Saint Louis Jazz Festival

OK so it is official... I have fallen in love with Senegal. For the past 4 months or so I have been talking to anyone who will listen about the legendary Jazz Festival held annually on the Island of St Louis, Northern Senegal. Jazz musicians from all over the world come to perform at the festival and many other bands come to play for free in the numerous bars across the island.   On the road...   On Wednesday 19th May 2010, I met Rachel (fellow VSO from Australia) and Katie (a peace corp from the States) in Barra ready to start our St Louis adventure! We managed to get a lift as far as Dakar with two girls; Paulina (Polish volunteer for the UN) and Adrianna (volunteer for the EU from Spain). The ride was relatively painless although with the occasional need to drive off road due to the state of the tarmac, sand trucks spilling their load as they pass, slight clutch issues half way there and a sudden panicky hunt for fuel, it was not without challenge! We finally got to Dakar about 7-8 hours later and had an early night after finding food, ready for the next leg of the journey tomorrow.   After meeting Marielle and her friend Lois from The Netherlands, we all decided to travel up to St Louis together. So we found a car and to our amazement the road was tarmac all the way! We got there by 2pm, dropped Marielle and Lois at their hotel and then headed for the youth hostel I had booked. The hostel was great! It looked like a set straight out of the film Mamma Mia! (You can imagine the singing that went on after a few glasses of wine... childish really...)   The Island was beautiful and full to the brim with crumbling French colonial buildings, art galleries, craft shops, jazz bars and restaurants. We were in heaven!   So here are the highlights of the festival:   ·         Dancing in a crowded bar to a Senegalese band with a didgeridoo player! ·         Finding my favourite band (that I saw in Gambia when Dad was visiting) and dancing the night away... ·         Eating pizza... how I love pizza... ·         Shopping in the craft markets ·         Discovering the dirt cheap bags of wine (I have photographic evidence) ·         Meeting Sophie (from Belgium who was volunteering in Senegal) AJ from Australia (Rachel was in here element!), a girl from France (have always been bad with names!), Jo from England (the only other English person I saw all weekend!) and Patricia from Spain (volunteering in healthcare with Jo in The Gambia) ·         Going on a day trip with Marielle and Lois (see photos) to see the 'real' Senegal away from the pizza and bags of wine. We travelled to the very top of the country and at one point could see Mauritania on the other side of the river. The biggest achievement was surviving a walk around Podor village in 50 ⁰c heat! I will never moan about being cold again... well not for a while anyway! ·         Watching the Jazz Orchestra from Germany do their thing! ·         Going to Mass in the cathedral on Sunday to witness the best gospel choir I have ever seen (who were visiting from Dakar for the weekend) sing 'Oh Happy Day' at the end of the service while we all danced at the front of the church (Matt and Cat – you would have loved it! Very Sister Act 2!!) ·         Eating more pizza... did I mention how much I love pizza?.. ·         Watching a great African Jazz band, a unique Spanish group and the main man himself (on all the posters) Pharoah Sanders from the US (officially the coolest man I have ever seen!)   On the last night we got home at 2:30am and got up (with significant difficulty) at 5:00am to meet some other peace corps we had bumped into while eating pizza, Jo, Patricia and Adrianna at the Garage. As there were ten of us wanting to get across the border into Gambia in one day we managed to hire a gelli gelli for ourselves and started the long journey home. We made it to Barra in about 10 hours and I got back to Kerewan in 11 and a half hours. All those sweaty hours in a gelli gelli were so worth it and I would do it all again tomorrow!