Travelogues set in West Africa (Juju*, guilt and so much more + author Q&A)

15th April 2013

The Ringtone and the Drum by Mark Weston. Travelogues set in West Africa.

“West Africa is nobody’s idea of a dream holiday destination” – so opens The Ringtone and the Drum by Mark Weston; Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and and Guinea-Bissau are the world’s poorest countries. Mark’s wife Ebru is persuaded to accompany him on this trip, to a part of the world where you can neither retreat into the comfortable cocoon of a Western hotel chain to get a breather, nor is detachment possible – your physical and psychological distance is stripped away and you are dragged into the pulsating mêlée.

Guinea-Bissau is a small, poor, forgotten country where very few tourists or business people come, and this ‘Eden’ was disrupted by slavery and colonialism, and where nowadays poverty’s cruelty permeates everyday life; malaria is still the biggest killer. Touring Guinea-Bissau in a “sept-places” (seven-seater) Peugeot, Mark and Ebru meet all manner of folk, both indigenous and in-comers, who have settled there, from Evangelists who are spreading the word to other Westerners; and there is a tremendous amount of historical information that permeates the text. Details of the drug running that the Colombians specialise in, the trade in shark fins…. as a reader it feels a special experience to have shared in so many encounters.

Next stop was Senegal and even getting there involved such hazards: potentially negotiating a no-go area, where decades old rebellion still festers; or taking any of the West African Airlines, most of which are banned from European airspace because of safety issues. Heading on to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, the couple seems to really warm to the city although there was a very scary encounter that Ebru goes on to elucidate below. And I must say, at TF, we were transported to a place that is a “happy blend of Mediterranean France, sub-Saharan Africa and the coastal cities of Morocco and Algeria”….

Sierra Leone is again really poor, with one ATM in the whole country, few medical facilities and a capricious world of diamond mining that attracts many of the inhabitants, both native and incomer. Diamonds account for half of Sierra Leone’s exports. Did Johnny and Lucy, incomers hoping to make their fortune, ever leave the country with more than they came with, we wonder?

And the final country, Burkina Faso is totally land-locked and is beset with tremendous poverty. The mean age is young, and one in three women on average will produce a child every year (compared with Spain where it is one in forty); and it is here that the author is brought low by the condition known as Soudanite, a fearful state of mind brought on, in essence, by the stresses of the culture and by the psychological impact of the way of life in West Africa. In fact Ebru was so concerned at one point, that she hid their penknife in case he became delusional – very frightening to imagine. This condition seems to come about because of a way of life that is so alien to Westerners, the constant harassment, the invasion of personal space, the roaring temperatures that suck the life-blood, compounded by the harmattan wind, and the ever pervading “guilt” that travellers to the area start to feel. As a result the couple decided to shorten the planned 6 month sojourn by a couple of weeks.

As a reader of this book, I shamefully admit I first had to look up the countries to see exactly where they were. The author has done a compelling job of bringing this part of the world to life, in all its rawness, interwoven with snippets of historical background and geography, and he has a wonderful style of writing that really flows. All things considered though, I just KNOW that I am a soft traveller and therefore it has been a delight to visit a part of the world, through words and personal experience, that that many of us are ever unlikely to ever visit.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

*Juju – a belief system that includes sorcery/witchcraft that helps people make sense of life and death.

Question and Answers with Mark (M) and Ebru (E)

What do you think particularly predisposed you both individually and jointly to embark on such a journey, and especially to West Africa?

M: I’m afraid it was my idea, partly wanting a change and a challenge, but mainly wanting to get to know West Africa better, and to find out more about what it’s really like to live in the world’s poorest countries. I’d worked for ten years as a researcher and writer on the problems facing the developing world, but mostly from the comfort of Europe and the US and I still felt I hadn’t really got under the skin of what it’s like to live in poverty. I felt I needed a deeper understanding, a better idea of how the world’s poorest people make it through the day.

E: It was Mark’s idea and it took quite a lot of persuading for me to go along with him. I was worried about going to such an unstable part of the world, but I was also curious and I thought it would be interesting to hear about Africans’ lives directly rather than just reading about them in books and newspapers. I also didn’t trust Mark to go there alone as I thought he would be too trusting of people and maybe get himself into trouble as a consequence!

What for each of you was the hardest thing about your 5 ½ months on the road?

