Trip to Georgetown
Last Thursday a small group of us were at the Fishbowl just talking and having a good time. Jessamy was going back upcountry the next day and wanted to know if Ariane would like to come along. Ariane wanted to stay one more day, but also didn't want to go upcountry by herself. Before I knew what I was getting myself into I said:
"I'll go."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sure. Why not?"
"When do you have to be back?"
"The latest? I have a class on Tuesday at noon."
"You REALLY want travel to Georgetown, stay one day, and head back the next day by yourself?"
"Sure." I said with a shrug.
A general consensus was reached within the room: "Are you crazy?" I've heard that transportation was a problem and that the trip would take roughly twelve hours each way. Most upcountry volunteers, after making that trip to come up to Kombo, usually stay a week (or more) before heading back. I was planning on staying just one full day.
"Give me a time," I said in full seriousness.
Laughing, but believing I was serious, she responded: "Saturday. Five AM."
"OK"
On Saturday morning at five AM I'm up and Ariane is nowhere to be seen. Figuring she probably decided to go back later in the weekend, I went back to bed. At 6:45 a knocking on the door woke me up. "We're leaving." She spent the last night in Kombo watching movies, something she didn't know when the next chance to do would arrive. We got everything packed and headed out the door. The night before I finished reading "Atlas Shrugged" (finally!) and brought a new book along for the ride, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I had no idea how appropriate it would be later on. We walked down Pipeline and finally saw a taxi, which we rented to go to the Bundum car park near Serekunda for D50. I thought Bundum was the same car park I was at a month ago when we went to Kartung but this one was on the outskirts of Serekunda and very few vehicles were there at this time in the morning. But the taxi driver assured us this was correct.
The plan to get back to Georgetown was going to be in stages: from Serekunda to Soma, and then from Soma hopefully we would get a ride Janjangbureh (Georgetown). We found a van going to Soma and the aparante wanted us to pay D20 each for our bags, which instead of being on top of the van at charge we were going to have just sit on our lap for free. Ariane handled this one, in Gambian English.
"No pay. Bag on lap. See," as she faked sitting down in mid-air with bag on her lap.
"No. D20 for bag."
"No pay."
We get inside the van and got front row seats! (These usually have the best legroom, other then the main passenger seat.) The aparante tried one more time.
"Ok. No D20 for bag. I'll give you D10," as if this was bargaining deal of some sort.
"No pay! Bag on lap!"
Finally he gave up trying to scam us out of a total of D20 and just got in and we headed out. The trip to Soma was going to be a few hours. We left at around eight and would be lucky if we arrived before one. It's not that it's far; it's just that the roads are that terrible. During the trip whenever the van had to stop for a police stop or some other mundane thing the aparante would run to the front seat, open up the driver's seat, and, taking a jug of water out, open the hood and refill the radiator. They run these vehicles into the ground until they can't go any more, and even a small leak in the radiator doesn't faze them. It's cheaper to just refill with water at every possible stop then to fix the radiator.
That canteen of water also has another purpose that we found out a little later. The guy next to us said something to the driver and the car pulled over. The driver pushed his seat up so the passenger could get out the driver side door and gave him an empty bottle that used to be filled with water. The passenger took the canteen, poured some water into the bottle and went out into the bush. He had to go to the bathroom and we had to wait for him. No toilet paper, remember?
We arrived at Soma without any incident, arriving a half-hour past noon.
Getting out of the van we tried to find something to eat. The usual road-side stands of bean-sandwiches, bread, and other assortments were up.
One guy opened up his bowl to show some meat and offered me a piece. I liked it and decided to get a sandwich of it while Ariane went to get a different sandwich somewhere else. We both met up a little bit later eating our half-sandwiches. I knew I paid too much for it, so I asked:
"How much did you pay for your sandwich?"
"Too much, got ripped off."
"I paid twenty for mine."
"I paid seven."
"DOH!"
While walking around, eating our sandwiches, and we found a van going to Brikama Ba. This is located most of the way towards Georgetown and just meant one more stop on the way, but it was the best we could do. As we were waiting in the car to fill up and leave we saw Alicia in the car park. We were yelling "Alicia! Alicia!" but she couldn't hear us. Some of the other passengers realized we were trying to get her attention and one stuck his head out the back door and yelled "toubob!" She turned her head and finally saw us waving through the windows. She came up to the back of the van and we talked for a bit, before she headed out to find a van going in her direction.
While waiting for our van to leave Ariane realized the two men she was sitting next to were from Senegal. She doesn't speak Wollof or French, they don't speak English, Mandinka nor Fula, and I barely speak Wollof. We got the point across that we just came back from Senegal last week and that they were heading there right now. We thought that was odd and could have sworn this van was heading to the town of Brikama Ba and not the country of Senegal. We stayed in the van nonetheless.
At one point through the multiple-hour trip we reached a police stop, one of many, but something caught the cop's attention. He ordered everyone out and checked everyone's IDs. Other then the driver and the aparante, the two of us were the only non-Senegalese people in the van. Senegalese IDs were just papers with no photo, and I'm not sure how identity can be established that way. We just took out our Peace Corps IDs and he barely acknowledged it before moving on to the next person. They were, in fact, heading to Senegal, stopping at Brikama Ba first to drop us off as they said they would.
Everyone was allowed back into the van and we continued on the journey. A few hours later we arrived in Brikama Ba. It was Lumo Day! In a town whenever it's lumo day it's a good day. Lumo means 'market' and each semi-big village has a specific day when their market is. For example, Brikama Ba's is Saturday while another town might have it on Wednesday, etc.
There are two good things about lumos: first, things are available upcountry that aren't on other days; second, they are excellent for making transport connections. There were many vans going into Brikama Ba bringing customers in and vans going out taking customers back to where they came from. Imagine New York's Grand Central Station, a vast transportation hub, changing locations throughout the US everyday. If you wish to get from upcountry to Kombo, or vice versa, you first figure out which day you want to leave and then which village has a lumo that day. Your best bet for transportation is to leave from the lumo.
At Brikama Ba we asked around the car park trying to find a van going to "McCatty Island". The real name is "MacCarthy Island" but no one would recognize it if you called it such, they all know it as "McCatty Island." Sitting in the back of the van, with the aparantes, we saw Sarah Grimm! Heading in the same direction we were going she got inside and asked the guy sitting across from us if she could sit there. I'm paraphrasing the Wollof but I suspect it went something like this
Sarah: "[Wollof] Is anyone sitting here?"
Gambian: "[Wollof] No."
Sarah: "[Wollof] Can I sit, then?"
Gambian: "[Wollof] Yes. [English] You speak Wollof?"
Sarah: "[English] No. I'm speaking French!"
Conversations about the obvious are quite common in The Gambia. During training we get comments like "You are eating?" "yes. I am eating." "You are reading?" "yes. I am reading." Or, my personal favorite: "You were sleeping?" "yes. I WAS sleeping!" While waiting for the van to leave Sarah was talking to Ariane for a few minutes before she finally recognized it's me behind the hat. A double take later she announced "Mike! You're going upcountry?" "yes. I'm going upcountry."
Throughout the hour or so ride from Brikama Ba to the Georgetown junction we talked about how I was going to get back on Monday by myself and by which way, and using what stops. Half of the towns or villages I never heard of before, let alone know where they are on the map in reference to where I was going! Finally Sarah realized that I'm leaving on Monday, lumo day for Wassu on the North Bank. It was settled in a minute. Monday morning I would take the ferry to the North Bank, get a van to Wassu (there should be plenty going there, lumo day) and from Wassu I might be able to get one going all the way to Barra (on the opposite side of the river from Banjul), or if not to Farafenni as a connection point. Farafenni is halfway upcountry on the North Bank and is the second or third biggest town in The Gambia. If worse comes to worst Louis lives there and so I could crash at his place for the night if I couldn't find transport. This also had a nice aesthetic feel to it as I would be literally going around the country: out on the South Bank and returning on the North Bank. The farthest from Kombo would be Fatoto, but Georgetown is at least 2/3 of the way upcountry.
Ariane and I paid the aparante our fee and no one else paid. Sarah had to explain to me that we were the only ones going to the Island and so we had to pay first; everyone else would pay after they dropped us off and picked up more people coming from the Island.
An hour later we arrived at the ferry terminal. We said good-bye to Sarah and waited for the ferry. The river is narrow enough that one could wave to a person on the island and be clearly visible. The ferry is a small boat that could maybe hold three cars. Ariane pointed out a rope that crossed the river and went through the ferry.
"Do you know what the rope is for?" she asked.
