Ile de la Madeleine

First off, I want to direct your attention to the links that I've put or will soon put on the sidebar. These are blogs that some of my American friends here are keeping. Feel free to read them, but Dad, don't sketch them out by leaving weird comments. Also, I'm writing my blog while keeping in mind that I might have younger readers, but I can't say the same for all the others.

So I quit my internship this Monday, which was such a great idea. I’ll probably try to find something else (for instance, I looked up as I was walking to school in the morning and realized that there is an Amnesty International office like 300 meters from my house. Maybe they could use some help), but for now, I’m back to having a lot of free time.

So far, that’s working out for me because I’m actually filling it. I’m starting to have some work to do in my classes, so I spent Monday afternoon doing some research and homework, and I spent Monday night reading Pillars of the Earth. My family is horrified/fascinated that I would even consider reading such a long book just for fun.

With my liberation from pressafrik, I had nothing to do all day on Tuesday, so I decided to do some local tourism. I went with another Wells girl named Miranda to Ile de la Madeleine, which is a very small, uninhabited island off the coast of Dakar. It’s a national park and I think a wildlife preserve, because it’s an important breeding ground for several species of birds and fish.

Once we found the national park station thing on the corniche (which is not where it is marked on the map of Dakar, not advertised in any way, and impossible to find without a local to bring you right to the door), we took a boat from there to the island. It was the two of us Wells girls, two Senegalese women, and two British girls, along with a couple of Senegalese guys who were there to steer the boat and hang around on the island. They gave us life jackets, but there was none of that silly occidental concern about whether or not they were the right size (they weren’t, they were huge) or whether or not we had put them on properly (we didn’t, we just put our arms through the arm holes and left them unzipped and unclipped.) In Senegal, we like to laugh in the face of danger.

When we got to the island, we met our be-dreadlocked tour guide, Doudou, who took us around and showed us what was what. Some highlights:

The baobab trees. There’s hardly any tall vegetation on the island, and even the baobabs are oddly short compared to the ones I’ve see in and around Dakar. But they’re bona fide baobabs, complete with baobab fruit, which is called pain de singe, or “monkey bread.” I’ve had juice made out of the fruit before, but I’d never eaten it straight up. It comes in a hard green pod that you crack open. The fruit inside is white and weirdly dry, and you suck on the hard chunks and spit out the even harder seeds. It sort of melts in your mouth and has a bizarre sour taste that is unfamiliar but not unpleasant.

Phaéton à bec rouge. This is a very rare bird that nests on the island. There are lots of others, but these are the special ones. The name is “red-beaked something or other.” I can’t find a translation of “phaéton” and I don’t know enough about birds tell you what it is. At least I know the French name is right. I looked it up when I got online because every time the Doudou said the name of the bird, I heard “feuilleton,” which means “soap opera.” Anyway, we were supposedly at a good time of year to see them, because it’s the breeding season and the birds get these crazy long tail feathers and look really cool in flight. Unfortunately, because it’s the breeding season, they also spend a lot of time sitting on their nests hidden in the rocks and not flying around. We saw one in its little nest-cave, but that was it.

Signs of humanity. The island is made of volcanic rock that matches the coast that it’s separated from, meaning that at one time, it wasn’t separated. It’s been uninhabited for as long as anyone can remember, but they’ve found shards of ancient pottery there, which means that there were people at one time. There are also the remains of a tiny stone house, built by some French guy in the 1700s (I think). Doudou was pretty sure this guy was crazy, because there’s not much to eat on the island, and you would have to contend with . . .

The genie. Ile de la Madeleine is inhabited by a genie, according to the beliefs of the traditional Lebu fisherman who live up in Yoff. I tried to get all the details of Doudou’s explanation of the genie, but I either I was missing things or he was changing things around, so this might not all be accurate. From what I understand, there’s actually a genie living on each of the four islands around Dakar (Madeleine, Yoff, Ngor, and Gorée). Yoff and Madeleine are uninhabited because the genies that live on those islands are evil genies (either that, or the Madeleine genie is the only evil genie). Technically, you’re not supposed to collect shells or damage the island in any way because it’s a protected area, but the real reason is that the genie will get mad and wreak some punishment on you. There’s a Lebu marabout who comes to the island to pray and chill with the genie (he’s the one who let’s us know that the genie is still here), and he’s also the one, or one of the ones, who cures people who have been afflicted by the genie in the ndëp healing ceremonies held among the Lebu up in Yoff. The genie has a name, but I unfortunately don’t remember what it is. The UNESCO World Heritage page for Madeleine has the name “Ndoek-Daour,” but I’m not sure if that’s the Madeleine genie or the collective name for all the Dakar genies.

In any case, the island is really gorgeous. When you’re up in the high places looking around yourself, it just looks like a lot of brownish scrubby plants and sand, but the second you get to the edges, you’re either looking down these wave-beaten cliffs into a gorgeous blue-green ocean, or you’re standing at the bottom of a cliff looking out over the blue-green ocean watching the waves beat right next to you. There’s a natural pool around the back of the island that’s protected enough from the waves so that you can go swimming in it, along with all the fish that inhabit it. It’s all incredibly beautiful and peaceful. I’m echoing others when I say this, but you feel like a mermaid when you’re there.

After our tour, Miranda and I ate the lunch that we brought with us (a baguette to share, cups of strawberry yogurt that we drank because we didn’t have spoons, and rainbow colored Goldfish, courtesy of Lori) and sunbathed for a while, until the guys invited us to eat lunch with them. We then spent a lot of time eating lunch, waiting for tea to brew, drinking tea, and hanging out with them. This is clearly something that they do a lot. They have a little clubhouse over in a corner by the cliff and they all lounged around, sharing rice and cigarettes (of various substances).
In addition to Doudou, there was Abu, Moustapha, and Fred (yeah, Fred). Moustapha let me read a few lines of the book he’s writing and asked me if I knew any “edition houses” that he could send it to get it published in the US. Fred made tea for us.

After the first cup of tea (drinking tea is a three cup process around here), Miranda and I needed to get back in the sun, so we went swimming and exploring around the pool. I was walking on the rocks by myself at one point, and I turned the corner into this niche where water, rock, late-afternoon sunlight, and wind came together in a seriously breathtaking way. On top of all that, Abu was up on the cliff somewhere out of sight, and he was singing in a language I didn’t recognize. It was amazing.

Unfortunately, Abu spotted me not long after that and completely ruined the romance of the situation by trying to be romantic. He told me that he had fallen in love at first sight with me and I promptly fled back to the beach.

Abu kept his distance for the rest of the afternoon except to bring us the second and third rounds of tea, and Miranda and I had a nice time talking about TV and eating green Goldfish. We piled back into the boat at around 6 and headed back to shore after that. Overall, I can say that Madeleine was a fantastic day, and I will certainly go back.