Translations!

The day I biked back to village after the Janjanbureh workshop I got a late start for one reason and another, so I did not reach Kumbel (Isatou’s village) until one pm. The kids bounced around on the bed as usual and then Isatou offered to bring me some food. I said I did not want to eat because I would soon be biking home. She said I should wait until evening, when the sun would be less hot. I could bathe here, rest, and at four o’clock go home. I was in an always-accept-an-invitation-because-you-never-know-what-sort-of-adventure-will-come-from-it kind of mood as well as in an well-I-didn’t-really-want-to-do-laundry-anyway sort of mood (because doing laundry had been my plan after returning) so I agreed and she brought rice with domoda and I ate until I was full because the food was delicious and I had three hours for it to digest. Isatou said her brother or somebody had come to visit from Spain and I got excited to try out a “Buenos días” or two.

Later a man came in and distributed icees to the children in the room. I thought he might be the man from Spain but Isatou made no move to introduce us nor did she say, “here’s the guy I was talking about” so then I thought it must not be him.

Isatou and I talked a little about Europe though, and I tried to convince her it’s too cold there and Gambian people are nicer, but she just commented, in an amused tone, that she wants to go to Europe and I want to be in The Gambia. And I wonder if the Fulas have a proverb like “the grass is always greener” because if so I should learn it.

There was some drama regarding the icees because there were fewer icees than children and Isatou was telling them who needed to share with whom, but Fatoumata, in particular, did not want to share with anyone, especially not the girl she was supposed to share with. And Isatou turned to me and said, “My family is too large.”

I go to bathe and when I finish I go and sit outside with Isatou and some other women. A man and a white lady walk by and Isatou introduces me to them—he is the brother from Spain. Except they weren’t from Spain. I don’t know where Isatou got that idea, but the wife spoke only French and the man spoke no Spanish.

Isatou asks if I want well water or pump water for my water bottle. I say pump water and two or three girls happily show me the pump, arguing over who will get to hold the water bottle and who will get to pump. After it’s refilled we start to return, but we are intercepted by another group of children who tell me to follow them, I must greet So-and-so. I soon recognize that they’re leading me to the German’s house. He is lying topless on his bed, and so is his wife. His younger son Steven was crawling around on the floor. There is a cuckoo clock on one part of the wall and framed black and white photos on another.

I tentatively sit down on the edge of their bed. If this was America, or, I assume, Germany, it would’ve been perfectly acceptable, upon walking in on a couple’s siesta and finding them half-clothed, to say, “Hello, pardon me, I’ll be going now.” In The Gambia, walking away with a “hello, goodbye” would’ve been rude, regardless of the circumstance. I didn’t know whose culture the German and his wife were operating under, until he and his wife sat up and she pulled down her shirt; I took that as an invitation to stay.

The German was more talkative than last time. Maybe he was refreshed from the nap or maybe he wasn’t preoccupied with a broken motorcycle. He wanted to know more about the Peace Corps, which he referred to as Peace Workers, and whether it was a religious organization and where I would be serving next and whether I joined to help others or to help myself. “To help others,” I replied, while thinking, “What other answer did you expect?” To which he replied, “But I think you are also helping yourself” and I had to agree, even though it doesn’t sound so nice when you say it aloud.

Then another group of children enters (the one’s who’d come with me were still hanging about the room) with the non-Spaniard and his wife, Marielle, in tow. About five children are holding Marielle’s hands. The non-Spaniard and Marielle sit down on the bed, too, and join the conversation. The German could speak German and English and his wife could speak English and Pulaar. I could speak English and enough Pulaar. The non-husband could speak Pulaar, French, and sometimes enough English. Marielle could speak French. Occasionally sentences would get translated through three different people. If, for example, we wanted Marielle to know something the German had said, his wife might need to repeat it in Pulaar to the non-Spaniard, who would then change it to French for his wife. It was amusing, and I wondered about all that had been lost in translation.

The German says he has only learned to say two things in Pulaar: “jam tan” and “kaalis.” The former means “peace only” and the latter, “money.” Then he went off on a mini-rant about people are always begging for money. Marielle says she knows “jam tan” also, and “Mido yiddi ma no bete,” which the German’s wife translated as, “I love you too much.”
The German disagrees with the Prophet Muhammed. Muhammed said to clean your face, clean your hands, clean your feet. But he forgot to say “clean your environment.” The German appears smugly pleased that he has thought of this, but there is a delay while this is translated to the non-Spaniard and maybe Marielle.

The German continues: He is always disgusted when he comes here and sees the people just tossing their garbage wherever. Why can they not have garbage cans? In fact, there are only two clean countries in Africa. The first is Namibia, which used to be a German colony. Here his wife interrupts, and we never do learn what the second clean African country is. She says something along the lines of “You would say that” and he retorts that the Germans taught them right. In Germany there are women in orange suits who patrol the parks looking for people tossing garbage to the ground. The women are connected with the police and when they see someone littering they will contact the police and the police will make the person pay a fine of 1,000 or 2,000 dalasis (he said dalasis and I don’t know whether he had done the conversion or whether he meant to say whatever-the-money-is-called-in-Germany). But here…

Later the German’s wife offered her opinion of Germany: It is all concrete, no dirt. And people will not even notice if you die.