I thought for a bit, getting my mindset into Gambian thinking, and said,
"So they can pull themselves across if the engine died?"
"Yep! It's one Dalasi to cross if the motor is working and free if it's not."
"Free?"
"The men stand on the side of the rope while the women stand on the other side. The men pull the ferry across using the rope. For their efforts, it's free."
We joined the group already waiting for the ferry and waited for a car to arrive. The ferry doesn't usually cross until a car is on and so everyone must wait. Finally a car showed up and we got on the ferry, the men on one side and the women on the other - for that just-in-case free ride. Honestly, I doubt they were really looking forward to the possibility of getting a refund of one Dalasi, it's just no one wants to be stuck in the middle of the river so they were being prepared for the inevitable. The engine didn't die and we crossed without a hitch.
Walking to her house she started informing me who was in her host family.
It consists of a host father, two host mothers, and eleven children.
"Name them."
"All eleven?"
"Yep."
"Queenie, Ebrima, ." she named them all in thirty seconds, in ascending age order. I was impressed. I thought that would get her, but I guess after eight months living in the same compound you get to know everyone. The two mentioned above were the two significant ones during my stay. Queenie was a four-year old girl who loved hanging around Ariane's house and Ebrima was her host-brother who also was a teacher and spoke English quite well. Ebrima was the son of the father and the first wife; the second wife was roughly his age. The father was 43 and the second wife around 20 or so, younger than either Ariane or I.
We arrived in the compound after a quick 10-15 minute walk from the ferry terminal. As you walk through the corrugated tin door into the compound you see three buildings. One is the kitchen in the back of the compound and the other two are living quarters, on the left and on the right. Ebrima lived in the first room on the right, a wife lives in the second room, and I don't remember if there was a third. On the left hand side was Ariane's room, then the main room of the husband and wife of choice. They greeted us as we walked in and she explained who I was and that I would be leaving on Monday.
Her house is broken into two rooms: one a living room / kitchen / storage room (for the bike etc.) and the back room was her bedroom. In the back was the latrine and on the side of the house was a hammock she set up earlier.
Before she moved in the latrine collapsed and so they had to rebuild it, and moved it a few feet over. You can still see the cracks in the cement of the old location and coincidentally that is where you take a bucket bath now. My fear before coming into Peace Corps was falling into a latrine and now I had to take a bucket bath on top of a cracked cement filling of a caved-in latrine. Nice.
She went to get two buckets of water, one for the bucket baths and another for the water filter. An interesting aspect of the water filter is that we have better filters then some Americans working in Senegal. During WAIST we found out that they can't drink the water in Dakar and the Embassy staff have these full-sized metal Starbucks look-alike water filters with lights and switches, all directly connected to the main water pipe. The other Americans, working at the high schools and such, just have two plastic buckets rigged together and a bottle of bleach next to it. In Banjul we drink the tap water all the time and began questioning why is it that in the most advanced European-type city in West Africa you can't drink the tap water, but in the poor 3rd world country inside of it you can. The reason is that the British, years back, installed a water purification system in Banjul. Peace Corps has done tests to see how clean it is to drink and it's perfectly safe; the only thing that fluctuates is the chlorine level - but all within limits. As such, in Dakar we drank bottled water and in Banjul we can drink tap water. In the village we're back to well water with a water filter.
The whole trip took roughly twelve hours, as we arrived a shortly after seven at night. Dinner usually isn't served until around eight or nine and so we had to wait around for a few more hours in order to eat. Most volunteers don't eat much when they travel, especially across country, since it's a hundred times harder here to find a place to go to the bathroom then just driving up to a McDonald's in the States. Most host parents know that and so when the volunteer comes back from Kombo (or some other site) their dinner is significantly larger. Ariane's host-mother (one of them) came in and brought a big bowl of rice. We took the lid off and just had to take a picture of it. Imagine a nice full serving size of rice, then add a little more for the travel; then double it for the other person eating; then add a little more for just-in-case. It was huge! The amount of rice just the two of us received would be enough for about five people to eat. It could have been a whole meal for a small family in a village. We ate what we could and gave the rest back to the family, who finished it off for us. Being exhausted, we both went to bed right afterwards.
The next morning I forgot about those roosters. They didn't forget about us and promptly woke me up at the crack of dawn. For Sunday breakfast they served us rice porridge. Wondering what to do for the day we just decided to walk around Georgetown and get the five-butut tour. Each compound on the island had either a mud-brick fence or corrugated metal to surround their houses. The streets were dirt and chickens were walking in the gutters on the side of the road. The gutters are for the rainy season so most of the water runs off the road. Maybe they can take out a few roosters along the way.
As we crossed one street, turned left, turned right, I felt like the map of the streets in the island was a maze. Some led to dead-ends while others turned a 90-degree and then split, with one maybe leading to a dead-end where a compound was. We approached Vickie's compound but she still was asleep so we went to Armitage School where Ariane's working. Armitage is a boarding school, in fact the only one in The Gambia. The students live on campus and the school provides housing and has a cafeteria. The dorm rooms I did see reminded me of something you see in the Army: bunk beds along the wall going across the room with one small dresser between them. Each dorm room had about twenty students living in them. The common necessities of college students of TV's, Microwaves, Refrigerators, stereos and the like were non-existent. I saw beds, desks, papers, pens, and books. In fact, the twelfth graders were preparing for their WAEC exam (West African Examination Council.) They must pass the exam to graduate. There are nine subjects; they pass a subject if they get at least 40% in it, and to be eligible for the University they must get at least a C on five of them. As we passed the classrooms, I saw a class in session with no teacher.
"Classes on Sunday?"
"No. They're doing it on their own."
"Why?"
"To study for the exam."
In the U.S. most students wouldn't study for an exam that far ahead of time, let alone on a Sunday. They might start studying a few weeks or a month ahead of time but most likely not on the weekends. These students were quite serious in their efforts.
We stopped to talk to the headmaster for a few minutes. It turns out that both the registrar for the University and one of my co-workers (both of whom happen to have the same name) are alumni of Armitage. The headmaster was quite proud of that fact.
Near the cafeteria were ladies selling bean-sandwiches. The cafeteria I suspect is not open on the weekends and so the ladies from Georgetown take advantage of the situation. We bought two sandwiches that were wrapped up in old homework assignments. Whenever you buy bread or sandwiches from the bidick or these ladies they always wrap it in whatever paper they can find.
Sometimes you get newspaper clippings written in German or French, other times some spreadsheet of Dalasi amounts, or in this case last year's 9th grade mathematics midterm. I got the top half of the midterm with my sandwich and Ariane got the bottom half. Looking at the exams itself you began to wonder how anyone could pass these exams, let alone the main one in 12th grade. The questions were badly written and in most cases ambiguous. One question in particular just had one equation with two variables and just said "Solve." Solve for what? Solve for x in terms of y, or y in terms of x? You need one more equation to solve for both! In another question the correct answer wasn't even listed as one of the choices! I finished my sandwich and asked her what to do with the exam I was now holding. Her response was the usual: "Just throw it on the ground." I took one more look at the exam and said, "my pleasure," before crumbling it up and letting it fall to the ground.
We went back to Vickie's house and she was finally up. She and Jordan arrived in Georgetown the day before we arrived and Jordan was heading back today. They were quite surprised to see me, as rarely do people from Kombo go up country. It also has a shocking affect when you just show up on their doorstep without notice. We sat around talking, listening to music, finished their breakfast for them (yes, our third breakfast for the day) and then went back to Ariane's to relax before lunch came.
Around two o'clock her host mother showed up with lunch. As we opened up the lid we saw rice with sauce, and a fully cooked fish on top with its eyes looking right at us. Ariane looked at the fish and announced: "I'm usually pretty good. I can eat the fish all the way up to the head. Seeing the head doesn't faze me anymore."
"Have you tried the eyes yet?"
"No. Haven't worked up the courage. I'm slowly getting there."
Without thinking I took the tip of the spoon, plucked out the eye and ate it. As I'm chewing it, she's still holding on to her spoon in mid-air in disbelief. I'd never had eyes before but figured I might as well. A few months ago Kelly and I had a conversation that a Peace Corps volunteer on "Fear Factor" would win the eating contest outright. The host, bringing out some body part to gross the contestants out, would be shocked if the contestant said: "Ah! Fish eyes! I had that in my lunch bowl everyday in the Peace Corps!" and promptly win the contest. So far I've now added to my list: brain, intestines, liver and now fish-eyes.
"How does it taste?"
I finished the last few bites and thought of the best word to say:
"Crunchy."
