" vilage of Cap Skirring and bravely entered the artisan village, better known as the 'tourist trap.' It was completely empty, except for the shop owners and a kora player, playing one of the most beautiful koras I had ever seen.

I knew that Noah had a lot of family in Cassamance, but didn't have any contact information to find them. It wasn't too difficult. Noah picked up an extra kora and started quietly playing the songs he has learned. The man playing the kora starting singing to Noah's song and within minutes we were invited to come and meet the rest of the family.

The next morning, I bought a couple bags of bons-bons (candies) to give to the children and a big can of Nescafe for the family and we went back to the market where Keba and Famara Cissokho were waiting for us. We were led through a maze of dirt roads crowded with chilren playing, women washing and preparing food and men doing their usual hanging out, until we reached a small cement porch with a curtain hanging as a door to the family room. There were a couple of other rooms across the way that also belonged to the family. We met Maty, the sister of someone's brother's uncle and the rest of the extended family. It's practically impossible to understand all of the branches on the family tree and really all that mattered was that Noah's last name was Sissoko.

Can you find Noah in this picture?

Noah quickly became the star of the show and everyone was impressed with his kora playing and singing. After we spent some time hanging out with all the neighborhood kids and the family, Famara took us to his room and played kora with Noah for a couple of hours. It was so beautiful to listen to and watch! This was the last day of our trip and a perfect ending to an amazing vacation!

In Search of Lost Flip-Flops and Family-Part One

As most of you know, there was much information and advice I tried to gather from friends and folks around the globe before departing on this year's adventure. And now that I am in the midst of it all, it is amusing to think back on what has become the most useful and important of all. One of the most important questions I asked was, "What kinds of shoes should we bring with us?" Obviously, there are many reasons why this is such an important question, so I won't go into it further here. But I will say that without my black flip-flops, (with absolutely no tread left on the bottom, so dangerous that I save myself from slipping 2 out of every 3 times I am in the shower) and Noah without his blue, rubber, worn into the ground flip-flops, our lives here would not be the same.

On our recent trip to the Cassamance (southern Senegal, bordering Guinea-Bissau), with some friends from school, Noah's blue, right flip-flop tried desperately to get away...twice! We swore that if we couldn't retrieve it after the second escape, we would write a story about how it wanted desperately to live a new and more authentic Senegalese existence. Although it ended up back in the family, we couldn't help but make up its story anyway. Perhaps Noah will share it sometime in another entry.

The first time it tried to get away, we were in a small motorized pirogue, (traditional boat carved out of wood) riding on the Cassamance River through the mangroves, looking at the astounding variety of birds who were on their migration route. Noah decided to wash his flip-flop off by leaning over the side and dragging it through the water. Before any of the 6 of us knew what had happened, the captain had seen the shoe release into the water, intent on floating away. He quickly shifted the boat into reverse, keeping his eyes glued to the blue rubber, while the rest of us looked for the unique bird we assumed he had stopped for us to see. Only when he broke a branch from a nearby bush and slid it through the strap, did the rest of us realize why Noah was so panicked. I quickly assured him that if we couldn't retrieve it, we could easily by new flip-flops at the boutique next door to our house (I had seen them hanging in between the peanuts and the salt, just above Nescafe).
No, he clearly wanted blue rubber shoe numero uno back safe and sound and no replacement pair would do. "Don't you see how the kids' flip-flops always fall apart here?" he explained. After a grand applause for the risky but successful rescue, our day continued and Noah put many kilometers on those shoes by sunset.
We visited a traditional animist island and were invited to tour the simple huts of the locals as they prepared their meal for the day. We learned about the many ways plants and found objects are used to accomplish many of the simple, everyday jobs, for which we have an abundance of unnecessary but cleverly designed gadgets and contraptions. Finally, after hunger had set in, we were riding to the second island for lunch. Once we arrived and saw the length of the dirt road we had to walk, we readjusted our energy output and our water intake, not sure we would make it to our destination. But Noah's shoes weren't going to let him down and they keep moving him in the direction of our next meal.
When we arrived at the campment where our meal was awaiting us, we walked inside and admired the simple design of the round structure with an open courtyard in the center and a thatched roof designed to drain the water into the center courtyard where it could be stored and collected for future use. Our minds were distracted by the tour until our stomachs took over and we suddenly realized that the usual wafting smells associated with delicious home-cooked Senegalese rice and sauce were nowhere to be smelled. We completed our tour around the circular camp, hoping to happen upon the kitchen, but once we saw the unplugged open refrigerator with rotting vegetables inside, we began to lose hope.

We heard our guide speaking in Wolof to the woman, who was melting into her seat from the heat of the day as well as her lack of activity, and began to realize that their raised voices were not the usual sound of communication in this foreign language. It was clear. There was no food for us. "Peanuts?" we asked, hoping for a bit of protein from the most common food available. But all they could offer us was mildly chilled beer and sodas. We weren't about to turn down what was about to become our lunch and we had a long boat ride back to Ziginchor.

After out semi-satisfying lunch, I walked over to the little boutique to see what I could scrounge up to feed Noah. There was bread, but no cheese. There was mayonnaise, but no chocolate spread. There were anchovies in a can. No luck. As I walked away, I smelled something grilling and around the corner we found a woman roasting peanuts, the crunchiest, freshest peanuts with salt that we had tasted yet (and it wasn't just because we were starving!).
With satisfied stomachs full of peanuts and more in our backpacks for later, we set off for continued adventures. We came to the local school, which was closed, but being a group of teachers (and one student) we wanted to see more. We tried to stick our noses through the wooden slates on the locked doors to see what we could but was easier to look through the metal barred windows. The kids playing football (soccer) on the sandy field were confused by our fascination by the simple, barren classrooms. When we suddenly found a room that hadn't been locked, we quickly went inside to absorb every detail we could. I sat at the teacher's desk and imagined what it would be like to teach a room full of forty or more students with little paper and less pencils. The maps of Senegal and surrounding countries, which were hand drawn on the chalkboard, were exquisite and the numbers written in various colored chalk with their French spelling in cursive where eye-catching.

The children had interrupted their game to come stand in the doorway and watch as the Toubabs explored the school. As we left, we tried to close the door, hoping that we didn't give the kids any ideas about ransacking the schoolroom. The children ran back to the field, kicking the ball with their flip-flops and yelled to Noah, "Hey, little Bob Marley!"

The ride back was cooler and relaxing. The spotting of a group of pink flamingos in the distance revived us as we made our way back to shore in time for sunset and a delicious dinner of fresh grilled fish with kora music playing in the background by one of Noah's distant, yet instant, family members.