Peanut-butter-machine: Acquired.

I know the suspense has been killing you. Did I locate the peanut-butter-making machines and a Fula shopkeeper? Did I discover more than two complicating factors? Was I abducted by aliens? Did the shrews get me???

The answers would be: yes, yes, yes, no and no.

I begin my quest to locate the machines by searching for the person most likely to help me. I walk past the clothing and shoes vendors because I figure they wouldn't know anything about making peanut butter. I walk past a woman selling jewelry because she is speaking Mandinka. Then I reach an intersection. Before I wander around willy-nilly and get myself lost (although this happened later anyway, naturally) I figure I should ask someone now. The man behind me asks, "Hoko falda?" I assum he is asking me what I want, but when I turn around and reply, "A naani Pulaar? (You speak Pulaar?)" he seems startled, so maybe he'd been asking the person behind me. Anyway, our conversation proceeds like this:

Fula Man: Yes.
Me: I don't want anything, but do you know where they sell peanut machines?
Fula Man: Here.
Me: Here? [we were standing outside an electronics shop]
Fula Man: Here. I will sell you one.
Me: Okay.


I follow him into the store. I still see only cellphones other stuff you plug in.

I greet the shopkeeper. He wants to know if I am from Guinea, because a few months ago another toubab came to his shop who spoke Pulaar and she was living in Guinea. I tell him I do not, and we talk about my life in The Gambia. I ask for the peanut machine. He hands me one. I ask if it is "model one." He remarks to one of the other men in the store that I speak English, but he does not answer my question. I try again, explaining that one person bought a machine for my mom that only lasted two years and another bought one that only lasted two months. This one will not break soon, will it?

No, no, no. This one will last three years.

I examine the box to see if there is a "1" anywhere. There is not, but neither is there a "2." There are only the words "Traditional Grain Mill" and "Victoria Grain Mill Red Box." There is also a large "V," and until just this moment I worried maybe it was the Roman numeral 5, but now I realize it must be a V for Victoria. The box also looks a bit squashed and has clear packing tape wrapped around it. One of the men opens the box for me and shows me all the individual pieces, as if I were a person who knew something about peanut machines and could distinguish a quality part from a shoddy one. I decide to carefully examine the individual pieces as if I were a peanut-butter-making machine expert. One of the pieces is made of plastic and I ask if it will snap. I am told it will not.

The shopkeeper tells me the machine costs  750 dalasis so I tell him I will walk around the market a little and see if I can find one that is not expensive. So he asks me what I want to pay and I say 500. He says 700. I say 525. Eventually we agree on 600. Perhaps this was too much to pay for a peanut-butter-making machine not guaranteed to be model one, but if it could just last a year, until I'm out of the country, I would count it a success. Sort of. But better a sort-of success than a failure!

I give the shopkeeper the money and two other men in the store set to work fitting the pieces back into the box and taping it together again.  One of the men asks if I want a receipt. I ask, "In case it breaks, or...?" His reply is, "You will be going to Basse?" "Yes." "The police will want to see the paper." "Okay, write a receipt."


This receipt is amazing. I have never loved a receipt more. For one thing, my name is on there as Binta Diallo (this is the French spelling of Jallow) and it states that I bought a "Machine à patte" (this must be the French spelling of "peanut-butter-making machine"). For another thing, the header reveals that the shopkeeper is a "Businessman In Electronic Such as DVD, fan, TV, Radio, Mobile Tape Etc." It does not reveal he is also a Businessman In Peanut-Butter-Making Machines.

The unexpected complication to my adventure was: a peanut-butter-making machine is really really heavy. It's not particularly large, but all the parts are made of iron except for the wooden handle and that random plastic piece. And instead of just calling my quest complete and leaving the market, I thought maybe I'd wander, just a little. This would not have been a problem if I'd been born with three arms. With three arms, one hand could have kept the peanut butter machine balanced on my head, one hand could have held my water bottle and kept my bag on my shoulder and one hand could have kept my skirt from blowing open and/or dragging in the mud. However, I have only the usual quantity of arms. I quickly decided the mud, heat, arm-shortage, etc. would not make additional market-wandering any fun, but by this time I'd already gotten myself lost.

Nothing exciting happened while lost and I un-lost myself relatively quickly--as evidenced by my typing this right now, this very moment, in front of the computer-- so...that's pretty much the end of my peanut-butter-machine adventure.