"Man! Now I have to do it! Tomorrow for lunch now I have to eat the eyes since you just did it like that! Except I won't have a witness, " then she remembered fish have two eyes, "there's another eye! Here, help me flip the fish around."
We flipped the fish around and she hesitantly plucked the eye out, and teeth still clamped shut, brought it up to her mouth and quickly ate it.
Eyes closed, she agreeably announced: "Crunchy." After it was completed she proudly proclaimed:
"There I ate it! I ate the eye! You saw it! I have a witness!"
"Sorry, I had my eyes shut."
After lunch we went back to Armitage to see Charles. He's another Peace Corps volunteer working on the island. He lives in the teachers' quarters on campus of the school. His house is quite unusual set-up. As you walk inside you find yourself in a living room with only two other doors. One is to the bedroom and the other to an open-air hallway leading outside. As you walk into the hallway there's three other doors - the kitchen, the shower room, and a storage room. When I asked if I could use his bathroom he showed me where it was. You have to walk all the way down the hallway (it's quite short in reality, maybe ten feet) and then walk outside and turn right.
There's the toilet-room, completely inaccessible except by walking outside. The odd thing was not that it was outside, as all pit latrines are, but that it's a well-off house that still makes you walk outside.
Every month, two volunteers go on mailrun to deliver everyone's packages and the rest of their mail. This usually takes around five days, delivering mail to over eighty volunteers, and the schedule is quite known. Upcountry volunteers not only know what weekend to expect their mail each month, but within what span of a few hours the van will arrive. As Ariane and Vickie weren't in town when mailrun arrived, they left their mail and packages in Charles' house. We picked up her mail and walked it back to her house, with her doing it Gambian-style, carrying a box on her head.
Back in the hut, the electricity was still off. The electricity had been off for a few weeks now and usually doesn't become a problem until after dusk. As I looked at the light-bulb hanging in the ceiling I thought of an idea for the hot season. During the day you don't need the light, as sunlight would work, and during night-time you also don't need the light - except for the dawn and dusk period. What you do want, most likely, is a fan. You could probably rig up a ceiling fan so that it screws in like a light bulb. The only question being: would it unscrew itself? If I could find a cheap ceiling fan in Kombo it would be a nice experiment to try out.
While we were relaxing she brought out a three-string marionette that she received as a Christmas present. At that moment, her four-year old host-sister, Queenie, walked in and her eyes bug up. The three of us played with the marionette, while listening to unconventional Christmas music, all to the delight of this four-year old. Afterwards we played a card game with Queenie acting as our hands. We would point to the draw pile and she would pick up a card for us, and occasionally flip it over before handing it to us, showing the opponent the face. After a few plays she got the hang of it and we no longer needed to point to which pile to draw or discard, except she still kept accidentally showing the cards she picked up, to the amusement of the other player.
I had to head back to Kombo the next day, a full day of traveling, and so after reading some more of my book I went to bed relatively early, around nine. While sleeping, and quite contently, I might add, I awoke to a Gambian running around the village screaming "EEEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEE!" while banging on a metal pot. I thought that was quite odd and could hear the Doppler effect of his voice as he ran down the street but honestly didn't think anything of it and went back to bed. I figured he was running around the island because about an hour later he came back just as loudly, still screaming and still banging on that pot of his. I went back to bed again a little more confused. A third and final round of the Screaming Gambian had me thinking the whole village must be going mad to put up with some random guy running around in the middle of the night banging on metal pots, waking up everyone within ear-shot.
The next morning, I wasn't sure if I had dreamed the whole thing or the bizarre occurrence actually happened.
"Ariane, was there some Gambian running around in the middle of the night screaming and banging on a metal pot, or was I just dreaming that?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you about that."
[.Thanks.] "What was it?"
"Yesterday two kids got circumcised."
"OK." as if that explained everything perfectly.
"They think the witches are going to eat the kids, so they have some guy run around the town at night screaming and banging on the pots to scare the witches away so they won't eat the kids."
She later explained that no one wants to be outside during his screaming, even to stop him after a while, since they might be accused of being the kid-eating witch. When her host-brother got circumcised the father believed a witch was hiding in the tree outside the compound and so the guy stayed by the tree all night long screaming and banging that pot to scare her away.
Relieved that it was only one night worth I said: "Well, at least you only had one night of sleeplessness."
"Oh no, it goes on for about three weeks," she said despairingly.
I couldn't help myself but laugh and say, "Have fun!"
Having reached the north bank ferry and catching the eight o'clock ferry, my solo travel home begun. In this part of the country Mandinka and Fulla are spoken the most often. Having only known the greetings I tried to determine which way a van would be going by asking the name of the potential destination and see if they would agree. It's like being in Michigan and saying "Detroit?" and they respond "Chicago." with one word communications, you know where you stand.
The first van pulled up and a crowd started getting on. I went up to the
Aparante:
"Wassu?"
"Fesna."
So I sat back down and continued reading until the next van came along.
About ten minutes later the next van showed up, "Wassu?" "Fesna." Again I waited.
Within an hour the end of the ferry terminal was becoming packed with people. Around eight in the morning, when I arrived, it was only around ten or fifteen people, but now it was like thirty or more. People were getting desperate to get to this Fesna place. What I saw was not atypical, just more extreme than usual.
As vans came down the road people ran head on to catch up to them and grab hold before the van stopped. The people getting on the van didn't leave any time for the people in the van to get out before trying to get in themselves. This situation happens everywhere in the country from the far banks of Georgetown to downtown Banjul. The idea of waiting for the people to get out of the car before you get in is non-existent. One must push, shove, and fight not only the people coming out blocking your way getting in, but also the other people trying to beat you to your potential seat. For the most part, I refused to do that and usually waited longer than usual. At least in Kombo you have the option of renting a taxi for D4 or even a private taxi just for yourself for D25. Good luck trying to find a private taxi in the middle of the country. (Although, everything does have its price apparently. For Thanksgiving a group of volunteers rented out an entire van to drive them directly to Banjul as not to fight the crowd also going to Banjul for Koriteh).
One van in particular demonstrated to me how desperate people are for transportation. I believe that sentence is not entirely correct; it should be how desperate the country is for more transportation. A van pulled up and people started to run towards it. Three people were the first to reach the van and ran behind it to the ladder that led to the roof. They grabbed on to the ladder and were about to open the door while the van was still moving, in order to start getting in the vehicle. As the van turned to park, the forces of the ladder were too much and it snapped sending all three men to the ground while knocking two others down with them. This didn't faze the other people, women and children included, from opening the door and trying to get in. As with some vans the door on the side that slides open is welded shut. Most of these vans are used so much that the doors just fall off the tracks and are held on by string alone at times. For simplicity sake, some drivers just weld the door shut and use the back door. This was the case for this van. No one could get out because you had people trying to all get in one door. They were climbing over the people who fell from the ladder and even pushing people out that were trying to get out.
One guy who got pushed out had enough. He threw his bag to the ground and went to the side of the door. For ten long seconds he opened the back door as far as he could and slammed it against the bodies. Continuously he opened, closed, opened, and closed the door, to the point where even the mayhem of people trying to get on stopped their commotion and shrieked in terror. A few heads were bumped from the wild door; children were screaming because they got knocked down, and an arm was caught on the final swing shut he made before the passengers stopped him. People were still trying to get out of the van, but couldn't because the side door was welded shut and the back door was in the control of a man who got pushed too far. Finally things settled down to the point where it was just the usual commotion of getting on. I didn't get on because they told me "Fesna."
After that incident one guy offered me a ride to Wassu on the back of his motorcycle for the price of four liters of fuel, which he told me, was about D100. While very tempting, as I never been on a motorcycle before, let alone on one in West Africa, it wasn't worth being Administratively Separated from the Peace Corps for a joyful hour.
For two hours I waited for "Wassu" but no van to Wassu came. All vans were going to Fesna. Not knowing even if Fesna was in the right direction I just figured to just go there since everyone else seemed to be going there and it couldn't be all that bad. The next car, based on past experiences, was probably going to Fesna, so I figured to just get in before I knew where was going. Around ten o'clock I saw a van coming down the road and I ran after it before any Gambian thought of running. What followed next was nowhere near the mayhem of the previous experience, but worth noting nonetheless. I was the first one to reach the van, right when it stopped, and tried to be nice and let a few people out before attempting to get in.
