Gelato

I have a crush on a Senagalese gelato-maker called Bary. Bary handed me an ice-cream cone yesterday as I sat in the back yard seating area in a new wicker chair whilst the other workers continued to prepare the restaurant that will open on Monday. Boxes and wrapping lay across the newly tiled floor and in the background I could spy a clay pizza oven. Everything is clean with a modern edge, and native flowers have been planted next to a painted wall with small pebbles tucked around the stems. The faint smell of woodchip and plaster blended with vanilla and stracciatella filled the shaded retreat.

Bary and his Senegalese friends are shyer and more demure than their Ghanaian counterparts and they speak Wolof, which is like Arabic, and French. Bary says that Senegal is much more beautiful than Accra. He says the sea is blue as blue and the sand is white. Sometimes he swims 8km to a small island out into the sea. I tried to imagine swimming 8km, but I think I’ve only ever swum just under 2.

Bary says that if I marry him I will have to live in Senegal because he will not live in England. He also says that he is allowed up to 4 wives. People say that there are times when a girl shouldn’t lose her head when it comes to men. I think that this is one of those times as I imagine a life ahead as one of four of Bary’s wives by a beautiful blue sea taking on a new spiritual existence in prayer five times a day facing a mecca I’ve never been to. This seems to contrast quite distinctly from the English framework of reading the Guardian paper on Sunday and preparing a roast dinner. I think for now I’m content with ice-cream and the promise of freshly baked pizza.