Imprisoned in Senegal followed by free staying @ 4 star hotel and Record Digging !!!! part 1 !

Hi there ,

Long time !

This is a story about the consequences of smoking Herb in Senegal and a small inside view of life in Senegalese prisons.

One day we found ourselves in Mauretanie and decided to go South to Senegal together with my wife , her younger brother and a friend of him.
As we didnt have space in our car that time but we do wanted the two young lads to come along to see some West Africa so we guided them where to go by hitchhiking and so we always met in the next stop to spend the night together in one of the deserts villages or cities.
They didnt have alot of money so that was the best option to travel and see..

So from Nouakchot we left down south taking the ''piste'' offroad-road to Djama wich is one of the 2 options to take when your going to Senegal by road. The 2nd option is Rosso with a nice road that leads to it but a more complicated bordercrossing as this place is alot more busy with more people and thus more problems . Djama is rough road to get there but you pass through a natural reserve and the border crossing is easier .

From Djama we headed to St-Louis, N'Dar' (in Wolof , the local language in Senegal)where we arrived in the night .

We soon found our 2 friends in the centre and they joined us around our car where we discussed where we were going to sleep.
They had met a ''rasta''guy with them that i didnt trust very much and that i kindly told that from here we would be ok and that we no longer needed his assistance , that he was free to go ..
In that same time i allready had met the security man from the hotel that offered us a place to sleep in his house as the hotel was expensive..
So all of us went to his house a few blocks further and finally had a rest after a very long and exhausting driving trip !

Our host than asked us if we would like to buy and smoke some ''Ganja'' there called ( Chanvre Indien).

We bought some , smoked some , went to sleep..

Goodmorning ! We woke up , had our breakfast , fruits and some coffee with milk and some bread..

Personally i never smoke Herb in Africa during the day as the sun is tomuch and it feels more comfortable without , though in the night i do appreciate it .

Now our beloved younger brother wanted to smoke a spliff and so he did , but very shortly whilest still burning the herb , 4 men came into our room that we thought are just friends of our host and claimed to be police...

They showed us their badges and we very soon realised this wasnt a joke !
They strip searched the whole room and all of our pockets and also found some Hasj that we smuggled from Morocco , nothing to much , like 4grams , but to much for the medieval oldschool French law that is still ruling there..

So actually we never even saw the daylight in St-Louis until..

The police lead us outside the compound and we met a policevan , handcuffed..

They throwed us into the back of the ''van'' and they put on the sirenes , driving like a madman through the streets of St Louis !
Woah , this time we all looked at eachother and asked ourselves ???????WTF is this really happening?????

Oh Yes...

We arrived at the Central police station and were thrown inside the cels at the entrance of the building where everybody who visits the council or police will surely pass there and look at you as if you are a criminal ..

My wife couldnt go inside the cells as she is a woman and so she had to stand up for i dont remember howmany hours next to the policeman who was at the reception .. it was a very bad situation for all of us and the police were very very mean and arrogant..She wast allowed to go to the bathroom for exemple .. when she asked the man after long time begging .. : ''Dont you have a heart?'' , the police man replied : '' NO ITS STONE '' ..wich made me to shout at him to defend my lady .. in the end she was allowed ..

When we were in the policestation the Belgian consulate guy also appeared , he has a hotel in St-Louis and is working for the Belgian consulate in Senegal. He than took the keys of our car and had it put into safety as he though the customs might also want to try and get their share if our vehicle would stay to long in the country as we paid for a 1 week transfer only ..he promised our belongings would be safe and that he will come tomorrow ..He also took a little puppy dog we rescued from Mauretanian ticks..and that was now a 5th travel companion .. The doggy is now living in a 4 star hotel together with 3 other really healthy well cared of dogs !! and some cats :)
He also brought some potato chips and some other biscuits from the Senegalese shops.. something to stop our SERIOUS hunger by than !..

When he came the next day to have a look at who those 4 Belgians are he bursted out in tears really feeling for us and shocking all of us .. by telling : ''You can catch between 1 year and 15 years for this in Senegal.. WHAT ?!#!? ..