Bad mistake. One person squirmed between myself and a woman coming in and other people starting to follow. I missed my chance so I just went for it. I got knocked down, had my head on the seat, my right arm holding myself up from the floor, my left arm reaching back holding on to my bag, my right foot on the rear bumper and my left foot on some guy's shoulder. He tried getting in when I was and tried to go under me, but when I got knocked down he decided to stand up and fight his way through. My left foot was caught on his shoulder as he stood up and was now between his shoulder and the top of the doorway. Throughout this whole commotion the person next to my head said to me "Here, sit here." My head being in the spot he wanted me sit, I replied back "I'm trying." By now my foot was completely caught between shoulders, doors, heads, and other bags. Had no choice but to kick my foot free, hitting a few bags and shoulders along the way.
By the time we all sat down and the van was going, it was as if the whole incident never happened. The people I had to kick to get my foot free were sitting next to me asking how I liked the bumpy-road ("It's smoother then south bank!"). Normal conversations happened and I realized that the whole ordeal it was quite normal for them. Consider a boxing match: they might fight each other in the ring in order to win the match, but in the end of the day the loser acknowledges the winner and just waits for the next round to show him that he could win just as easily. For every van that pulls up it's a contest: who will win, who will lose. The winners get a seat, the losers get to wait. If you lose in one match there's another van coming in a while in which you have another chance. The amount of time you have to wait to get a seat is inversely proportional to how aggressive you are to get that seat. Welcome to third-world public transportation.
About an hour later we arrived in some town and I heard "Wassu." The guy that I was sitting next to spoke English and I asked if this was Wassu. I managed to get out before the van started moving again. I was now in Wassu, on Lumo day and there were vans parked everywhere. I had a choice of either finding one going directly to Barra or to Farafenni. Usually if you look lost, a few aparantes ask you, "Where are you going?" hoping that you either can go with them, or that they might get a small finder fee from the other driver. One such person came up to me and asked me that same question. I replied "Barra" and he showed me to a van that was going to Farafenni as a stop and then heading on to Barra, each half costing D50. Perfect.
Having only the back door working (the side door again welded shut) I was yet again one of the last people on. I sat next to two of the aparantes. One was in charge of money collection while the other had to refill the radiator at every available stop. Even while the van was moving, these 12-year olds would climb over the van, out the back door, on top of the ladder, on the roof, and even in one instance along the side of the car for half-its-length for some unknown reason. Whenever someone wanted to get out, one of them would bang on the back door twice so the driver could hear and stop the car.
One time they were both on the roof and something flew off. They banged on the roof twice stopping the car and one climbed down and ran to get the bag. As he was almost to the van, the kid on the roof would bang twice to tell the driver to go and the other aparante would have to jump to get on. During most of the trip, however, they were inside the van.
Around four hours later we passed Kauur. As we passed the village and were on the outskirts of nowhere, screams erupted from the front of the van. The van held roughly twenty people with six being in the back facing each other, the rest facing forward. I was in the back facing the two aparantes. The first two rows of people jumped from their seats and those who were closest to the windows jumped out while those in the middle tried to run to the back. The driver yelled to the aparantes who had already opened the door and were running to the front of the van. I was the third person out the back after the two aparantes. Men, women, and crying children followed. Within ten seconds the entire van was evacuated, with the sole exception of some old woman who I suspect been through worse and decided to save her energy and stay. I ran to the front of the van to see four people throwing sand into the engine. I never saw what caused the scream, as when I turned my head people were already getting ready to jump out of the windows, but I suspected the engine was on fire.
Everyone sat on the side of the road waiting for the driver and aparantes to fix their vehicle. If you look down the road not a single trail of dust in the air can be seen. I sat down and continued reading "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." About fifteen minutes later, the driver told the men passengers to help push the car to get it started. I put my book down and leaving my stuff on the side of the road, helped them push the van. The women and children walked along the pushed van. After about half-a-block the van started and everyone got back in. I realized I left my bag a half-block back and ran to get it. As I ran back, the van moved forward along the road. After I grabbed my bag and ran to catch up the moving van, I was about two feet away when the aparante hit the back door twice. I knew what that meant. I wasn't even on yet! My left arm reached for the ladder and I pushed myself up to get my feet on the bumpers while the aparante grabbed my right arm and helped me in. He smiled as I sat down and we continued on our way.
Not more than ten minutes later, the car came to a shrieking halt as the front-passenger tire exploded. Everyone got out, yet again, and waited for the driver and aparantes to replace the tire. Having it replaced we got back in again. Throughout both events of getting out of the van everyone's seats remained the same. It was almost as if we were assigned those seats for the entire journey and were required sit in them. Even the guys who jumped out of the windows sat back down in the front seats, next to the same windows they went through not an hour ago.
We finally reached Farafenni. Two girls held bags of well water through the window and before the entire transaction finished of buying one bag for fifty bututs, the entire van emptied. I sat there with my newly bought bag of water looking at the empty van amazed at how fast people left this death-trap. I got out also. It was now two in the afternoon and I've been in transport for six hours and only halfway home. I tried getting in other vans going to Barra but they were all full. One lady sitting in the front told me "You're going to sleep here!" Not that discouraging but not what you want to hear; especially at two in the afternoon. A few bumsters came up trying to tell me there are no more vans going to Barra for the rest of the day but they have a car [insert: laugh!] and can drive me to Barra for a price. I told them no, knowing more vans will show up and besides I already fell for that trap once in September and that's all I needed.
I sat and waited. A bumster told me, "Transport is hard," as if I didn't know.
"Yes. I know."
Before he could try to finish his next sentence, not only does a van pull up but a huge bus. The waited crowd burst into a happy cheer before realizing the time they cheered took away from the time they could have used to get a seat. So, they started to run after the vans. I ran. I'm trying to get into the back of the bus when an aparante told me to come to the front. I followed and he took my bag and threw it in the window on some seat. I tried to get in the front door, while simultaneously keeping an eye on my bag and also getting out of the way of people getting out. He told me not to worry - my bag reserved my seat. I doubted it. I thought it was a scam and by the time I reached my seat my bag wouldn't be there. Surprisely, by the time I reached my seat not only was my bag still there but it was in fact reserved as no one was sitting there or close by. Three rows back of seats were already taken by the time I sat down. The bumpster asked for ten dalasi from the window. I figured ten dalasi to get a seat on a four-hour D50 ride to Barra, sure. I gave him D10 and paid the driver his D50 and after everyone else was paid we left.
Throughout the day the heat is getting so bad in the bus that they were passing a cooler of water around with each of us taking a few gulps of the water. Throughout the four hours the heat was dropping since the sun was setting, but it was still hot in the bus. Finally reaching Barra at a quarter before seven, I ran to get a ticket before they could even get their luggage off the roof of the van. I made the line just in time before fifty people stood behind me. I paid the D5 ticket price, bought another bag of well-water for 50 bututs, and boarded on the seven o'clock ferry.
Standing on top of the ferry I saw whole bunch of French tourists. I must have been the dirtiest toubob on the ferry. My face, clothes, and bag were all monotone in a light brown color of dust. I stood up against the rail at the top of the ferry and as we were going across the river I read a few more pages of my book.
Then it dawned on me: I wonder who has a crazier day, McMurphy and The Chief in the asylum or the average Peace Corps Volunteer?
After I crossed to Banjul I didn't want to take public transportation anymore and would just pay a private taxi to take me home. I live a block away from the most popular casino in The Gambia. Officially called "Jackpot Palace" it's better known as "Seven and Sevens." Now when you think of casinos, don't think anything to the order of magnitude of Las Vegas. Think of some Nevada slot machine building out near the border of the state and you might have a picture of the best casino in The Gambia, the rest being worst. I just had to tell the driver I wanted to go to "Seven and Sevens," and he'd know exactly where it was. We agreed on a price of D125.
Riding down the coast of the island of Banjul he said he needed to buy "foil." To the Gambians, fuel is pronounced "foil." I agreed and he went more into the outskirts of the city near the old docks of abandoned boats and into neighbourhoods of fire burning in old tin trash-cans. He told me not to worry it's just the black-market. Figuring what else could go wrong today, I told him OK and he went further into the underworld of the black-market to get his fuel.
His contact wasn't there. On the way back to Banjul and continuing on our way to Seven's he explained:
"Black-Market fuel cheaper. Gas Station wanted D150 for 10 Liters. I get 10
Liters for D125 and they even give me two more for free, 12 liters for
D125."
The next day I figured out how much that would be in American prices. Using
D30/$1 it turns out that gas is $1.89/Gallon on the normal market and only $1.31/Gallon on the black-market.
I asked him a few minutes later: "Is 'Fesna' Mandinka or Fulla?"
"Fesna?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Fees Na! It is Wollof."
