Kerr Goine
The bush-taxi lurches off the tarmac onto a dirt track, bucking and swaying like a small boat fighting against a rough sea, the old Mercedes diesel engine labouring as we plough through sand filled gullies, then cruising along hard-baked rippled clay that threatens to shake every nut and bolt of the old bus loose. An intense blue sky blends into the flat yellow horizon, from which a settlement, mud-brick dwellings camouflaged in the parched semi-desert appears. We thread our way through the village. Our driver squeezes together two bared wires protruding from the almost disassembled dashboard. This I realise sounds the horn that clears goats, chickens, dogs and children from the track. I lose count of the villages we pass in this way, each one named after its founder, but as anonymous to us as the mountains of the moon. I have a privileged position, one of three passengers up-front next to the driver. The other twenty-three passengers are squeezed into a space designed for fifteen. Taking a sip from a bottle of mineral water I then mop my brow with an already sopping handkerchief and think of rainy English winters, especially the one we had just escaped from, where my companion had talked me into helping her look into the possibility of starting a charity. Seemed a good idea at the time – find a village, buy a plot, get a couple of buildings erected, open a home for orphans, rent out rooms to visitors to pay it’s way. Sounds simple when you say it quickly, but knowing Carole, she will find a way.
It is now four hours since we started our journey with Lamin, who had promised to take us to Kerr Goine, the village of his grandfather, who is the head man. It is market day, and we are eager to experience a little of life in the provinces. We arrive in a cloud of dust, and most of the passengers climb out. We are the only white faces, as bewildered as children on the first day of a new school where everyone else talks a different language. Mandinku and Walla predominate, the Senegalese speak some French, And the Gambians some English, but many of the older inhabitants will never have been to school, so converse only in their tribal tongue. Lamin steers us to a corner of the market where we can buy refreshments.
We sit in the shade, Carol, Lamin and me on one rough hewn wooden bench, Nori, Jitte and Lamin’s friend Badou on the other. Lamin and his friend order green tea for themselves and coffee and tuna rolls for us. A lady of advanced years, knees and elbows stiff with arthritis, opens a tin of tuna, and starts to prepare the bread rolls, (which are as good as any found in Paris), while her grandson feeds wood onto an open fire upon which sits an ancient cast-iron bowl of vast proportions half full of water. Our tuna and lettuce rolls are carefully wrapped in pieces of newspaper, and we receive mugs of lukewarm coffee generously topped up with evaporated milk. I wonder about the water, the tin of ‘Nescafe – Africa’s favourite (and only) coffee’ and begin to wish I had ordered green tea. She asks if we have anything for her painful joints, and I explain that we have no cure. She nods; knowingly. Maybe she grows cannabis, just like some suffers back home; or has she noticed the sharks-tooth hanging from the leather thong that stops my hat being blown off, given to me by a Mauritanian chief’s son to ward off arthritis?
The bread rolls are delicious. I finish mine eagerly, and then carefully screw up the newspaper while looking for somewhere to put it. My companion takes it from my hand and throws it on the sand, where it joins a plethora of discarded tins, bottles and plastic wrappers. Maybe they have a communal ‘rubbish-collection’ day each month, like in the city. Suddenly, out of nowhere, three men appear dressed in white T-shirts and army fatigue trousers. They ask to see our passports. Lamin asks are who they are, and they tell him they are police. They could have fooled me. We hand over our passports which are inspected minutely. After each page of each passport has been scrutinised several times, the two Dutch girls Nori and Jitte have theirs returned. Mine and Carole’s are retained, we are British, and do not have entry stamps, so it seems. Lamin is very annoyed, he tells them that we are his guests, that we flew into the country and are resident in a hotel in the city, but this does not help. Apparently they are on the lookout for some Europeans. I hear the words smugglers, guns, and drugs. I fit the bill; I am taken to the police post to be questioned by the chief immigration officer. Carole is not. Women, it seems, are not suspected smugglers, which is what I am obviously taken for. At last this looks like turning into some kind of adventure. Will I be locked up? Interrogated? My thoughts float around images of consulates, investigations and phone calls to my friend Ely in Banjul (who has connections) and a smile creeps across my face that I just cannot dispel.
