| Submitted by: David Pugh, United States |
| Submission Date: 27 November 2007 |
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Quamiso was a cashew tapper, I hadn’t noticed that the whole area was surrounded by a forest of cashew trees.
I took some family photographs and we were served our first meal since our French bread and coffee breakfast, fish and rice with no vegetables. The rice was home grown and very tasty but the vegetables, which seemed to be growing everywhere, were a means of local trade. Quamiso and the other villagers paid rent to a Jola society, which provided rudimentary schooling and limited health care. It wasn’t easy to get hold of hard cash as the villagers all grew more or less the same produce, which was usually just bartered for something similar. After lunch we crossed the village to see Kopasio, Ahuben’s oldest brother, who didn’t seem that delighted to see that the prodigal had returned unannounced.
Nevertheless, Kopasio brought us another bucket of cashew wine, this time we were to use a traditional cup, a hollowed out shell, looking like a small coconut, with a hole bored right through it into which a stick was poked. I was curious that Lucas told everyone that he met in Cassalol that he was now living in Banjul, which obviously had more cache than admitting he was from Serekunda.
At about 4pm the whole village got very excited, a minibus had stopped at the T-junction, it must have driven across that broken bridge in Susana! Lucas said some hasty goodbyes, I left Quamiso enough money to pay three months rent, about £10, he was amazed by my generosity. The small bus was going down to Varela about another four kilometres in the direction of the sea. On the outskirts of Varela the bus driver pointed out a hotel, owned by a Portuguese man but Lucas insisted that there was a nicer, locally owned complex down on the beach. Varela centre, where the bus stopped, had two small shops and that was about it. The bus driver said that once the vehicle filled up, he wouldn’t be back for at least two days. This was worrying as I needed to fly back in three days time and I noticed that there were no vehicles, apart from a tyreless van, to be seen anywhere in the village. Lucas told me not to worry, after all I was on holiday and we should concentrate on finding the beach hotel. The roundavel style complex was closed up and only opened for four weeks every Christmas, when the German owners came down with their friends. The rest of the time it was just occupied by four caretakers, who were not prepared to let us have a room. We decided to go down to the magnificent beach for a bathe and to watch the sunset. It was rather cloudy, so nature didn’t put on much of a show and Lucas didn’t want get sea salt in his dreads; we settled for cleaning our feet with the pumice stones which littered the sand. The huge stretch of beach only had three other people to watch the dying light, a young local couple and one of the German complex’s caretakers. The caretaker suggested we go back to the Portuguese hotel, which had a fine restaurant that served every kind of food with cold beer and fresh water. I pictured a bowl of vegetables and a plate of fresh fruit. When we got back there the rather grumpy Portuguese landlord told us that his restaurant had been closed since his Italian chef had disappeared and that anyway the hotel was closed to visitors, it was just too much work to keep it open for the occasional blow in. What a pity, it looked a really nice place but that’s what seems to happen to many people’s dreams when they invest in Africa.
The caretaker was still with us and said that he thought he knew of a woman who took in lodgers, so we trudged back into the centre of the little town. The lady eyed the pair of us suspiciously, not sure she wanted such an odd pair in her house and sent us off with a live chicken as some kind of compensation. Ahuben then remembered that he had a little sister living up near the Portuguese hotel, honestly I can’t keep track of African family relations and it seemed that even Lucas wasn’t sure how many siblings he had. His late father and mother obviously had a very hectic social calendar.
Before finding his sister’s house he had to find someone selling kana, this done we set off, still with the caretaker, who turned out to be Akoli, Lucas’ nephew’s brother by a different mother. Their father was Lucas’ late brother, who died just after Akoli was born about twenty-seven years earlier. I was more than confused as the caretaker, who was never introduced to me by name, must have been as old as me. We found Little Sister’s mud brick house but no one was in, being Sunday evening I thought the family might be at church. Lucas and the caretaker went off, with the very patient chicken to find them and I sat by the tin door admiring the stars. There are some advantages to a town with no electricity, unless you’re a hotel property developer. Within minutes Little Sister, her husband, their three children and a very drunk man I assumed to be a relative, were herded into the compound by Lucas and Mr. Caretaker. Little Sister opened the padlocked door to bring out some cups, which seemed to be prize possessions in an almost empty hut. Her husband stepped on the chicken’s head and took three attempts to pull it off, the chicken made up for its earlier silence by naturally squawking it’s protest about being decapitated. The small fowl was soon boiling in a pot, I didn’t think it was really big enough to feed everyone there, particularly as another young woman had turned up to help with the cooking and get a bed ready for Lucas and myself. One thing was certain, the kana wouldn’t last much longer as everyone, including the women were passing around the cups. I gave the drunkard a CFA1000 note to go and buy some more, pandemonium broke out when the family knew what I had done. Why I had given the town inebriate so much money, I told them that I assumed from the way he was bouncing their little son on his knee, that he was an uncle. They all said he was nothing to do with them and a hunting party went out in all directions to look for him. He was dragged back about fifteen minutes later, with the kana bottle in his jacket, he had obviously been returning from my errand when he had been waylaid and his reputation for honesty besmirched. The new supply of kana soon went down; no one wanted to give the drunk, who turned out to be from Senegal, anything to drink. I pointed out that he had gone to fetch it, so I shared my cup with him; Lucas looked at me in disgust, telling me that I knew nothing of African ways. When the food was served, bizarrely with French bread, the poor drunk was elbowed out and started crying pitifully, I gave him some bread dipped in rice; everyone else pretended not to notice my foolish white ways.