I was more surprised that the aparante in Georgetown was speaking Wollof then the fact I didn't know it was Wollof.
"What does it mean?"
"It is full."
-MIke
"I'll go."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sure. Why not?"
"When do you have to be back?"
"The latest? I have a class on Tuesday at noon."
"You REALLY want travel to Georgetown, stay one day, and head back the next day by yourself?"
"Sure." I said with a shrug.
A general consensus was reached within the room: "Are you crazy?" I've heard that transportation was a problem and that the trip would take roughly twelve hours each way. Most upcountry volunteers, after making that trip to come up to Kombo, usually stay a week (or more) before heading back. I was planning on staying just one full day.
"Give me a time," I said in full seriousness.
Laughing, but believing I was serious, she responded: "Saturday. Five AM."
"OK"
On Saturday morning at five AM I'm up and Ariane is nowhere to be seen. Figuring she probably decided to go back later in the weekend, I went back to bed. At 6:45 a knocking on the door woke me up. "We're leaving." She spent the last night in Kombo watching movies, something she didn't know when the next chance to do would arrive. We got everything packed and headed out the door. The night before I finished reading "Atlas Shrugged" (finally!) and brought a new book along for the ride, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I had no idea how appropriate it would be later on. We walked down Pipeline and finally saw a taxi, which we rented to go to the Bundum car park near Serekunda for D50. I thought Bundum was the same car park I was at a month ago when we went to Kartung but this one was on the outskirts of Serekunda and very few vehicles were there at this time in the morning. But the taxi driver assured us this was correct.
The plan to get back to Georgetown was going to be in stages: from Serekunda to Soma, and then from Soma hopefully we would get a ride Janjangbureh (Georgetown). We found a van going to Soma and the aparante wanted us to pay D20 each for our bags, which instead of being on top of the van at charge we were going to have just sit on our lap for free. Ariane handled this one, in Gambian English.
"No pay. Bag on lap. See," as she faked sitting down in mid-air with bag on her lap.
"No. D20 for bag."
"No pay."
We get inside the van and got front row seats! (These usually have the best legroom, other then the main passenger seat.) The aparante tried one more time.
"Ok. No D20 for bag. I'll give you D10," as if this was bargaining deal of some sort.
"No pay! Bag on lap!"
Finally he gave up trying to scam us out of a total of D20 and just got in and we headed out. The trip to Soma was going to be a few hours. We left at around eight and would be lucky if we arrived before one. It's not that it's far; it's just that the roads are that terrible. During the trip whenever the van had to stop for a police stop or some other mundane thing the aparante would run to the front seat, open up the driver's seat, and, taking a jug of water out, open the hood and refill the radiator. They run these vehicles into the ground until they can't go any more, and even a small leak in the radiator doesn't faze them. It's cheaper to just refill with water at every possible stop then to fix the radiator.
That canteen of water also has another purpose that we found out a little later. The guy next to us said something to the driver and the car pulled over. The driver pushed his seat up so the passenger could get out the driver side door and gave him an empty bottle that used to be filled with water. The passenger took the canteen, poured some water into the bottle and went out into the bush. He had to go to the bathroom and we had to wait for him. No toilet paper, remember?
We arrived at Soma without any incident, arriving a half-hour past noon.
Getting out of the van we tried to find something to eat. The usual road-side stands of bean-sandwiches, bread, and other assortments were up.
One guy opened up his bowl to show some meat and offered me a piece. I liked it and decided to get a sandwich of it while Ariane went to get a different sandwich somewhere else. We both met up a little bit later eating our half-sandwiches. I knew I paid too much for it, so I asked:
"How much did you pay for your sandwich?"
"Too much, got ripped off."
"I paid twenty for mine."
"I paid seven."
"DOH!"
While walking around, eating our sandwiches, and we found a van going to Brikama Ba. This is located most of the way towards Georgetown and just meant one more stop on the way, but it was the best we could do. As we were waiting in the car to fill up and leave we saw Alicia in the car park. We were yelling "Alicia! Alicia!" but she couldn't hear us. Some of the other passengers realized we were trying to get her attention and one stuck his head out the back door and yelled "toubob!" She turned her head and finally saw us waving through the windows. She came up to the back of the van and we talked for a bit, before she headed out to find a van going in her direction.
While waiting for our van to leave Ariane realized the two men she was sitting next to were from Senegal. She doesn't speak Wollof or French, they don't speak English, Mandinka nor Fula, and I barely speak Wollof. We got the point across that we just came back from Senegal last week and that they were heading there right now. We thought that was odd and could have sworn this van was heading to the town of Brikama Ba and not the country of Senegal. We stayed in the van nonetheless.
At one point through the multiple-hour trip we reached a police stop, one of many, but something caught the cop's attention. He ordered everyone out and checked everyone's IDs. Other then the driver and the aparante, the two of us were the only non-Senegalese people in the van. Senegalese IDs were just papers with no photo, and I'm not sure how identity can be established that way. We just took out our Peace Corps IDs and he barely acknowledged it before moving on to the next person. They were, in fact, heading to Senegal, stopping at Brikama Ba first to drop us off as they said they would.
Everyone was allowed back into the van and we continued on the journey. A few hours later we arrived in Brikama Ba. It was Lumo Day! In a town whenever it's lumo day it's a good day. Lumo means 'market' and each semi-big village has a specific day when their market is. For example, Brikama Ba's is Saturday while another town might have it on Wednesday, etc.
There are two good things about lumos: first, things are available upcountry that aren't on other days; second, they are excellent for making transport connections. There were many vans going into Brikama Ba bringing customers in and vans going out taking customers back to where they came from. Imagine New York's Grand Central Station, a vast transportation hub, changing locations throughout the US everyday. If you wish to get from upcountry to Kombo, or vice versa, you first figure out which day you want to leave and then which village has a lumo that day. Your best bet for transportation is to leave from the lumo.
At Brikama Ba we asked around the car park trying to find a van going to "McCatty Island". The real name is "MacCarthy Island" but no one would recognize it if you called it such, they all know it as "McCatty Island." Sitting in the back of the van, with the aparantes, we saw Sarah Grimm! Heading in the same direction we were going she got inside and asked the guy sitting across from us if she could sit there. I'm paraphrasing the Wollof but I suspect it went something like this
Sarah: "[Wollof] Is anyone sitting here?"
Gambian: "[Wollof] No."
Sarah: "[Wollof] Can I sit, then?"
Gambian: "[Wollof] Yes. [English] You speak Wollof?"
Sarah: "[English] No. I'm speaking French!"
Conversations about the obvious are quite common in The Gambia. During training we get comments like "You are eating?" "yes. I am eating." "You are reading?" "yes. I am reading." Or, my personal favorite: "You were sleeping?" "yes. I WAS sleeping!" While waiting for the van to leave Sarah was talking to Ariane for a few minutes before she finally recognized it's me behind the hat. A double take later she announced "Mike! You're going upcountry?" "yes. I'm going upcountry."
Throughout the hour or so ride from Brikama Ba to the Georgetown junction we talked about how I was going to get back on Monday by myself and by which way, and using what stops. Half of the towns or villages I never heard of before, let alone know where they are on the map in reference to where I was going! Finally Sarah realized that I'm leaving on Monday, lumo day for Wassu on the North Bank. It was settled in a minute. Monday morning I would take the ferry to the North Bank, get a van to Wassu (there should be plenty going there, lumo day) and from Wassu I might be able to get one going all the way to Barra (on the opposite side of the river from Banjul), or if not to Farafenni as a connection point. Farafenni is halfway upcountry on the North Bank and is the second or third biggest town in The Gambia. If worse comes to worst Louis lives there and so I could crash at his place for the night if I couldn't find transport. This also had a nice aesthetic feel to it as I would be literally going around the country: out on the South Bank and returning on the North Bank. The farthest from Kombo would be Fatoto, but Georgetown is at least 2/3 of the way upcountry.
Ariane and I paid the aparante our fee and no one else paid. Sarah had to explain to me that we were the only ones going to the Island and so we had to pay first; everyone else would pay after they dropped us off and picked up more people coming from the Island.
An hour later we arrived at the ferry terminal. We said good-bye to Sarah and waited for the ferry. The river is narrow enough that one could wave to a person on the island and be clearly visible. The ferry is a small boat that could maybe hold three cars. Ariane pointed out a rope that crossed the river and went through the ferry.
"Do you know what the rope is for?" she asked.
I thought for a bit, getting my mindset into Gambian thinking, and said,
"So they can pull themselves across if the engine died?"
"Yep! It's one Dalasi to cross if the motor is working and free if it's not."