Standing in front of the chief, in his smart uniform, sitting behind a desk in a dark, windowless brick building, Lamin still protesting my innocence, the three policemen hovering around like cats that have found the cream, I wait as he flicks through our passports. He asks me on which date we arrived, nods, and carefully points out the relevant stamps to the policemen. They take their leave. I thank the immigration chief, shake his hand and say how nice it is to meet such civility, pointing out that on my last trip across Africa I was sometimes obliged to hand over a mobile phone, or a watch, in order to get my passport returned to me. He assured me that his office did none of these things, and as I left, I said to Lamin that perhaps I should go back to get a stamp from this friendly outpost, but he gives me a horrified look and hurriedly leads me back to the others.
Now I feel as if I have some inkling of how it must feel to be a visitor to my own country. A different race, colour, language, ethnicity and culture. The sudden whisking away to be questioned. I have friends. What if I were one of them, in the UK, alone?
It is time to meet Lamin’s grandfather. But first we must buy some provisions from the market. We stroll through the piles of fruit, vegetables, peanuts, some coated in caramelised sugar, like ‘health-food-bars’. What happens to all the unsold fruit and vegetables? I think back to the Christmas present my daughter bought for me and sent to the Sudan, a Zeer Pot, that cools and preserves produce by evaporation, and wonder if they have heard of it? We look at a stall charging batteries, and a dozen other traders as we select the ingredients for the evening meal. Each stall is the same construction. Four posts like misshapen giant’s thumb-sticks made from stout branches, four poles resting in the crooks of these with a covering of palm leaves or old blankets to keep out the sun. A mat spread out to keep the sand from the produce and each stall tended by a woman, with children of all ages helping. What is absent was noise. No bustle, shouting, amplified music, or calls to buy one-get-one-free. In spite of the heat, all the produce looks as fresh as if it has been picked that morning (which it probably has) and the tomatoes I buy are as succulent as any I have tasted, sweet and full of juice with no bitter, plasticky skin, but I wonder where the oranges have come from, the five I purchase are very good, but not like the yellow local ones.
Arriving at the house of Lamin’s Grandfather, it is obvious he is the head man. The compound is large, the main house is cement rendered, with a façade that shows a strange ‘art-deco’ influence. It seems somehow out of place, but still there are few windows, and those have no glass in them, indeed, none of the dwellings have, just bars to keep out animals, and a cloth to keep out insects. One by one we are introduced to the extended family. I lose track of them. Strangely, all the African men seem to treat the three women in our group as “honorary males”. Is it the dress, western feminism, or what? Perhaps they just like shaking hands with the women, something that is not part of their custom.
Finally grandfather comes to greet us. He is a stately man, dressed in traditional clothes, face wrinkled from much exposure to the sun, a look of kindly wisdom in his eyes. I would like talk with him, but he speaks very little English. It appears that he told Lamin that if it wasn’t for us, Lamin would not have visited him; could this have been because Lamin had run away when he was a boy? Anyway, there are no harsh words, and we are treated like guests, albeit unexpected ones?
We sit down on a bed, brought out of one of the huts, and placed in the shade. It is a copy of the familiar sun-lounger, made from metal tubing, covered with an intricately patterned web of re-used plastic tie wrap of various colours. Unclipping my watch, that now seems too tight for my wrist; I put it into my pocket without noting the hour. It shows GMT, which here means Gambian Maybe Time. We all share some more bottled water, and someone says how nice it would be have a gin and tonic. Lamin calls to a boy, and after a short discussion, says that we can put some money in the pot, and the boy will go and buy some for us. Gin and tonic in an Islamic country? Out in the provinces? In a short time the boy is off on a borrowed motorcycle, he looks to be no more than twelve or thirteen, but this is Africa. Twenty minutes or so later he comes back, carrying a case of tonic and a dozen plastic tubes of local gin, looking just like the ice-pops children have from the freezer. We drink the gin and tonic from mugs, without ice or lemon, which is not missed at all, marvelling at the hospitality and ingenuity, while the young boy carefully washes the bike before returning it to its owner.