After supper I asked Lucas how far it was to the Senegal border, could we walk there along the beach? If we followed the coast it would be thirty to forty kilometres but much less if we walked in land. I didn’t see that we had any other option, if I was to get back to the Gambia in time for my flight. I was feeling very positive about the trek, tomorrow was going to be my 56th birthday and a day I wasn’t likely to forget. As it was nearly midnight and we planned to start the walk at 4am, I thought it time we turned in. Lucas was having none of it, if we were to have a long march we needed ganja to fortify us for the day and help us sleep well that night. It was 2am by the time we got onto our straw mat, having walked all around the town, knocked on many, many doors and woken up a lot of people before we found the local drug dealer. Exhausted and dehydrated I wondered where I could buy water at 4am; it was going to have to be well water laced with purification tablets. Monday October 15th was going to be a hell of a birthday!
I’d never slept in a mud brick house before and did not expect to awake to such a damp atmosphere. The floor and walls were wet to the touch, the air was thick with perspiration and exhaled breath, my sweat soaked shirt that I’d naively hung up to dry, was even wetter than the day before. I silently packed up my mosquito net and inflatable pillow and pulled on my wet clothes, hoping we wouldn’t disturb the rest of the family, still asleep behind a curtain. I wanted to leave some money with Little Sister, we had to wake her as Lucas didn’t know the way to the beach, he really wasn’t proving much of a guide. Little Sister walked us to the right track, the stars were just about bright enough to see our way but I still had to use the LED torch I’d bought in Ziguanchor. I’d woken up with a stiff ankle and was very conscious of not starting the long march by turning it in a pothole, especially as I was carrying at least ten kilos of rucksack. We diverted to the German owned beach complex where Mr. Caretaker and his son joined our expedition. It turned out that Lucas and I were to take the boy back to the Gambia with us and Mr. Caretaker would be coming as far as Kabrousse in Senegal, where he had some business. We stopped at the fresh water well where I filled an empty two litre bottle and added two water purification tablets just in case; Mr. Caretaker offered to carry it for me as he had no luggage. His boy had a small black suitcase, Lucas his small designer duffle bag and my ex-army holdall, which he’d taken a shine two, leaving me with my heavy rucksack which carried all the usual travellers essentials, Lucas hadn’t even brought a towel for himself and was happy to share mine. The towel was now in need of washing out, as I hadn’t counted on this double usage. I was also very conscious of the fact that I hadn’t brushed my teeth for three days. It was about 5am by the time we reached the beach and started the walk north, the stars were still quite spectacular and they picked out the ruin of a very ambitious luxury hotel complex. Its concrete beach bar had tilted forty-five degrees into the sand; it was like the scene from the original Planet of the Apes movie, where Charlton Heston discovers the half buried Statue of Liberty. By the time we reached the first headland dawn was breaking behind us and I was getting aware of a tightness in my chest. I knew what was happening; my sensitive western stomach was over producing acid, as a result of too much alcohol, not enough water and a diet of almost nothing but rice. I hoped the sensation would pass but as I had had no breakfast and only half a cup of water, combined with the weight of my bag on my shoulders, I knew I was in for a rough day. It was now time to move into the bush, after Lucas had paused to light up a joint and I had some more water, which I realised I would have to share with everyone else; I rationed out what we had left in my mind and thought if we were careful, we should just have enough. I should have enjoyed the walk through the African bush but my chest was killing me though my feet were working fine. After about an hour and a half I was thinking that ones birthday was good day to die, kind of rounding things off nicely, if I stepped on a landmine at least I’d be at rest; Africans can walk at a good lick. Lucas must have read my mind, he asked me if it was really my birthday; he didn’t know when he was born, his date of birth on his ID card, just said 1962. He offered to carry my rucksack, I said I could manage; male pride is a terrible vanity. Lucas then pointed to a four foot wide stream we had to jump across; I wouldn’t be able to manage it with the extra weight, so I handed it to him and made the jump. He flew across with the rucksack on one shoulder, as he’s about six foot, four and ten years younger than me I let him carry my bag the rest of the way and I took his far lighter, Naf-Naf, duffle.
My progress picked up, I was still annoyed with myself for drinking so much alcohol over the last few days. I recalled reading Colin Thuberon’s AMONG THE RUSSIANS where the worse aspect of driving the length of the former USSR had been the amount of vodka he’d had to drink, I was feeling the same about kana. Lucas ordered us to stop, take our shoes off and role our trousers up to the knees, while he went to empty his bowels in the bush. For the first time in travelling in a developing country, I was constipated; rice, kana and a piece of chicken smaller than my little finger, just don’t get me moving. |
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| Copyright © - "David Pugh" |
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