Busy, Busy Friday

So last Thursday I decided to walk over to the Festival headquarters office (which is only about 20 minutes from where I live), knock on the door, and force someone to deal with me.  I have been trying the phone call / email route, to no avail.  Freshly determined, I walked over and introduced myself to the secretary.  He was very kind and told me that I could have a meeting with the festival's music director the next morning (Friday) at 10am.  COOL!  With a bit more spring in my step, I treated myself to a falafel sandwich and a virgin mojito (sprite, fresh lime, and fresh mint, with crushed ice - quite refreshing in this heat!).  (I would've preferred a REAL mojito of course, but it wasn't that kind of a joint).   I do this to keep myself going, by the way - little treats and such to reward myself for doing something useful for a change. 

Meanwhile, I had set up two other plans for later the same day.  I would meet up with my friend Lamine Diagne, aka "The Turtle Guy."  Lamine lives in another town but said he'd be in Dakar on Friday, and said he'd call me when he got in so we could get together.
[BACK STORY:  Lamine is someone I met back in May when I was here conducting some preliminary research (at that time I didn't know if I'd be coming back in the fall or not).  At some point I had decided to be a tourist for a day and I went to this turtle rehabilitation sanctuary called "Villages des Tortues," which is a ways outside of Dakar (3 hours by bush taxi).  Lamine is the founder and director of the sanctuary, and he gave me a personal tour of the place, introducing me to each turtle.  Also, the day I visited two new baby turtles had just hatched, and he named one of them after me!  So, now there's a little Melissa the Turtle in the world.  ANYway, he asked what I was doing in Senegal and I told him about my research, and he told me he'd have to introduce me to his friend Balla, a musician who was around for the first festival in 1966 and would remember it.  So he and I visited Balla, who is a Baye Fall (a particular brand of Sufi unique to Senegal - they are easily recognized by their colorful, raggedy clothing and long dreadlocks).  He was excited to learn that I was a saxophonist, and in turn introduced me to one of his best friends, Issa Cissoko, the tenor saxophonist in Orchestra Baobab.  So, to make a long story short, I owe Lamine a LOT!  And he's a super nice guy.]

And the third plan was that I was going to get together with Damien, the American saxophonist I've been playing with, so we could work on Milim tunes.  If I'm really ever going to sub for him, I need to learn their book!

SO.  Friday morning I'm excited to have such a busy day ahead of me.  Normally being busy wouldn't get me so excited, but given how difficult it's been to get much done here, research-wise, so far, I was looking forward to feeling productive for a change!  So I walk over to the Festival office and am invited to have a seat on a couch that's held together by a few threads and some swiss-cheese-holed foam.  Unfortunately, Friday happened to be blisteringly hot, even for here.  My clock/thermometer said it was 95 degrees!!!  It felt even hotter.  So after a few minutes I relocated to an equally sturdy chair that was more directly facing the door and therefore a source of AIR.  I was a veritable sweat fountain.  Now, I had anticipated that I would be kept waiting, as this is par for the course here, so I worked on tweaking my questions for my interview.  After about 45-50 minutes, the secretary tells me that, in fact, I should go over to this cultural center in a different (not close) neighborhood, because the music director should be there rehearsing the National Orchestra, which he directs.  Hmmm.  This only just NOW occurred to him??  OKAAAY.  So I'm told which bus to take, catch it, and trek over to the cultural center.  I fend off an inquiry into my marital status with a well-placed "Bay ma!" (leave me alone!) and duck into the cultural center just in the nick of time.  I inquire about where I can find the director, and am pointed first here, then there, and finally WAY back in this back area.  Now, here I need to interrupt to paint a picture of the scene for you:  First of all, you must keep in mind that on this day, Friday, the festival would be starting in EXACTLY ONE WEEK.  Well, this place was a veritable DISASTER ZONE.  It looked like Hurricane Katrina had hit.  They were in the middle of some massive construction work.  Not little repairs here and there, but major construction which was NOWHERE NEAR being complete.  I couldn't imagine for the life of me how on earth they were going to make this place presentable and functional in one week.  An American accident lawyer would've felt like a kid at Christmas, looking around this wreckage.  In order to walk over to the person I was to meet, I had to step on what looked like still slightly wet cement, piles of rocks, piles of cables and wires, piles of mud,  and piles of leaves and debris.  Somehow I managed not to kill myself (no small feat for this klutz) and met the person I was directed to.  Of course, it turns out this is NOT the person I'm looking for.  But he says he'll try calling him for me.  He tries 3 times, to no avail.  Then he says, "Yeah, I don't know where he is - I haven't seen him all day.  YESTerday he was here til like 9pm, but yeah, today I just don't know where he could be.  Maybe in a meeting or something."  Hmm.  So YESTerday, when the secretary had told me to come BACK a day LATER to meet up with the guy at the office, he was in fact at the cultural center.  TODAY (meaning Friday) when I'm told to GO to the cultural center, he's nowhere to be found.   WELCOME TO RESEARCHING IN AFRICA, FOLKS!!  So, with nothing but a new phone number to show for my efforts, I dejectedly trekked back home in the 95 degree heat.  By the time I got back all I could do was take a shower and collapse in front of the fan. 

After finally recovering somewhat from my energy-sapping, yet unfruitful morning / early afternoon, I decided to practice until I heard from Lamine.  Well, before I know it it's 5pm and I still haven't heard from him.  So I give him a call, he doesn't answer, and I text him a message.  He calls back a few minutes later and says, "Hey!  Yeah, I'm in Nofloye (the village where the sanctuary is).  But I'm going to be in Dakar on MONday - I'll give you a call then, ok?"  WHAT?!?!?!  Did I miss something?  Apparently. 

At this point I'm feeling pretty apathetic about getting anything useful done with my day, but I decide to try Damien once again to see if at least we can get together to rehearse.  I had already left one message, and I left another one.  By 6pm I still hadn't heard anything from him.  At this point I decide that the day is shot anyway and I'm going to screw it and just go watch some movies at the CCF (French Cultural Center).  And that's what I did!  I watched "Tous les matins du monde," about a viola da gamba master from the court of Louis XVI, named Sainte Colombe.  The music was beautiful, and was enough to help me tolerate the fact that it had Gerard Depardieu in it.  Then I watched Madame Bovary and enjoyed watching her super-dramatic death throes (complete with her coughing up blue blood!) at the end. 

So, as you can see, it was a VERY BUSY FRIDAY!