There is a saying that in Africa seventy per cent of the work is done by men, and thirty per cent by women. It is plain to see what the women do. They tend the fields, harvest the crops, raise the children, (their own and any in need in the village) go to market, do the washing and manage the household. When one asks what the men do, their reply is that they worry about the money, and perform their husbandly duties. We saw a lot of women in the market, but none in the chief’s compound. Doubtless they are indoors ‘resting’. Looking across the way at a building with a mud brick wall, I ask one of the boys, who tells me he is fifteen, where they get the bricks from. He says that a short way from the village is a place where they dig clay, mix it with water, place it in home made wooden moulds and then let it dry in the sun. The same mixture is used for mortar. The result looks good. I ask how long it lasts, and he says that after two years they have to replace it because the rains wash it away. Only by rendering it with cement can it be made to last. It is clear that few of the buildings are occupied be people able to afford this luxury.
As the shadows stretch to cover our legs as well as our heads, we watch as various goats, chickens – some apparently devoid of feathers that I dared not ask the reason why – cats and dogs come and go through the open compound gate. Nori asks one of the boys where the toilet is. He takes her through the main building, and when she returns I ask her what it is like. She leads me through a room that opens into a bedroom, through to a door, not to an en-suite, but into a bare earth garden that could only have grown anything in the rainy season. There in the middle is a small hole in the parched earth, a brick on each side. Difficult if the wind is blowing, I try not to think about cess-pits, wells and cholera. No doubt they have the system sorted, after all they have lived this way for centuries and seem to be in good health, which makes me think; how come there is a new police station but no clinic?
Nori retires to her room to escape the heat, which has given her a headache. Us Europeans are not built for it, and I ask her if there is anything I can do to help. None of us have any paracetamol, so I use the spare handkerchief I keep in my back pocket and pour some water on it, fold it and place it on her brow. Maybe it will help. In the Sahara I used to tip water into my hat and place it on my head, the evaporation certainly helped to cool me down. On a table are two books. One is science, the other maths. I take a peek, Pythagoras, I remember that, and algebra, that used to give me nightmares. On the wall are two enormous spiders. Best not to think about them.
A man arrives, and speaks quietly to Lamin. He is taken inside the main building. The heat is making me feel quite lethargic. We talk about life, Africa, how uncomplicated everything seems here and the wonderful feeling of community and friendliness that envelopes us. The man emerges from the building and walks towards us, smiling. I ought to recognise him, it is the immigration officer. He says something to Lamin and leaves, seemingly in a good mood. Lamin explains. His grandfather is also a fortune teller; the immigration man has just been to have his future told.
We watch as green tea is prepared. The ritual is hypnotic, like watching a juggler; it is complicated and involves pouring tea from one small glass to another many times from a height that demand a good eye and a steady hand. It is also an acquired taste.
The gin and tonics are going down a treat. We tell each other stories, Jitte and I have both seen Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘The Norman Conquests’ which seems to me quite an odd coincidence, and we watch as small children came to peep at us, too shy to come near.
Carole decides to have a shower, takes a bowl to the village well, where she amuses the little girls there, who carry the heavy bowls of water on their heads with never a drop spilt, then goes behind one of the huts where screens give privacy to the task of standing naked, dipping a mug into the bowl, and pouring it over ones head. I am too weary to move, maybe later, if I have the strength.