THe 3rd day they opened our cell and guided us into the policevan again , driving us to the ''prosecutor'' .
We arrived in a french colonial stylish building and we were brought into another cell and were told to wait there until they are gonna call us to see the prosecutor ..

We were called and the cell opened and they brought us upstairs ..one by one we went inside and came outside with a paper telling that we were going to prison..for real !

So from there ..straight to ...PRISON !

Arrival in prison , immediatly we were made clear that here is prison and here You dont have anything to say , OK!!! ?? , wow serious , these people here werent friendly anymore as all these years of experience in Africa .
Shut up and look forward , dont talk ! thats the first agressive phrase i got from the guards, armed with m16 rifles and dressed up in uniform of brutality as Bob Marley once expressed in his song:' Burning and loothing'.
This time it was really not looking good , we had to strip of all our clothes , buttnaked stripsearched the whole thing , they took my money and asked me howmuch i was going to pay them so that they would shave my head and remove my dreadlocks (20y old dread ) .
I told them i would give them all as long as they dont touch my dread !
After the stripsearch they leaded me outside and i saw a guy trying to connect a very long electrick extension chord attached to a shavemachine ..WOW WTF is this i paniked , they shaved the Senegalese guy , the one who invited us and started shaving him to the skin and next in line would be my friend and brother and finally me ..
I shouted STOP !! this is not going to happen !! if you do this its like you would kill me and i promise you that if you try me i will probably spend the rest of my life here in prison and that i would not be responsible for my actions..
The prisonguard 5 cm from my face shaking and telling me : IT THE RULE OF THE PRISON AND WE WILL SHAVE YOU!!!

I show them all my locks and told them again ! THIS , NOBODY CAN TOUCH IT !! and the prison ward came in and heard everything .. he replied : HEy , one more word , and we WILL shave You !!!

I understood and looked straight forward , no more eye contact and kept VERY quiet !!!!!!

In the mean time my wife was there around also somewhere , she wasnt lucky as she was alone , we were three guys ..she was in the female side of the prison and we were allowed to see eachother like 5 minutes per day and were not allowed to touch eachother as they than treatened to shave my hair .. so day one she wanted to hold me and the guard on the roof shouted , HEY DONT TOUCH OR WE WILL CUT YOUR DREADLOCKS !!!!
Funny afterwards , when i think about it .. day 2 when we were allowed to see us.. first thing i shouted from far to my wife was ! DONT TOUCH ME HE ) !!! .. i'm probably the one and only in history of Senegalese prisonscene who entered and also left prison with his dreadlocks..

When we arrived in our ''room'' Chambre 9'' where 48people lived and 18 beds stood .
When we entered the first time i introduced myself and my 2 friends to the prisoners , why we were there and who we were etc..
We were very well received by all the prisoners , maybe not like what you might think but they were really hospitable and made coffee and théé for us many times ! we even got to smoke some herb ;).. a guy showed up one day , stood by the 2story bed , where we sat on top , and he spit out a little ball of wich surprised us very much , yes , the same thing that got us in there..some ''chanvre indien '' wich with 4 people we each took 3 puffs :)

Many people were there for the same reason as we , and had been there for years without being judged , lawyers do steal money from them promising to defend their case but then never show up or if they do show up than they claim they can't do nothing for them , i saw big strong guys cry ...:/
The room was very dirty , had one little toilet hole and this was also the shower..very dirty and dark.
You certainly dont want to touch the floor ..
In the night the ''mats'' were taken out and laid on the floor and the ''beds'' were made , time to sleep .. completely black from the dirt..like a real nice patiné really :/ and also crawling transparent white little scorpion forest cockroach kinda creatures crawling around next to your face while mouses were also often seen crawling onto and after dissapearing under a neighbours bedsheets .. so you could guess that could be happening to each of us..

3.30h in the morning !!!! after 4h of sleep.. the first people start to wake up.. makeing little noises , thus waking me up .
They had to step over everybody to go to the waterbasins and take water to wash their bodys before prayers , and water and trying to be quiet when its still night and everybody sleept and its very quiet.. and when you start to focus on these noises.. well to me it made me not so comfortable.. No Sleep...

I'l write more of this story ... I wait for some comments or questions..

See you soon , Kali :)