Merigoesaround

I write these lines stranded at the Ziguinchor airport being eaten by Casamance mosquitos having a zumba class around my legs. I am going to play a little bit the Nostradamus role announcing that Senegal Airlines is going to go bankrupt as soon as I finish this blog. This company is a mess. There is not a single flight on time or arriving at its final destination. Senegal airlines could capture lots of business if they could manage things properly. There are very few flights connecting Dakar to the capitals of the Gulf of Benin. Today my concern is not about the company, but about Aminata, the customer service representative dealing with delayed flights in Ziguinchor. She has been stoically bearing 50 uber tanned screaming Parisian and Dakar tourist (including us) for 5 hours. She just called to Senegal Airlines HQ and asked whether she could provide drink vouchers to uber thirsty delayed passengers...and the answer was no. No money. Wet-eyed Aminata looked at me and said, I want ...

Gregoire, our guide on Carabane island, said it was the "Special School" (Ecole Speciale) and forever boyfriend husband (FBH) and I looked at the building with curiosity. What was special about the school? We assumed it was maybe for special kids with special needs. We were wrong. It was there where in the old times, as Gregoire told us, subversive slaves with no manners were punished. By now we have visited a few slavery landmarks in Benin, Togo or Ghana but my heart shrinks and freezes every time with the same intensity of shame. In our way to Carabane we were told that there was a church that monks from Brittany had built in the old times. My daydreaming device was on. I imagined a community of smiley, chubby, palm-tree wine drinking monks still inhabiting the island. I pictured their garden of onions, their Brittany sweet-salty just-baked cookies and heard the sound of their bells calling Catholic Carabanians to mass. The islanders were behaving and misbehaving and th...