I put on some sunscreen, tie my head wrap, put my wallet and mobile in my bag, and head out. I borrow a bike from the house. The tires are nearly flat, the brake wires are sticking out of their plastic casings, the seat cover’s foam is exposed, and when I sit down (after wiping off a thick layer of dust) I see that the seat is much too low for me. I decide not to raise it, however, because there’s a high probability I’ll be using my feet as brakes. So, I set off, a white lady in green, peacock-patterned clothes; wearing over-sized blue earrings and riding a bright purple, broken-down bike.
I bike past the military checkpoint because it is very obviously the military checkpoint (camouflage, guns) but I stop at the police checkpoint because maybe, despite the propped-up sign reading POLICE, it was actually an immigration checkpoint. Two men are sitting on a bench next to the wooden shelter under the tree. One man is wearing a police uniform, the other, jeans and a red t-shirt. The uniformed man is on the phone, so I approach T-shirt.
“Jam nyelli,” I greet.
“Jam tan.”
“No golle de?”
“Jam tan.”
“Kono a anda honto ‘pharmacy’ Ous Camara woni?”
“I don’t speak Pulaar very well, wait.” He waves an arm at Uniform, who finishes up his conversation and asks me what I need.
“I am looking for Ous Camara’s pharmacy.”
“Ous Camara? Walk down this road until the junction, then turn this way and walk—do you know where the immigration post is?”
“No.”
The instructions that follow are either to the immigration post, or to the pharmacy. T-shirt decides to join in the direction giving, and the two men sometimes disagree about where I should go.
“Go straight until…”
“Straight? She should turn at…”
“No, let’s have her go straight until…and then…”
I am asked several more times if I know were Immigration is and am told once I get to Immigration, the men there will be able to show me Ous Camara’s compound. The directions themselves are a scrambled mix of walking straight, turning this way or that way, junctions and forgotten landmarks. I interpret these directions as: walk until the first intersection and ask again.
I stop outside of a sort of hardware store, the same one that once gave me some nails for free because I didn’t even need a half kilo, just ten. Not that they’d remember, it was over a year ago. Besides nails, the shop also sells tires and other parts and pieces I’d be able to identify if I were mechanically-minded. Several motorcycles are parked in a row outside. The Man-in-Charge is engaged with another man who’s just pulled up on a motorcycle, so I turn to the teenage boy sitting on the step.
“Jam nyelli.”
Silence.
“Tana ala?”
Silence.
“A anda honto ‘immigration’ woni?”
Silence.
Thankfully, the Man-in-Charge comes over.
“Yes? What are you looking for?”
“I am trying to find Immigration.”
He gives me directions similar to the police officer’s, which I interpret similarly: stop at the next intersection and ask someone before turning anywhere. After confirming which direction to turn at the current intersection—“this way,”—I thank the man and continue on my way.
The next intersection is the one where there are always shoes laid out for sale, and women selling fruit or sandwiches. I walk up to the lady sitting behind a table of stacked oranges.
“Jam nyelli.”
Silence, accompanied by an arm swept over her display of oranges.
“Hono gole de?”
Silence, again accompanied by arms imploring me to examine the oranges.
“Mi soodani lemune. Mido fala yahde ‘immigration,’ kono me anda honto o woni.” I’m not buying an orange. I want to go to Immigration, but I don’t know where it is.
An orange is picked up and held forward for my inspection. I shake my head no and walk over to the lady selling bean sandwiches. She is busy spreading the beans/oil/spaghetti mixture into a loaf of bread for a customer.
“Where are you trying to go?”
“Immigration.”
“Go down this road, then turn ‘this way.’ It is not far.”
“Thank you.”
I walk down the road and turn left. No immigration officers in sight. I walk a bit farther and end up near the car park. I wonder why no one has given me “car park” as a landmark. Furthermore, I do not see any immigration officers before the road turns again—the lady hadn’t told me to turn twice and she’d told me it wasn’t far. Huh.
Nearby, two women are washing out metal bowls by the side of the road; I interrupt them to greet and they appear equally pleased. They tell me walk up this road (the one I’d just finished walking down) and then turn “this way.” I walk until the intersection, then realize I don’t know which way “this way” was referring to. She had pointed to the right, but it is a three-way intersection. Did she mean the far right? Or the sort of right? If I go to the far right, I’m back on the road with the orange and sandwich sellers. I choose the sort-of-right road.
After walking down the road a little bit I change my mind and decide I’d better stick to the plan: ask confirmation before making any turns. I walk back to the intersection and stop before the fabric shop on the corner, the large one with steps leading up to the entrance, with the stacks of Korans for sale. I greet and ask for Immigration. I’m grateful that:
- a man replies in Pulaar, instead of silence
- he sticks to just answering my question, despite the temptation to ask my marital status and country of origin.
I continue until the next intersection. A woman on the corner is selling oranges and peanuts. Her customer, an old man with thick-lensed glasses, also turns around to greet me. I ask where Immigration is. She points me down the road I just walked up.
?
A woman walking up behind me joins our conversation. She is angry because I did not hear, and she has been calling me for a long time, a piece of my wrap-skirt is caught in my bicycle chain.
I was, in fact, aware of this. Not aware that she’d been calling me, but aware that the hem of my wrap-skirt had ripped but—what was I going to do about it now? I’d planned on waiting until I was back at the house and then cutting it off with a pair of scissors, but the woman clearly wanted me to do something. It seemed rude to ask, “Well, waddaya want me to do about it?” plus I don’t know how to say that in Pulaar, so, hoping I wasn’t about to completely destroy my wrap-skirt, I grabbed the offending scrap of hem and yanked. It tore off cleanly and left the remainder of the skirt unscathed. I breathe a sigh of relief. The woman says, “Mmm, hmm,” in the tone of “There we are, that’s much better.” