Senegal has turned out to be more expensive than expected -- everything from the pre-trip necessities (around $1000 for the family's obligatory yellow fever vaccinations, visas, and malaria pills) to the price of hotels (around 100-140€ per night) and meals (around 20€ per person per dinner). It's not London prices, but somehow it just seems incongruous given that people around us are traveling by horse-drawn cart through garbage-strewn, thatched-hut roof villages. But the one area where the pricing seems just about right with the surroundings? Souvenirs.
I don't know I need baskets until gradually, over the course of the trip, I start to fall in love with them. I have no room and no use for a basket, but don't let that stop me.
On our last day, I stop at a little stand at the end of the day and ask about a pretty orange and green basket. Her starting price, at 4000CFA (6€ or $8) is already lower than I've managed to bargain anyone for baskets I don't like nearly as much. So, half-heartedly, I offer 2000CFA knowing, correctly, that we will end up at 3000CFA (4.5€ or $6). Here, Pippa carries it back to our hotel, in the local style.
Our cheapest souvenir: dried bean pods given to the girls by our boat driver down south. They are amazingly long bean pods, and they rattle like maracas. Here I've put them with a regular pocket camera to give you an idea of the size -- about 45cm or 18in long.
On Ile de Gorée, we get a demonstration of the natural Senegalese sands used in making their sand art.
Rather than buy one for about $10, we buy the right for the girls to make one, for about $8. There's some serious in-family fighting until we finally come to the compromise of Gigi doing the left half (the hut) and Pippa doing the right half (the tree). I help only the tiniest bit, honestly. The glue is made from local plants, and there's no coating on top, but man that glue is strong, because the sand absolutely does not fall off even after transporting it back to Paris.
I pass by loads of fabrics and textiles, none of which I need. Honest, I do.
But it turns out I need this photo.
And the sarong, except that it turns out to be so light it's more of a scarf. So then I need another sarong. They're only a few dollar each. They get put right to good use. They'll go nicely with the jewelry we buy here. Lots of necklaces, some of which graced our fancy New Year's Eve outfits.
For as little as a dollar, and no more than a few, we get some dolls and figurines...
..to go with their international doll collection back in Paris. It's a souvenir we try to pick up in each country we visit, and there are a few added in from various regions of countries, and countries that I've visited alone, and countries that some friends have visited.
In Saint Louis, we buy our most expensive and my favorite souvenirs -- but they're not one and the same. The masks are the most expensive souvenir, and I love them. They are sold to us by the dad in the orange robe. He claims they're near-antiques (roughly from the 1920s). It could be true, or not. One of the rules of shopping uninformed in developing countries is never buy the "antiques" for their authenticity, which we can't validate. Just buy them for whatever it's worth to you to hang them on your wall and enjoy them. For us, that's a little over $100 for the pair.
They make a nice addition to our family mask collection, many of which are still hanging in our home in San Francisco; we hope our tenants are enjoying them. Here are some we've collected while living in Europe.
My single favorite souvenir from the trip is made by the son in the photo with his orange-clad dad -- an artist who goes by the name "Pikass", as in Picasso. He makes this beautiful African lady out of garbage found on the streets and shores in Saint Louis. So not only do I absolutely love her, I also love that in some small way, we're removing garbage from the surroundings. She costs us $40, but the father tries to charge us $60 before the son comes over. I love her so much, and feel the $40 is such a fair price for the labor, that I don't mind in the least that he won't go any lower.
Sculptures -- often using modern materials -- and masks seem to be real Senegalese specialties.
The art below comes with a gecko camouflaged nearby.
This one's for my dad. Here's something you can do with old cassettes, cell phones, and even a camera for the bridge of the nose.
The most outrageous souvenir, and the one that proves to us once and for all that Anthony is our family's worst haggler, are these seven mini-masks. Anthony comes back with them after a solo trip to the ATM, and he lays them out for me to see. I guess a purchase price of $3 total for all seven, and I would bet my left eyeball that I could have gotten them down to that price. When he tells me he paid $20, I nearly fall off the bed. So the 15€ is not just here to show you the size of the minute sculptures, but also the price.
He says the seller started at $160, and he just laughed. I have to ask why he even bothered to haggle at all after that, and he answers, "I just feel so bad. The money means so much to them." Well, that's true, and I love my husband's tender heart and compassion. But damn, that's some crap-ass haggling!
