To market, to market

It is Sunday morning and I’d gone to visit with Fatou Bobo. She was busy preparing lunch and asked, since I have a bicycle, could I go to the market and buy “nebbam karre,” “minty-lait”, and a medicine for a paining body. Oh, and Ma Debbo wants nebbam karre too, so double the amount of that but make sure it goes in two separate bags. When I admit I don’t know either nebbam karre or the medicine for a paining body (I didn’t know minty-lait either, but thought I did) she tries to describe them. I forget all the descriptions except “the pills are the white ones.” I ask Rugi, who is standing nearby, if she knows what these things are. She does. I ask if she can sit on the back of a bicycle. She can.

“You can?” Fatou Bobo, her mother, wants to know. I realize that of course Rugi is going to say she knows how to sit on the back of a bike whether nor not she actually can, but for both of our sakes I hope she is telling the truth. Fatou Bobo hands me the money and Rugi follows me to get the bike from my house. At our compound, Jainabou asks where we’re going and when we say “to the market” she hands me a 25 dalasi bill and asks me to buy 10 dalasis worth of some kind of peanut I’ve never heard of.

Rugi and I make it to the market without incident, but at the market she is less than helpful. I want to get the nebbam karre first, but I have no idea what sort of thing it is It could be a cooking oil, or a lotion, or something for laundry, or something for bicycles…oil is a pretty universal product, and I’ve no idea what “karre” might be. Rugi doesn’t appear to know either. She asks first the ladies selling vegetables and then the men selling shoes, “Where is the nebbam karre?”

I’m embarrassed to follow Rugi, as if I were incapable of asking this simple question for myself, so I tell her I am going to ask Samba Njie. He leads me right to the nebbam karre seller. I still have no idea what it is, but fudge-like yellowy cubes are counted out and put in bags for me. Rugi asks the vendor if she also sells minty-lait. I expect the woman to say no, because I do not see any of the little lip balm tins, but to my surprise she says yes and something like petroleum jelly is plopped into a plastic baggy.

I say, “Now let’s get what Jainabou wanted.”

Rugi says, “okay.”

We stand still. Rugi appears to have forgotten that she is supposed to be leading the way. I start to walk towards where most of the food vendors are. I ask a lady selling bean sandwiches where to buy “Rugi what is it Jainabou wanted?”
Rugi: “What?”
Me: “…what Jainabou wanted.”
Rugi is clearly distracted by the million things happening at the market, but manages to recall the name of the peanuts. We are directed to the table of ladies selling soap.

I ask, “Do you sell peanuts…” waiting for Rugi to jump in with the specifics about the type of peanut. Rugi never does fill in the details, but the lady must’ve known because she gestures towards a bowl of what might be peanuts.

“Rugi, is this what Jainabou wants?”

“Hmm?”

“Is this what Jainabout wants?”

“Yes.”

Then I ask if Rugi would like an icee because no am not buying her a whatever it is she is begging me for and an icee is what I’d bought for Pateh and Ous when they followed me to the market. Rugi agrees, until I am counting out change for the icees and the lady is picking one out of her cooler.

“No, I want peanuts.”

Luckily, the lady selling peanuts is also right in front of us so I apologize to the icee vendor and say I will buy five dalasis of peanuts instead. As the lady is scooping the peanuts onto a piece of paper, Rugi shakes her head no.

“You don’t want peanuts?”

No, she wants the kind of peanuts Jainabou got. I say no because those peanuts are ten dalasis and I am only spending five dalasis, icees or these peanuts, which will it be?
The ice and peanut vendors nod and murmur in a “kids these days” sort of way. “Peanuts,” Rugi grumbles.

I thought we were ready to leave the market and buy the medicine from that man in Camara Kunda, but now Rugi is starting to ask people where the medicine is so I tell we are going back and asking Samba. Samba points me to a man standing not far away. In front of the man is a table scattered with pills of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Rugi, predictably, provides no help in locating the pills Fatou Bobo asked for. Fatou Bobo had warned me not to rely on Rugi’s memory, but she failed to realize that my own memory, for unfamiliar words and unknown products, is no more reliable.

I greet the medicine vendor, then turn to Rugi and ask, “What medicine did your mom want?”

“Medicine.”

“I know, but what medicine?”

“To drink.”

“You drink all medicine.” (in Pulaar “to drink” is the verb used for consumption of medicine, even if the medicine is, in fact, chewed)

“Pills.”

“Rugi, many medicines are pills; not all pills are the same. Your mom said medicine for a paining back, I think?”

The man holds up a plastic baggy filled with bright red pills. Rugi nods her head yes. I sigh, “No, she said the white ones.”

The man holds up a plastic baggy filled with off-white pills. I ask, “This is medicine for…?”
“A paining body.”

The pills look familiar, like something I’d seen Neene with before, and they’re the right color, so I say okay.

“How many do you want?” the medicine man wants to know.

“Ten dalasis.”

He counts out ten dalasis’ worth of pills, pours them into a new baggy and ties it shut.
Rugi and I bike back and distribute the purchases to Jainabou and Fatou Bobo—miracle of miracles!—we’ve purchased everything correctly.

Two weeks later Neene tries to send me for the pills I bought last time and Jainabou again wants those special peanuts but that day the medicine man did not come and the lady did not cook the special peanuts.