"Free?"
"The men stand on the side of the rope while the women stand on the other side. The men pull the ferry across using the rope. For their efforts, it's free."
We joined the group already waiting for the ferry and waited for a car to arrive. The ferry doesn't usually cross until a car is on and so everyone must wait. Finally a car showed up and we got on the ferry, the men on one side and the women on the other - for that just-in-case free ride. Honestly, I doubt they were really looking forward to the possibility of getting a refund of one Dalasi, it's just no one wants to be stuck in the middle of the river so they were being prepared for the inevitable. The engine didn't die and we crossed without a hitch.
Walking to her house she started informing me who was in her host family.
It consists of a host father, two host mothers, and eleven children.
"Name them."
"All eleven?"
"Yep."
"Queenie, Ebrima, ." she named them all in thirty seconds, in ascending age order. I was impressed. I thought that would get her, but I guess after eight months living in the same compound you get to know everyone. The two mentioned above were the two significant ones during my stay. Queenie was a four-year old girl who loved hanging around Ariane's house and Ebrima was her host-brother who also was a teacher and spoke English quite well. Ebrima was the son of the father and the first wife; the second wife was roughly his age. The father was 43 and the second wife around 20 or so, younger than either Ariane or I.
We arrived in the compound after a quick 10-15 minute walk from the ferry terminal. As you walk through the corrugated tin door into the compound you see three buildings. One is the kitchen in the back of the compound and the other two are living quarters, on the left and on the right. Ebrima lived in the first room on the right, a wife lives in the second room, and I don't remember if there was a third. On the left hand side was Ariane's room, then the main room of the husband and wife of choice. They greeted us as we walked in and she explained who I was and that I would be leaving on Monday.
Her house is broken into two rooms: one a living room / kitchen / storage room (for the bike etc.) and the back room was her bedroom. In the back was the latrine and on the side of the house was a hammock she set up earlier.
Before she moved in the latrine collapsed and so they had to rebuild it, and moved it a few feet over. You can still see the cracks in the cement of the old location and coincidentally that is where you take a bucket bath now. My fear before coming into Peace Corps was falling into a latrine and now I had to take a bucket bath on top of a cracked cement filling of a caved-in latrine. Nice.
She went to get two buckets of water, one for the bucket baths and another for the water filter. An interesting aspect of the water filter is that we have better filters then some Americans working in Senegal. During WAIST we found out that they can't drink the water in Dakar and the Embassy staff have these full-sized metal Starbucks look-alike water filters with lights and switches, all directly connected to the main water pipe. The other Americans, working at the high schools and such, just have two plastic buckets rigged together and a bottle of bleach next to it. In Banjul we drink the tap water all the time and began questioning why is it that in the most advanced European-type city in West Africa you can't drink the tap water, but in the poor 3rd world country inside of it you can. The reason is that the British, years back, installed a water purification system in Banjul. Peace Corps has done tests to see how clean it is to drink and it's perfectly safe; the only thing that fluctuates is the chlorine level - but all within limits. As such, in Dakar we drank bottled water and in Banjul we can drink tap water. In the village we're back to well water with a water filter.
The whole trip took roughly twelve hours, as we arrived a shortly after seven at night. Dinner usually isn't served until around eight or nine and so we had to wait around for a few more hours in order to eat. Most volunteers don't eat much when they travel, especially across country, since it's a hundred times harder here to find a place to go to the bathroom then just driving up to a McDonald's in the States. Most host parents know that and so when the volunteer comes back from Kombo (or some other site) their dinner is significantly larger. Ariane's host-mother (one of them) came in and brought a big bowl of rice. We took the lid off and just had to take a picture of it. Imagine a nice full serving size of rice, then add a little more for the travel; then double it for the other person eating; then add a little more for just-in-case. It was huge! The amount of rice just the two of us received would be enough for about five people to eat. It could have been a whole meal for a small family in a village. We ate what we could and gave the rest back to the family, who finished it off for us. Being exhausted, we both went to bed right afterwards.
The next morning I forgot about those roosters. They didn't forget about us and promptly woke me up at the crack of dawn. For Sunday breakfast they served us rice porridge. Wondering what to do for the day we just decided to walk around Georgetown and get the five-butut tour. Each compound on the island had either a mud-brick fence or corrugated metal to surround their houses. The streets were dirt and chickens were walking in the gutters on the side of the road. The gutters are for the rainy season so most of the water runs off the road. Maybe they can take out a few roosters along the way.
As we crossed one street, turned left, turned right, I felt like the map of the streets in the island was a maze. Some led to dead-ends while others turned a 90-degree and then split, with one maybe leading to a dead-end where a compound was. We approached Vickie's compound but she still was asleep so we went to Armitage School where Ariane's working. Armitage is a boarding school, in fact the only one in The Gambia. The students live on campus and the school provides housing and has a cafeteria. The dorm rooms I did see reminded me of something you see in the Army: bunk beds along the wall going across the room with one small dresser between them. Each dorm room had about twenty students living in them. The common necessities of college students of TV's, Microwaves, Refrigerators, stereos and the like were non-existent. I saw beds, desks, papers, pens, and books. In fact, the twelfth graders were preparing for their WAEC exam (West African Examination Council.) They must pass the exam to graduate. There are nine subjects; they pass a subject if they get at least 40% in it, and to be eligible for the University they must get at least a C on five of them. As we passed the classrooms, I saw a class in session with no teacher.
"Classes on Sunday?"
"No. They're doing it on their own."
"Why?"
"To study for the exam."
In the U.S. most students wouldn't study for an exam that far ahead of time, let alone on a Sunday. They might start studying a few weeks or a month ahead of time but most likely not on the weekends. These students were quite serious in their efforts.
We stopped to talk to the headmaster for a few minutes. It turns out that both the registrar for the University and one of my co-workers (both of whom happen to have the same name) are alumni of Armitage. The headmaster was quite proud of that fact.
Near the cafeteria were ladies selling bean-sandwiches. The cafeteria I suspect is not open on the weekends and so the ladies from Georgetown take advantage of the situation. We bought two sandwiches that were wrapped up in old homework assignments. Whenever you buy bread or sandwiches from the bidick or these ladies they always wrap it in whatever paper they can find.
Sometimes you get newspaper clippings written in German or French, other times some spreadsheet of Dalasi amounts, or in this case last year's 9th grade mathematics midterm. I got the top half of the midterm with my sandwich and Ariane got the bottom half. Looking at the exams itself you began to wonder how anyone could pass these exams, let alone the main one in 12th grade. The questions were badly written and in most cases ambiguous. One question in particular just had one equation with two variables and just said "Solve." Solve for what? Solve for x in terms of y, or y in terms of x? You need one more equation to solve for both! In another question the correct answer wasn't even listed as one of the choices! I finished my sandwich and asked her what to do with the exam I was now holding. Her response was the usual: "Just throw it on the ground." I took one more look at the exam and said, "my pleasure," before crumbling it up and letting it fall to the ground.
We went back to Vickie's house and she was finally up. She and Jordan arrived in Georgetown the day before we arrived and Jordan was heading back today. They were quite surprised to see me, as rarely do people from Kombo go up country. It also has a shocking affect when you just show up on their doorstep without notice. We sat around talking, listening to music, finished their breakfast for them (yes, our third breakfast for the day) and then went back to Ariane's to relax before lunch came.
Around two o'clock her host mother showed up with lunch. As we opened up the lid we saw rice with sauce, and a fully cooked fish on top with its eyes looking right at us. Ariane looked at the fish and announced: "I'm usually pretty good. I can eat the fish all the way up to the head. Seeing the head doesn't faze me anymore."
"Have you tried the eyes yet?"
"No. Haven't worked up the courage. I'm slowly getting there."
Without thinking I took the tip of the spoon, plucked out the eye and ate it. As I'm chewing it, she's still holding on to her spoon in mid-air in disbelief. I'd never had eyes before but figured I might as well. A few months ago Kelly and I had a conversation that a Peace Corps volunteer on "Fear Factor" would win the eating contest outright. The host, bringing out some body part to gross the contestants out, would be shocked if the contestant said: "Ah! Fish eyes! I had that in my lunch bowl everyday in the Peace Corps!" and promptly win the contest. So far I've now added to my list: brain, intestines, liver and now fish-eyes.
"How does it taste?"
I finished the last few bites and thought of the best word to say:
"Crunchy."
"Man! Now I have to do it! Tomorrow for lunch now I have to eat the eyes since you just did it like that! Except I won't have a witness, " then she remembered fish have two eyes, "there's another eye! Here, help me flip the fish around."
