Going to London, Ending Up In Senegal

Yes yes yes, this is one of my favourite stories. So brace yourself for something, ehm, unexpected?

I went through the trouble of going down to London using Megabus, which is really not recommendable unless you take the sleeper (which I didn't) and I find myself visiting Bob. I met him in front of my house in Findhorn, we might be neighbours but had never talked to one another. One of the reasons being that it is his summer house, I always went away during the summer which meant that we had only ever seen each other briefly towards the start of autumn. I was in need of work to earn some money and hinted it in one of our conversation, he needed help to pack up his house before heading down to London and had also hinted it in one of our conversations. Hence I did some light work for him and during my few work hours we ended up becoming good friends. After hoovering some of the rooms I get into the bathroom and see pictures of the royal family on the wall, with signatures. "What are those cards for?" I ask Bob as he comes in through the door and point towards the wall. He answers with his loud posh british accent, clearly pronouncing every letter and slowly & softly going over every word carefully - as if he was afraid to break one if he said it the 'wrong' way. "Oh well, as it happens I have been friends with [Prince] Charles for some time and him and his family tend to go through the trouble and send me a little christmas card every now and then." So he seemed to be hanging around the more wealthy classes, he was telling me about sometimes going north in the winter to visit Lady Cawdor in her castle to celebrate new year.

I stayed with him for a couple of days until another good friend of mine, Robia, came back to London after teaching at a dance camp in Switzerland. She was renting a room from her Jamaican side of the family near Clapham Junction. Every morning I would walk down the stairway to be greeted by Ken, her uncle. "He man, you sleep well? I prepared some of de cornmeal porridge, Jamaican style." He would say with his lovely Jamaican accent as he turned around from the stove wearing his crocs. This meant we always had a delicious creamy and sweet breakfast that was framed by Ken's conversations in Patois. However one morning we sit at the table eating this delicious honey coloured porridge and I get a phone call. It is a south african friend of mine, Lua. "Hey Noah, I wanted to talk to you about the GEN Africa conference, I know we had collectively decided not to have you come to Senegal for the conference because of money, your work etc., but it looks like we definitely need another person to be in control of the IT here and some budget turned up as some people couldn't make it. So I know this is really short notice but we have to decide asap: I'm giving you 10 minutes." She says in a quick manner. Silence follows as I can't quite comprehend what I am hearing. All I can answer in response is "Ok, I'll have to think about that - I was just starting to settle with the idea of staying here in London. So I will use those 10 minutes and write you an e-mail then." I sit down and am completely flabbergasted. I look around the room and see every face looking at me in a questioning manner. "I might end up going to Senegal in the end guys, I've got 10 minutes to decide - I'll be right back." I say and hurry off. I run up the stairs, taking two or three stairs at a time to reach Robia's room and my tablet. I call the Bakehouse, my workplace, to ask if it would be ok for me to miss another weekend of work and go to Senegal. I had talked to them about it before, but as Lua said we had decided for me not to come which I had told them. In addition to this they would be one man short even with me being there as one of the workers was taking the weekend off. I hear David (my boss) sigh over the phone as I tell him the story. "I guess you have to go, take the opportunity. We'll hopefully manage to find someone to fill in for you." He says with a deep understanding sounding in his voice. I jump onto gmail to tell Lua that I had decided, I would come. A few seconds later I receive her reply. 'Great, looking forward to seeing you. Can you please send us your passport details so that we can book the ticket?' In that moment the bitter realisation comes to me that I had left my passport in Findhorn, after all I had only been planning to go to London and no further. I panic for some moments before being able to clear my head and start thinking straight. I figure out that in theory by using express mail my passport might arrive in London in two days. I call my stepfather in Findhorn to ask him to do so. "Sure, I could send the passport down for you if you want. However I could also just give it to you in person tonight. I am travelling down to London in one hour and will be arriving in Gatwick at 18:03. From there you could pick it up." He answers and again I am perplexed at how this can be. There was not enough space to fit the wide smile that formed on my face. I could not believe the pure luck I was having, it looked like karma came along and after having some shit happen to me decided to allow some amazing things to commence. In the evening I pick up my passport from the aiport and after briefly talking to my stepfather I go back to Robia's place. There I started to pack my bags and headed to see some friends of hers nearby afterwards. The following day I wake up, eat a fruit salad, meet up with a friend on the way to the airport and then take off at 13:30 to fly to Dakar with a short layover in Casablanca.