The Laziest Blogger In The Universe (T.L.B.I.T.U, b.k.a. TL-BIT-U a.k.a The Last King Of B-Town) pledges to publish a new post every day until he leaves AFRICA, unless he has no internet access that day...which is pretty unlikely. Even if he only writes a couple of lines. You don't have to wait for an email alert to read a new post. Just know that everyday there will be something new. Due to the unreliability of this blog program, and of internet access in Africa, TL BIT U has probably lost about 60 hours of writing since he got here...which leads him to believe he is actually not supposed to be doing a blog, but he keeps trying. So hopefully someone is actually reading this.
Here are some photos taken in Senegal (ignore the date stamp)...
Looking out of the window in Suburban Dakar...the beach in the distance was great for swimming...the girls in the foreground are part of the Doumbia family i lived with for five weeks...i call them my family in Dakar. The horses in the middle ground are on an empty lot used for building houses. On the lot men make bricks of sand, then take the bricks by horse and cart to building sites where they build houses literally by hand. While wearing flip flops. There is a housing boom in this area of Dakar, and in the last five years property values have about tripled.
Looking up the street from in front of the house. The stack of bricks you see is for yet another new house. These streets are quiet and peaceful. Occasionally cars and horse drawn carts cruise by. Mostly its kids playing and people hanging out in front of their homes socializing or selling mango's, peanuts, cups of coffee, bread on little tables...
Yours truly with two of the children in the house.
A baobab tree forest. Very typical of the savanna of Senegal, away from the immediate coastal peninsula of Dakar. Baobab trees have been described by the poet Rene' Ferriot as being "Frozen in their wanderings like a herd of elephants that have taken root." There is a legend about how the Baobab tree was turned upside down with its limbs and branches stuck in the ground and its roots exposed to the air. Baobab fruit is excellent. Sometimes the old masters of music and stories, the griots, are laid to rest in the split open cavities of the trunk.
My friend and music/dance teacher Adama Ken Doumbia, with his niece. He had been inviting me to stay with his family in Dakar for ten years before i finally made it. 
A pair of cranes on a beach in Dakar. The land mass out at sea to the right is the famous Goree Island whereupon sits the notorious House of Slaves with its infamous Door of No Return. 
A little rolfing stretch and blood to the brain is good for the baby! 
Friends and family in the house of Doumbia. 
This is how we do it. The men eating together. 
Come lets eat: women and children eating together. The kids like to eat with their hands and make a fine happy mess. 
Speaking of children...some of the children of the house.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=15.623037,-9.799805&spn=19.254895,40.869141&t=k&z=5&om=1
Click the above link to see the amazing satellite photos of Africa...type in Dakar Senegal or Banjul Gambia and zoom in or out to see the general areas this traveler has visited...
TL BIT U is currently staying at a nice modern house in a sort of suburb...its out by a stretch of beach called the Smiling Coast which is dotted with tourist hotels populated in the winter by Europeans (mostly from the UK)...now is the off-season. Gambia on the Smiling Coast is sort of an urban and suburban sprawl...cement fenced houses and compounds as you get out into the more affluent areas...and lots of forest bush...in fact across the coastal highway from our house is a small monkey sanctuary with lots of exotic bird species (in the sense of cool looking tropical style aviators)...not far from here is the market city of Serrakunda with its raw urban economic poverty: "shanty town"...Then there is the small capital city of Banjul which lies on the river out by the ocean and is quite isolated. Banjul has to be the sleepiest little capital city you've ever seen. Mellow.
All of this is located on a sort of peninsula between the ocean, the river, and the interior...As you travel south along the coast, or upriver into the interior, you will find mostly open country dotted with villages and small towns. Gambia doesn't seem crowded, but its considered the fourth most densely populated (per square kilometer) country in Africa. I think that's because Africa is relatively NOT densely populated, despite popular opinion. It is of course densely populated in the urban areas, but Africa has vast open spaces such as the Sahara desert, the savanna which stretches some 5000 miles across Africa from west to east...and the dense tropical forests in the center, which make it less densely populated, as a continental whole, than Asia, Europe and the Americas.
TL BIT U has been staying in the house of a Scottish missionary named Dave Fulton and his English wife Fiona and their teenage son Luke and toddler daughter Elizabeth. He has been staying here every night and day since he arrived. They picked him up at the airport even...He met some missionaries in Senegal and they put him in touch with these folks and they invited him to stay with them indefinitely. Amazing.
Here is a bit of writing TL BIT U did awhile ago about the beginning of his journey:
I left Berkeley on Tuesday march 27 for the Oakland airport where i caught a flight to Los Angeles. My swiss army knife got confiscated at the check in because i accidentally tried to carry it on. Picked up a car at LAX on a clear cold gorgeous day in southern California and drove to Culver city for lunch with Dada my Hollywood artist friend. Drove to Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley to meet my cousins Larry and Isabel and their daughters Kelly and Kiana. Isabel is Mexican Catholic and Larry is California Jewish so they get Jesus from both sides...we made sure the girls know that the Hebrew prayer BARUCH ATA ADONAI ELOHAINU MELECH HA OLAM means BLESSED IS THE LORD KING OF THE UNIVERSE.
After a good night sleep at their house i drove clear across the valley to visit my great aunt Lily, the 95 year old sister of my 93 year old grandma (momma side). Lily lives at a elder care facility and barely recognizes people. She smiles alot. From baby to old folk...
Drove over the mountain to Beverly Hills where i visited my 97 year old cousin Frances, my grandmas (papa side) first cousin. She has lived in the same house since she was 15. 1925! She is quite cogent and present, and remembers that her grandfather was a stage coach driver in California during the gold rush. Her library hardly has a book less than fifty years old. Brilliant.
Drove to Santa Monica to buy another swiss army knife then drove in crazy traffic to visit my fifth and sixth grade teacher from the mid 1970's. He and his male partner are having a baby. They got an egg from one woman, fertilized the egg with the mixed up sperm from both of them, and planted the fertilized egg in a second woman's body to carry the baby to term. Amazing. Praise God!
Then back to Dada house for late night artistry until 2am-ish and got up at 4am-ish for the drive to the airport. Dropped the car and checked my bags through to Senegal West Africa on United. Non descript flight to NY JFK, then went to another terminal for the South African airways flight to Senegal at sunset. Most of the passengers were going on to Johannesburg. Nice flight...landed in Dakar at 430 am after only 6.5 hours...Dakar is 7 hours ahead of California. In other words, when its 3:13 am here on Monday morning its 8:13 pm there on Sunday night....
Since I have been in Gambia...God has worked me over. You know what they say: "What is the only thing worse than NOT getting what you want? Actually GETTING what you want!" Also, "Be careful what you pray for, you might get it"...On the other hand, God wants something from ME, and it's something pure and holy, it has nothing to do with what i want, my hopes and dreams...and god wont let me rest until he gets his way...so it's warfare, an ongoing battle...thank god i sort of get the "cosmic joke"...god is killing me, preparing me, emptying me out...remaking me in his image, as his son. God is such a cruel comedian...i feel broken, but in a good way. Sad, but refreshed. In pain from being torn open, but relieved to BE open.
Next post ALL ABOUT SENEGAL!