We flipped the fish around and she hesitantly plucked the eye out, and teeth still clamped shut, brought it up to her mouth and quickly ate it.
Eyes closed, she agreeably announced: "Crunchy." After it was completed she proudly proclaimed:
"There I ate it! I ate the eye! You saw it! I have a witness!"
"Sorry, I had my eyes shut."
After lunch we went back to Armitage to see Charles. He's another Peace Corps volunteer working on the island. He lives in the teachers' quarters on campus of the school. His house is quite unusual set-up. As you walk inside you find yourself in a living room with only two other doors. One is to the bedroom and the other to an open-air hallway leading outside. As you walk into the hallway there's three other doors - the kitchen, the shower room, and a storage room. When I asked if I could use his bathroom he showed me where it was. You have to walk all the way down the hallway (it's quite short in reality, maybe ten feet) and then walk outside and turn right.
There's the toilet-room, completely inaccessible except by walking outside. The odd thing was not that it was outside, as all pit latrines are, but that it's a well-off house that still makes you walk outside.
Every month, two volunteers go on mailrun to deliver everyone's packages and the rest of their mail. This usually takes around five days, delivering mail to over eighty volunteers, and the schedule is quite known. Upcountry volunteers not only know what weekend to expect their mail each month, but within what span of a few hours the van will arrive. As Ariane and Vickie weren't in town when mailrun arrived, they left their mail and packages in Charles' house. We picked up her mail and walked it back to her house, with her doing it Gambian-style, carrying a box on her head.
Back in the hut, the electricity was still off. The electricity had been off for a few weeks now and usually doesn't become a problem until after dusk. As I looked at the light-bulb hanging in the ceiling I thought of an idea for the hot season. During the day you don't need the light, as sunlight would work, and during night-time you also don't need the light - except for the dawn and dusk period. What you do want, most likely, is a fan. You could probably rig up a ceiling fan so that it screws in like a light bulb. The only question being: would it unscrew itself? If I could find a cheap ceiling fan in Kombo it would be a nice experiment to try out.
While we were relaxing she brought out a three-string marionette that she received as a Christmas present. At that moment, her four-year old host-sister, Queenie, walked in and her eyes bug up. The three of us played with the marionette, while listening to unconventional Christmas music, all to the delight of this four-year old. Afterwards we played a card game with Queenie acting as our hands. We would point to the draw pile and she would pick up a card for us, and occasionally flip it over before handing it to us, showing the opponent the face. After a few plays she got the hang of it and we no longer needed to point to which pile to draw or discard, except she still kept accidentally showing the cards she picked up, to the amusement of the other player.
I had to head back to Kombo the next day, a full day of traveling, and so after reading some more of my book I went to bed relatively early, around nine. While sleeping, and quite contently, I might add, I awoke to a Gambian running around the village screaming "EEEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEE!" while banging on a metal pot. I thought that was quite odd and could hear the Doppler effect of his voice as he ran down the street but honestly didn't think anything of it and went back to bed. I figured he was running around the island because about an hour later he came back just as loudly, still screaming and still banging on that pot of his. I went back to bed again a little more confused. A third and final round of the Screaming Gambian had me thinking the whole village must be going mad to put up with some random guy running around in the middle of the night banging on metal pots, waking up everyone within ear-shot.
The next morning, I wasn't sure if I had dreamed the whole thing or the bizarre occurrence actually happened.
"Ariane, was there some Gambian running around in the middle of the night screaming and banging on a metal pot, or was I just dreaming that?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you about that."
[.Thanks.] "What was it?"
"Yesterday two kids got circumcised."
"OK." as if that explained everything perfectly.
"They think the witches are going to eat the kids, so they have some guy run around the town at night screaming and banging on the pots to scare the witches away so they won't eat the kids."
She later explained that no one wants to be outside during his screaming, even to stop him after a while, since they might be accused of being the kid-eating witch. When her host-brother got circumcised the father believed a witch was hiding in the tree outside the compound and so the guy stayed by the tree all night long screaming and banging that pot to scare her away.
Relieved that it was only one night worth I said: "Well, at least you only had one night of sleeplessness."
"Oh no, it goes on for about three weeks," she said despairingly.
I couldn't help myself but laugh and say, "Have fun!"
Having reached the north bank ferry and catching the eight o'clock ferry, my solo travel home begun. In this part of the country Mandinka and Fulla are spoken the most often. Having only known the greetings I tried to determine which way a van would be going by asking the name of the potential destination and see if they would agree. It's like being in Michigan and saying "Detroit?" and they respond "Chicago." with one word communications, you know where you stand.
The first van pulled up and a crowd started getting on. I went up to the
Aparante:
"Wassu?"
"Fesna."
So I sat back down and continued reading until the next van came along.
About ten minutes later the next van showed up, "Wassu?" "Fesna." Again I waited.
Within an hour the end of the ferry terminal was becoming packed with people. Around eight in the morning, when I arrived, it was only around ten or fifteen people, but now it was like thirty or more. People were getting desperate to get to this Fesna place. What I saw was not atypical, just more extreme than usual.
As vans came down the road people ran head on to catch up to them and grab hold before the van stopped. The people getting on the van didn't leave any time for the people in the van to get out before trying to get in themselves. This situation happens everywhere in the country from the far banks of Georgetown to downtown Banjul. The idea of waiting for the people to get out of the car before you get in is non-existent. One must push, shove, and fight not only the people coming out blocking your way getting in, but also the other people trying to beat you to your potential seat. For the most part, I refused to do that and usually waited longer than usual. At least in Kombo you have the option of renting a taxi for D4 or even a private taxi just for yourself for D25. Good luck trying to find a private taxi in the middle of the country. (Although, everything does have its price apparently. For Thanksgiving a group of volunteers rented out an entire van to drive them directly to Banjul as not to fight the crowd also going to Banjul for Koriteh).
One van in particular demonstrated to me how desperate people are for transportation. I believe that sentence is not entirely correct; it should be how desperate the country is for more transportation. A van pulled up and people started to run towards it. Three people were the first to reach the van and ran behind it to the ladder that led to the roof. They grabbed on to the ladder and were about to open the door while the van was still moving, in order to start getting in the vehicle. As the van turned to park, the forces of the ladder were too much and it snapped sending all three men to the ground while knocking two others down with them. This didn't faze the other people, women and children included, from opening the door and trying to get in. As with some vans the door on the side that slides open is welded shut. Most of these vans are used so much that the doors just fall off the tracks and are held on by string alone at times. For simplicity sake, some drivers just weld the door shut and use the back door. This was the case for this van. No one could get out because you had people trying to all get in one door. They were climbing over the people who fell from the ladder and even pushing people out that were trying to get out.
One guy who got pushed out had enough. He threw his bag to the ground and went to the side of the door. For ten long seconds he opened the back door as far as he could and slammed it against the bodies. Continuously he opened, closed, opened, and closed the door, to the point where even the mayhem of people trying to get on stopped their commotion and shrieked in terror. A few heads were bumped from the wild door; children were screaming because they got knocked down, and an arm was caught on the final swing shut he made before the passengers stopped him. People were still trying to get out of the van, but couldn't because the side door was welded shut and the back door was in the control of a man who got pushed too far. Finally things settled down to the point where it was just the usual commotion of getting on. I didn't get on because they told me "Fesna."
After that incident one guy offered me a ride to Wassu on the back of his motorcycle for the price of four liters of fuel, which he told me, was about D100. While very tempting, as I never been on a motorcycle before, let alone on one in West Africa, it wasn't worth being Administratively Separated from the Peace Corps for a joyful hour.
For two hours I waited for "Wassu" but no van to Wassu came. All vans were going to Fesna. Not knowing even if Fesna was in the right direction I just figured to just go there since everyone else seemed to be going there and it couldn't be all that bad. The next car, based on past experiences, was probably going to Fesna, so I figured to just get in before I knew where was going. Around ten o'clock I saw a van coming down the road and I ran after it before any Gambian thought of running. What followed next was nowhere near the mayhem of the previous experience, but worth noting nonetheless. I was the first one to reach the van, right when it stopped, and tried to be nice and let a few people out before attempting to get in.
Bad mistake. One person squirmed between myself and a woman coming in and other people starting to follow. I missed my chance so I just went for it. I got knocked down, had my head on the seat, my right arm holding myself up from the floor, my left arm reaching back holding on to my bag, my right foot on the rear bumper and my left foot on some guy's shoulder. He tried getting in when I was and tried to go under me, but when I got knocked down he decided to stand up and fight his way through. My left foot was caught on his shoulder as he stood up and was now between his shoulder and the top of the doorway. Throughout this whole commotion the person next to my head said to me "Here, sit here." My head being in the spot he wanted me sit, I replied back "I'm trying." By now my foot was completely caught between shoulders, doors, heads, and other bags. Had no choice but to kick my foot free, hitting a few bags and shoulders along the way.