M: For me it was the combination of the intense heat, falling ill a couple of times without the security of knowing there are decent health care facilities if you get really sick, and most of all the fact that poverty in these countries is so ubiquitous and intense that it’s difficult not to be ground down by it. You feel helpless, frustrated and guilty. As I wrote in the book, you felt ‘guilt over your wealth, guilt when you refused to give, guilt that when you gave you did not give everything, and guilt that having had your fill of their destitution you could and one day would fly away to a magical world of comfort and security.’ In the end I had a minor breakdown because of all this, so there were some tough times (although of course nowhere near as tough as what many West Africans have to endure throughout their lives).

E: The travelling within the countries was difficult. I always dreaded the long journeys, which were usually very uncomfortable because the vehicles were so crowded and hot and slow. I also didn’t want to drink much water during those journeys as there were never any toilet facilities (for women at least) until you got to your destination, so dehydration added to the discomfort. Mark’s meltdown was also very difficult to deal with, for obvious reasons.

Which memories both good and bad particularly stand out for you from this trip?

M: Good would be all the amazing people we met, the friendship they gave us and the fascinating stories they told us. I’m still in touch with quite a few of the people in the book, and will hopefully go back to see them in the not too distant future. Bad would be the many tragedies we saw and heard about – the premature deaths, the children sick with malaria, people drinking out of drains in the street, the many who had lost their mind.

E: Good would be our stay in the beautiful island of Bubaque in Guinea-Bissau, where we developed a very warm friendship with a local lady who cooked our food, who became almost like a mother to us. Also our stroll around the Kroo Bay slum in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I’d been worried about going there because I thought people might not want us nosing around and intruding, but as it turned out everyone was incredibly welcoming and it was lovely to sit and have a long chat with a group of them. Bad would be when I thought Mark was going to die one night in Freetown as his temperature soared to dangerous levels between bouts of vomiting, and our escape from South American drug traffickers in Dakar in Senegal, which is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Practically, how did you manage with day to day things like money transactions, laundry. etc?

M: I think we are the last people in the world who still use traveller’s cheques! They weren’t accepted everywhere (and in many places we went to there were no banks to change them), but with hardly any cash machines in Sierra Leone and none in Guinea-Bissau, they were the safest option. Credit cards are also useless, so it’s really traveller’s cheques or cash. Laundry we did ourselves mostly, buying packets of soap powder and washing clothes in our hotel basins. The only problem with this was that we often had to wait a few days for a water supply and with the intense heat and ubiquitous dust, had to get used to being slightly dirty a lot of the time.

Which books did you take with you to read?

M: I deliberately didn’t take many books on Africa as I’d done a lot of research back home before the trip. We read a lot, but of the books I can remember, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of a Kidnapping stands out (having read this probably didn’t help my state of mind during the narcotraffickers episode in Dakar), as do two volumes by Richard Holmes, Sidetracks and Footsteps. Beautifully written books about the Romantic poets combining travel, biography and autobiography – it was quite soothing to read about journeys in places like France and Italy while we were in the wilds of West Africa.

E: I read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which I couldn’t recommend more highly, and of the others I remember Lord of the Flies, which I picked up a copy of in Freetown, was pretty disturbing!

What tips would you give to anyone planning a similar trip, now that you have done it?

M: One bit of advice I’d give to any potential traveller is to try not to worry about being dirty! You miss out on so much in this world if you avoid its grittier places. Other than that, I’d strongly recommend West Africa as a destination for adventurous travellers. There are beautiful beaches, forests and deserts, and the people are incredibly warm and friendly. It’s also a great place for a total change from what you’re used to back home or in more traditional holiday destinations, and is likely to give you a whole new perspective on your life.

E: Be prepared for difficulties, but don’t avoid the region just because it’s poor and you don’t think you’ll be able to handle the poverty. You’ll miss out on an amazing experience, and on meeting some wonderful people.

What advice would you give to any other couples intending to embark on such a gruelling trip? The highlights and the pitfalls, please!

M: Go for it – people we knew thought Ebru and I would probably split up after spending 6 months in each other’s pockets in such difficult countries, but if anything it brought us closer together. I suppose this is because you’re in such a different situation to anything you’ve encountered before so you’re always on the alert, making decisions, watching out for each other, but also because there’s so much going on and so many new sights and experiences that you’ve always got interesting things to talk about or debate or reminisce and laugh about.

E: Women travellers should be prepared to take a back seat in some parts of West Africa and shouldn’t get offended if men in particular speak to the male partner rather than the female. This is how these cultures are, but the plus side of this is that as a woman it’s much easier to form close relationships with West African women.

What are your plans for your next trip?

M: Watch this space!

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