Joal-Fadiout, Senegal, Day 219

Today is a big day for me because I finally begin my cook group activities aboard the Dragoman truck. And let me be quite clear that I have never cooked for 20 people before and I have no idea how to cook for 20 people. Also I’m feeling a little pressure because all the meals that have been cooked on the truck so far have been tasty and plentiful. My cooking partner is John Malkovich. Our main tourist activity today is a visit to the twin villages of Joal-Fadiout, which lies further up the coast from Palmarin. The drive this morning is quite wonderful across the deserted salt flats, marshes, and lagoons that form part of the Sine-Saloum Delta. There’s plenty of crabs, wading birds, and even a few jackals returning from their nocturnal hunts to enthrall us.

Joal-Fadiout are two towns joined by a 500m long wooden bridge, deluged with bird droppings. Fadiout is a small island on the Atlantic seaboard made completely of oyster and clam shells. A second shell island to the northwest is connected to Fadiout by yet another wooden bridge. this second smaller island is both a Muslim and a Christian cemetery – even the graves are made of shells. There are also several baobab trees in the cemetery, all crying out to be photographed. Fadiout is clearly used to tourists, though, judging by the ubiquitous handicrafts, not to mention the irate market stall-holders demanding a ‘cadeau’ every time I raise my camera. Our tour group is given very little time to explore, which is a shame because it is a unique place. Certainly more appealing than it’s near neighbor Joal, which is located on a narrow spit of land connected to the mainland. Fortunately, John Malkovich and I are pre-occupied with scavenging for food. It’s like some bizarre reality TV show. We are given CFA 50,000 (US$100) and 30 minutes to shop. As usual there is no convenient grocery store so John and I are running around a rubbish-strewn daily market, trying in real-time to come up with a plan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner based on the quality and abundance of the fresh produce we encounter. Christi helps out and we stagger back to the truck weighed down with apples, bananas, oranges, green beans, green bell peppers, potatoes, onions, tomatoes (tinned and fresh) and carrots. We have the ingredients, now all we need is culinary inspiration.

We have plenty of time to ponder our dish because the rest of the day is taken up with a long coastal drive north to Saint Louis, which lies only a stone’s throw from the border with Mauritania. Our campsite for the next few nights is the Zebrabar on peninsula Langue de Barbarie, some 20 km south of Saint Louis, but right beside the ocean. While Christi puts up our tent, John Malkovich and I set to work preparing dinner, ably assisted by Thelma and Louise, Sinead O’Connor, and latterly Christi. Either I’ve suddenly become very popular or the rest of the group really fears for their dinner.

Margaret Thatcher is having one of her routine moans. She’s decided she doesn’t like curries, which is a shame because John and I had decided on a vegetable curry. (Note we ate a lot of vegetarian food on this Dragoman trip because the meat at the various markets always looked a bit suspect – particularly after the flies had finished defecating and laying their eggs on it (caviar it ain’t!)). Poor Dennis is routinely dispatched from the Thatcher tent to check on our progress. Dennis appeals to John Malkovich’s better nature, citing how much easy his life will be if we made a vegetable casserole instead. Sadly, John does not have a compassionate side so Dennis tries to swipe the curry powder. This does not go down too well with Mr. Malkovich who brandishes a rather large carving knife in Dennis’ bemused face. Tempers flare; there’s pushing and shoving. The rest of the group form a circle around the combatants and chant ‘fight, fight’ at which point Adonis appears (with a newly ruffled Aphrodite in tow) to prevent fisticuffs. Disappointed, the group disperses to the bar in search of hard liquor, leaving John and I to create a culinary masterpiece. Well no one complained about the dinner anyway (and the fact that John continued to wield the carving knife quite malevolently throughout the dinner had no influence on people’s opinion whatsoever).