Two of the boys give up their huts for four of us, but Lamin takes me and Badou to the edge of the village, past the bakery, to see our accommodation. He laughs when I ask him if it is over the border. Eventually we reach a tin roofed mud brick room, beaten earth floor, with a generously sized bed and nails in the wall to hang clothes from. The door, like most of the others in the village, is made from a sheet of corrugated iron. There is no window. Anyway, who needs a window in the dark?
As the air becomes slightly less oppressive, Lamin announces that the meal is ready. Not only is he one of Africa’s best known drummers, he is also a very good cook, judging by the dish we see set out in a large dish on the floor of the hut.
The meal is quite delicious. We all praise Lamin and go outside to sit in the cool for more gin and tonics, and listen to the donkeys braying, watch the comings and goings and enjoy each other’s company. Very soon, darkness descends and a candle is lit. Bats flit between the stars and all my cares evaporate. Time ceases to have meaning. We talk quietly, our thoughts and ideas arise like islands in a dark sea of tranquillity. I breathe deeply of the still, warm, unpolluted night air. Strangely, I feel as if this is where I belong, and my home exists in some other dimension. If this is contentment, I will savour it, for like the smile of a child, it will soon be gone.
As one, we rise and say our good-nights. Badou leads me to our hut, taking my arm as I stumble along the uneven path. With a creak, he opens a door in the wall of the compound, and we cross to the place where we will spend the night. As he opens the door, hot air engulfs us. Inside, on the floor, is a candle. For a moment I wonder how it could have generated so much heat. Obviously, it is not the candle but the corrugated iron roof that has heated the room like a sauna. I sit on the end of the bed next to the wall, take off my shoes, and put my socks inside them, (just in case there are scorpions) my mobile phone in the left shoe and my spectacles in the right. Badou blows out the candle, and we lay down to sleep.
This is going to be difficult. I ask him what the noise is, a ‘cheep-cheep’ sound that seems to be coming from the roof. He cannot find the word, and after some describing I realise that we have crickets in the roof. A donkey brays, and then I’m awoken by the sound of snoring, my ankles itch like mad from mozzie bites. I poke Badou in the ribs. He turns over and the snoring stops. Again I’m awoken, he tells me I am snoring, I turn over to face the wall, rubbing my ankles together, trying to relieve the itching. The sound of African drums brings me to consciousness again. I wonder if it is morning, look at my watch and realise it is two-thirty. The sound comes from the bakery next door, it must be a cassette player. Drifting back to a semi-sleep I am grateful that in Africa I do not have nightmares. The alarm on my mobile phone sounds. Six-fifteen. Could it be only twenty-four hours since we left the clean sheets and mosquito nets of the hotel. I try to get back to sleep, but fail. All too soon a familiar and strangely haunting cry breaks into my thoughts, to remind me of my absence of faith.
The call to prayers. Badou gets up and lights the candle. He cries out and points to the floor. There is something that looks for all the world like a sleeping dog. It does not breathe. He takes the candle closer, and we examine the strange thing. It seems to be made from Earth. It is right at the spot where I stood to hang up my hat. Beside my shoes is another one against the wall. Where could they have come from? We look closer. Nothing moves. The only explanation is termites. Once something has a name, it is not so threatening, even if it not correct. We go outside. There is a kettle full of water, which Badou proceeds to wash himself with. He offers the kettle to me, and I do the same, but he has to show me how to wash my feet without getting sand on them.
As Badou kneels to say his morning prayers, the sound of the bush taxi horn cuts through the still air. I put on my shirt, socks and shoes, and we make our way through the sleeping village to the bush taxi. It has been waiting for a long time. Already it looks full. We climb on board. Someone asks where the Dutch girls are. It seems that they were not told that the bus left at break of day. Lamin goes to wake them. Everyone waits in silence. Soon they arrive, clamber aboard, somehow squeezing into a seat, one on the lap of the other. The headlights come on and we start. How late I don’t know. Does anybody complain? No. And what will happen to the termite hills? I leave with some sadness, and with more unanswered questions than I came with. After all, this is Africa.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
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