By the time we all sat down and the van was going, it was as if the whole incident never happened. The people I had to kick to get my foot free were sitting next to me asking how I liked the bumpy-road ("It's smoother then south bank!"). Normal conversations happened and I realized that the whole ordeal it was quite normal for them. Consider a boxing match: they might fight each other in the ring in order to win the match, but in the end of the day the loser acknowledges the winner and just waits for the next round to show him that he could win just as easily. For every van that pulls up it's a contest: who will win, who will lose. The winners get a seat, the losers get to wait. If you lose in one match there's another van coming in a while in which you have another chance. The amount of time you have to wait to get a seat is inversely proportional to how aggressive you are to get that seat. Welcome to third-world public transportation.
About an hour later we arrived in some town and I heard "Wassu." The guy that I was sitting next to spoke English and I asked if this was Wassu. I managed to get out before the van started moving again. I was now in Wassu, on Lumo day and there were vans parked everywhere. I had a choice of either finding one going directly to Barra or to Farafenni. Usually if you look lost, a few aparantes ask you, "Where are you going?" hoping that you either can go with them, or that they might get a small finder fee from the other driver. One such person came up to me and asked me that same question. I replied "Barra" and he showed me to a van that was going to Farafenni as a stop and then heading on to Barra, each half costing D50. Perfect.
Having only the back door working (the side door again welded shut) I was yet again one of the last people on. I sat next to two of the aparantes. One was in charge of money collection while the other had to refill the radiator at every available stop. Even while the van was moving, these 12-year olds would climb over the van, out the back door, on top of the ladder, on the roof, and even in one instance along the side of the car for half-its-length for some unknown reason. Whenever someone wanted to get out, one of them would bang on the back door twice so the driver could hear and stop the car.
One time they were both on the roof and something flew off. They banged on the roof twice stopping the car and one climbed down and ran to get the bag. As he was almost to the van, the kid on the roof would bang twice to tell the driver to go and the other aparante would have to jump to get on. During most of the trip, however, they were inside the van.
Around four hours later we passed Kauur. As we passed the village and were on the outskirts of nowhere, screams erupted from the front of the van. The van held roughly twenty people with six being in the back facing each other, the rest facing forward. I was in the back facing the two aparantes. The first two rows of people jumped from their seats and those who were closest to the windows jumped out while those in the middle tried to run to the back. The driver yelled to the aparantes who had already opened the door and were running to the front of the van. I was the third person out the back after the two aparantes. Men, women, and crying children followed. Within ten seconds the entire van was evacuated, with the sole exception of some old woman who I suspect been through worse and decided to save her energy and stay. I ran to the front of the van to see four people throwing sand into the engine. I never saw what caused the scream, as when I turned my head people were already getting ready to jump out of the windows, but I suspected the engine was on fire.
Everyone sat on the side of the road waiting for the driver and aparantes to fix their vehicle. If you look down the road not a single trail of dust in the air can be seen. I sat down and continued reading "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." About fifteen minutes later, the driver told the men passengers to help push the car to get it started. I put my book down and leaving my stuff on the side of the road, helped them push the van. The women and children walked along the pushed van. After about half-a-block the van started and everyone got back in. I realized I left my bag a half-block back and ran to get it. As I ran back, the van moved forward along the road. After I grabbed my bag and ran to catch up the moving van, I was about two feet away when the aparante hit the back door twice. I knew what that meant. I wasn't even on yet! My left arm reached for the ladder and I pushed myself up to get my feet on the bumpers while the aparante grabbed my right arm and helped me in. He smiled as I sat down and we continued on our way.
Not more than ten minutes later, the car came to a shrieking halt as the front-passenger tire exploded. Everyone got out, yet again, and waited for the driver and aparantes to replace the tire. Having it replaced we got back in again. Throughout both events of getting out of the van everyone's seats remained the same. It was almost as if we were assigned those seats for the entire journey and were required sit in them. Even the guys who jumped out of the windows sat back down in the front seats, next to the same windows they went through not an hour ago.
We finally reached Farafenni. Two girls held bags of well water through the window and before the entire transaction finished of buying one bag for fifty bututs, the entire van emptied. I sat there with my newly bought bag of water looking at the empty van amazed at how fast people left this death-trap. I got out also. It was now two in the afternoon and I've been in transport for six hours and only halfway home. I tried getting in other vans going to Barra but they were all full. One lady sitting in the front told me "You're going to sleep here!" Not that discouraging but not what you want to hear; especially at two in the afternoon. A few bumsters came up trying to tell me there are no more vans going to Barra for the rest of the day but they have a car [insert: laugh!] and can drive me to Barra for a price. I told them no, knowing more vans will show up and besides I already fell for that trap once in September and that's all I needed.
I sat and waited. A bumster told me, "Transport is hard," as if I didn't know.
"Yes. I know."
Before he could try to finish his next sentence, not only does a van pull up but a huge bus. The waited crowd burst into a happy cheer before realizing the time they cheered took away from the time they could have used to get a seat. So, they started to run after the vans. I ran. I'm trying to get into the back of the bus when an aparante told me to come to the front. I followed and he took my bag and threw it in the window on some seat. I tried to get in the front door, while simultaneously keeping an eye on my bag and also getting out of the way of people getting out. He told me not to worry - my bag reserved my seat. I doubted it. I thought it was a scam and by the time I reached my seat my bag wouldn't be there. Surprisely, by the time I reached my seat not only was my bag still there but it was in fact reserved as no one was sitting there or close by. Three rows back of seats were already taken by the time I sat down. The bumpster asked for ten dalasi from the window. I figured ten dalasi to get a seat on a four-hour D50 ride to Barra, sure. I gave him D10 and paid the driver his D50 and after everyone else was paid we left.
Throughout the day the heat is getting so bad in the bus that they were passing a cooler of water around with each of us taking a few gulps of the water. Throughout the four hours the heat was dropping since the sun was setting, but it was still hot in the bus. Finally reaching Barra at a quarter before seven, I ran to get a ticket before they could even get their luggage off the roof of the van. I made the line just in time before fifty people stood behind me. I paid the D5 ticket price, bought another bag of well-water for 50 bututs, and boarded on the seven o'clock ferry.
Standing on top of the ferry I saw whole bunch of French tourists. I must have been the dirtiest toubob on the ferry. My face, clothes, and bag were all monotone in a light brown color of dust. I stood up against the rail at the top of the ferry and as we were going across the river I read a few more pages of my book.
Then it dawned on me: I wonder who has a crazier day, McMurphy and The Chief in the asylum or the average Peace Corps Volunteer?
After I crossed to Banjul I didn't want to take public transportation anymore and would just pay a private taxi to take me home. I live a block away from the most popular casino in The Gambia. Officially called "Jackpot Palace" it's better known as "Seven and Sevens." Now when you think of casinos, don't think anything to the order of magnitude of Las Vegas. Think of some Nevada slot machine building out near the border of the state and you might have a picture of the best casino in The Gambia, the rest being worst. I just had to tell the driver I wanted to go to "Seven and Sevens," and he'd know exactly where it was. We agreed on a price of D125.
Riding down the coast of the island of Banjul he said he needed to buy "foil." To the Gambians, fuel is pronounced "foil." I agreed and he went more into the outskirts of the city near the old docks of abandoned boats and into neighbourhoods of fire burning in old tin trash-cans. He told me not to worry it's just the black-market. Figuring what else could go wrong today, I told him OK and he went further into the underworld of the black-market to get his fuel.
His contact wasn't there. On the way back to Banjul and continuing on our way to Seven's he explained:
"Black-Market fuel cheaper. Gas Station wanted D150 for 10 Liters. I get 10
Liters for D125 and they even give me two more for free, 12 liters for
D125."
The next day I figured out how much that would be in American prices. Using
D30/$1 it turns out that gas is $1.89/Gallon on the normal market and only $1.31/Gallon on the black-market.
I asked him a few minutes later: "Is 'Fesna' Mandinka or Fulla?"
"Fesna?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Fees Na! It is Wollof."
I was more surprised that the aparante in Georgetown was speaking Wollof then the fact I didn't know it was Wollof.
"What does it mean?"
"It is full."
-MIke
posted by Mike | 5:08 PM
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