Tales I Didn't Tell......Road to St Louis.....continued

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Ok so when last you saw me it was in Senegal, at night, on the side of the road, in questionable company, hitch hiking to St Louis with about an hour to go....Definitely not what was intended!

As fate would have it our angel of mercy appeared in the form of a fly 20 something year old with fresh haircut (so full of complicated razored intersecting lines and angles as to confound even Pythagorus) in shiny black car, reverberating with pumping bass, sporting multiple air fresheners and juju beads hanging in a cluster from the rear view mirror. He and his equally slick traveling companion took pity on us, flew us to St Louis in record time, and deposited us gratis in what was probably the closest to Hades that I've ever been and ever hope to be!

Sheer bedlam! The night time market scene with hawkers, open fires, women in shiny skin tight clothing, innumerable lean scruffy youth, loiters, hardened men with hooded eyes and rusting cars overwhelmed the senses not to mention my nerves plus not a word of English to be heard.

Completely out of my depth!

At this point even the wild eyed woman in bizarre headdress looked tame and I accepted her invitation to spend the night in the safety of her home. No taxi could be trusted to take me straight to a hotel and the campsite with The Truck was definitely too far away in the dark.

As it turned out my unique hostess lived with her 3 lovely children in a beautiful but crumbling colonial house. Her Swedish husband (wow!?!?!) no doubt realizing that she was extra special had fled back to the snowy regions, cut her off and was attempting to wrest the children to his bosom from afar. (Sounds quite special himself)!

On entering her home that night the younger children ran and clung to me, her beautiful smiling older daughter clearly accustomed to shouldering all burdens and playing surrogate mother to the younger ones. I relaxed a bit ...then got a load of the aunt, my hostesses older sister, lurking in the shadows.

Holy cow! Hatchet faced does not begin to describe her and aggressive beyond belief. She lounged in a hideous cheap see-through blouse with no bra or undershirt (to aid or obscure her unlovely breasts), smirked malevolently while twirling a curl of her grotesque brassy wig.

By way of introduction she began with a demand that I hand over my shoes right then and there 'Donnez-moi ta boot!' She rasped

Absolutely not! No deal!

Although it was 9pm my hostess was now busying herself incessantly scrubbing everything in sight, fumigating the entire house with billowing clouds of incense while boiling a gigantic pot of porridge on a coal pot in the corner of the kitchen, there was no gas for the stove. Bizarre at best!

A bit nervous I called Mama Amina, the matriarch of my family in Dakar to touch base...she freaked!'

'Ahye! Be very very careful, do not trust these people, sleep in your clothes with your money and papers on you' she warned, then she got my 'hostess' on the phone and made her understand that I was not some lone tourist there for the picking but the member of a large caring family who would back me up and find me no matter what!

A tad unsettling....That night I never slept but lay in not only my clothes but shoes as well, jammed the door with a chair and waited for first light.

Morning dawned, I hugged and kissed the clinging children, helped them get ready for school, made them toast and tea, promised to see them again, then turned my attention to extracting myself from this asylum.

I was deep in a ram-shackle residential neighborhood, no paved streets no cars nor busses, nothing, just an Arab store across the way with bars on all the windows, prayer mats and phone cards rolled up inside and bearded men leering at me.

I asked my hostess to use my cell phone to call a taxi which she did, I preyed that it would not be one of her henchmen, then, the most bazaar game ensued....and I was 'it'.

Now this entire house was secured with burglar bars, no one could get in but it was also tough to get out...I went into the living room to tell my hostess that I would wait outside for the taxi when her sister slammed the door shut!

'Oh O!' She exclaimed...'I forgot this door has no handle inside, but it must be here somewhere....how can we get out?

"Hugh!!!! Are you kidding me?!" I was now locked in the living room with these 2 women who were pretending to dust and clean empty shelves and I had to find the door handle in order to get out?!!

I went into the bathroom off the living room and closed the door to regroup....Crap! That window was also barred! I had no choice....Taking a deep breath and steeling my nerves I went to join my crazy captors. I would have to outsmart them, play and win the game...it was the only way out.

There were several burglar barred French doors that led off the living room to the large weed strewn garden, with my heart thumping wildly in my throat feigning nonchalance I sauntered from one door to the next...(all locked)....saying 'oh this is sooo silly, giggle giggle, how can WE get out?'

All the while my captors were busiy dusting the sparse furniture and watching me from the corners of their eyes.

Finally the last door in the corner that I tried was stuck but opened when I pushed hard. I sprung out, closed and locked the door behind me locking them in, made sure I knew a foolproof route of escape, then went around and flung open the living room door without the handle from outside.

Shouts of glee went up from the 2 crazies 'Bravo Patricia! You did it! Et voila here is the handle!' Produced from the uppermost shelf she was now 'dusting' tiptoeing on a chair.To put it mildly I was rattled!

The taxi took forever but it finally arrived, Waiting at the gate, bag in hand....I fled!It turned out to be a normal taxi...yes he overcharged me (at this point who cares?!) but took me straight to the campsite and The Truck. I was never so happy to see a truck load of pain-in-the-ass tourists in my life! I all but hugged them!

I had promised to see the children again so kept my word, inviting them and their lunatic mother (not auntie!) on Sunday for French fries and sodas at a reasonable hotel (still a splurge) with a swimming pool...all afternoon the children romped and swam forgetting their odd unsettling existence for a while.

That evening crammed into a communal taxi both the smaller children on my lap, they knew we'd never meet again, hugging me all the way they said 'Merci Tata Patricia, Merci, Merci, Merci pour tout! Xxxxxx

I guess in the end it's not if we win or loose but how we play the game....but thank goodness in this case, I won.

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Photos

St Louis Warf
Lovely by day

Not Her Children
Too beautiful to resist...but these are not the children in the story

St Louis sunrise
Sunrise at Zebra camp after regaining The Truck

Comments

[carol]

my nerves
are shot from reading this ordeal. great writing. it is just as good as talking to you