Chasing Hornbills E-Book

Simon Fenton

• Herausgeber: Eye Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Chasing Hornbills charts Simon Fenton s further adventures in Senegal. Now a father, and expanding his business interests to include a taxi firm and a restaurant, he continues to face the everyday frustrations and exhilarations that made Squirting Milk at Chameleons such a compelling and entertaining read. But as his understanding of Senegalese life and culture grows, so do questions about his future. Will the Accidental African settle permanently in his adopted home, or will he give up and return to his old familiar life?

Leseprobe

Published in 2016by Eye Books29A Barrow StreetMuch WenlockShropshireTF13 6EN

www.eye-books.com

Copyright © Simon Fenton, 2016

Cover by Bert Stiekma and Simon Fenton

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

To my family and friends in Abéné

Contents

Foreword by Chris Stewart

Map of Senegal and the Casamance

The Heart of Lightness

Teranga: Feeling at Home

African Rough and Tumble

Exotic Afflictions

Living with Spirits

Just Muddling Along

The Wild East

Official Insanity

Delta Drift

Islands on the Edge

Once More into the Swamp

Loving the Alien

African Delight

Abaraka

Theiboudjenne (Khady’s recipe)

Glossary

About Eye Books

About the Author

Praise for Squirting Milk at Chameleons

Foreword

“So what do you do, then?” This is what I would ask people at parties and such like. My detractors would take issue with this, saying that I was superficial and that it was more rewarding to know what people are than what they do. Superficial, well, maybe I am, but I do like to know what people do; it goes some way towards defining them. Without this particular piece of context, people tend to appear in a vacuum of cold spiritual inclinations, and revolting predilections and habits.

Understandably many of us are reluctant to spill the beans on what we actually do, given that what most of us do – with our working lives at least – is utterly fatuous and devoid of meaning. We have been fooled, by Capitalism and the corporations and the besuited thugs who run the media, into trading those basic human rights of creativity, discovery, freedom, adventure and joy, for comfort and security, for ease and vanity. A crap deal if ever there was one, but it’s true: from my investigations I have established that the great majority of people have never swum in a lake or a river, have never slept beneath the stars nor walked in the moonlight, nor even climbed some wild and distant hill. Poor misguided wretches; soon they will find themselves on their death-beds, totting up the reckoning.

“Did I drink to the full the joys and glories that were set before me upon the table of life?”

All too often the answer will be “No, I didn’t want to run the risk, or lose my job in the design and marketing of baubles to fool the foolish into parting with more of their money; I didn’t fancy getting wet and cold or a little bit scared…so I stayed in and watched the telly.”

When it all boils down to it you’ve only got yourself to blame, but it may not be too late to do something about it. You’ve got the book in your hand, now read it, and then act upon it. We can’t all be Semen Fenton (Senegalese pronunciation), but we can take a leaf from his book and get out there and walk a little on the wild side. Because Simon Fenton certainly has taken life by the balls, and better still, he has the gift of being able to communicate it. It’s still a long way off; he’s young, but I assure you that when his time is up, Simon will be able to slip away in peace, because he has lived a real life and rejoiced in the fabulous and varied wonders of the world. And it’s a comforting thought, to be able to die easy.

There’s a whole genre of this sort of book, and they are written by people who are blessed by curiosity and daring and a healthy disdain for the conventional way…and cursed perhaps, by Vermittlungsdrang (sometimes only a German word will do, and in this case it means “urge to communicate”). Fenton does the Vermittlung well; his style is easy and his experiences irresistibly fascinating…and you like him…and you like even more Khady, his wonderful Senegalese wife, who is the kingpin of the whole shebang.

The genre – self-help, travel, lifestyle – it’s all of these and yet none of these, but good, anyway – is there for inspiration. It worked for me: I was inspired back in my time by Laurie Lee, Gerald Brenan, Paddy Leigh-Fermor, and having read them and others, made decisions in my life according to what I had learned from their books, and it stood me in good stead.

So go on, read the book, and then act upon it. You could start by checking out the Little Baobab, Khady and Simon’s guest house in the Casamance. I would certainly do it myself, except that I would have to miss my favourite television programme.

Chris StewartEl Valero, August 2016

As with my first book, although one or two names have been changed and minor modifications of chronology made, everything in this book did happen. However, interpretations, and indeed misinterpretations, are my own. For explanations of unfamiliar words not explained within the text, please refer to the glossary at the back of the book.

Oh, and anyone of a delicate disposition might prefer to skip the fourth chapter.

The Heart of Lightness

I’m driving down the smugglers’ route with Omar. We pass through the forest, down from the Gambia to Abéné, across the border in Senegal. After weeks in England it’s exhilarating to speed through mile after mile of vivid green forest and lakes of mud through which Kermit, my fluorescent green Land Rover, slithers and slides. As we cross an open patch of land, I spot two large birds pecking at the ground.

They’re huge – perhaps a metre tall each. Omar screeches to a halt, leaps out and runs towards them, flapping his arms and squawking like a bird himself. The two birds, Abyssinian ground hornbills, start running, then take off, and I see a flash of white beneath their black wings as they only just clear the trees. Bemusedly, for I thought I’d heard it all by now, I ask a slightly breathless Omar what’s going on.

“Simon, this bird is very special to the Diola people and we always make it fly if we see one; otherwise we will have bad luck.”

Not long after, I was sitting on the roadside while my Land Rover was being fixed. It was nearly finished when I felt a large splat on my leg. Africans aren’t the only ones with bird-related superstitions…

Back in Abéné, I go to see my African mother, Diatou. She will often explain the finer points of Diola culture to me and I want to check if hornbills held any deeper meanings for the Diola; they don’t – or if they do, she isn’t telling.

“But Simon, don’t you remember when we went to Ziguinchor with Tom?”

Of course I remembered that trip. Khady and I had taken a car with Diatou and her late husband Tom, who had died while we were there. Then Khady and I had taken a bus back, and it had crashed en route, nearly killing us both.

“Well, we saw that bird on the way there and I told the driver to stop, but he just carried on.”