I CAN abide them even now and then

For those of you who never sat backstage listening to Kiss Me, Kate rehearsals while in high school, the title (of this blog post, not of Kiss Me, Kate) alludes to that song Kate sings about hating men. It begins something like, "I hate men/ I can't abide 'em even now and then."

I think I've been writing (particularly the last few days, but I arranged that on purpose) too much about particularly irksome encounters with men considering how often I've written about pleasant encounters with men. This happened because irksome encounters are more entertaining to read about. However, I did a lot of traveling recently (and by recently I mean this past summer...I am typing this September 7) and in my travels I revised my opinion of Gambian men, even the young-adult ones, but still not the ones with sunglasses.

"But, ladies, you must answer too, what would we do without 'em?"

1. On my way to Farafenni I rode in the teacher's gelle that was bringing teachers from regions 5 and 6 down-country after schools closed. If there'd been a schedule, we would have been several hours behind by the time we reached the Janjangbureh ferry. We got out of the gelle and I went in search of peanuts. The lady selling peanuts was also selling mangoes, which looked like just the sort of sweet refreshment I needed. As I received change for my peanuts, a teacher asked if I wanted a mango while handing me one of the two he had just bought. Then he walked away. No questions about my name, country of origin, or marital status. What would I have done without him? I would've bought a mango myself, experienced extreme disappointment at discovering how under-ripe it was, and lamented my wasted dalasis for the rest of the trip.
2. When I took a car from Farafenni to the car park in Senegal, the driver found me a car to Dakar and helped me figure out the correct quantity of money to hand over, even though he could've just dropped me off and turned around. What would I have done without him? Probably gotten shouted at in French and spent too much of that sly Senagelese CFA.
3. After the car to Dakar broke down and we'd waited by the side of the road for two hours, a new car finally arrived and we all piled in. One of the men had walked all the way to the nearest bitik and we picked him up on the way. After revealing he'd bought a liter of orange soda and some plastic cups, he offerred some to everyone in the car. What would I have done without him? Drank the remainder of my warm water and sat in misery.
4. At the Pompi car park in Dakar, a man named Jallow was selling NesCafe. He sold me delicious NesCafe, then flagged down a taxi for me, told the driver I was going to the airport, negotiated the price and showed me exactly which bills to give the driver. What would I have done without him? Without the sugary NesCafe, I quite possibly would've collapsed, because it'd been about 24 hours since I'd eaten anything, except for that orange soda. And since the taxi driver I ended up with spoke neither English nor Pulaar, who knows where my collapsed body would've ended up.
5. At 3 a.m. in the Dakar airport, after being there for an hour, I met a driver who neither tried to overcharge me, nor tried to rush me to the car park before cars would actually be there. He said, "Wait for me until five, I will take you there for 3,000 CFA." At the car park, he found me a car to Barra, negotiated the fair price (not that I could have paid more anyway, having had exactly enough CFA). What would I have done without him? I would have had to exchange even more dalasis to CFA and paid the 7,000 CFA other drivers were charging. When I arrived at the car park, I probably would've gotten lost.
6. The morning I left Brikama to return to village it only stopped pouring minutes before I left the house. The Brikama roads collect water and I'm grateful it was still dark outside so I didn't have to see just how filthy the mud and water I waded through was. Also, I was carrying a suitcase and two backpacks because I'd just returned from Sweden. More than once, a flip-flop got stuck in the mud and I needed to find a dry spot to drop my baggage while I crouched down and felt around in the water until I found it. A couple of times I could tell I my flip-flops would get suctioned in, so I removed them beforehand, then prayed not to step on broken glass or a bottle cap. Eventually I came across two men who told me I was going the wrong way. They tried to describe the route I should take, but it was clear I was not understanding their directions. So they offerred to show me the way and they each took one of my bags--the heavier ones. Also, I thought I'd just gotten a little lost. Nope. We backtracked for awhile. What would I have done without them? I seriously don't even want to think about this. I would have kept wandering towards who knows where until past sunrise and missed my opportunity to ride back to Basse with the Peace Corps vehicle. At some point my arms would've grown too tired to carry my luggage and it would've slipped into the mud. At some point my legs would've grown too tired to walk and I would've slipped into the mud.
7. On a trip from village to Kombo, I arrived at the Basse car park and found my friend already waiting by the car that would take us from Basse to Kombo. We couldn't leave yet, however, because I needed a restroom. I told the man, who I assumed was our driver, "I need a pit latrine." He led me through a complex maze to the public pit latrines AND paid the one or two dalasis fee! I felt just like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Men giving me money for the powder room--imagine! Also, it turns out the man wasn't even our driver, just some random dude at the car park performing random acts of kindness. What would I have done without him? Asked someone else for directions to the pit latrine, paid the fee myself, and not felt like Holly Golightly :(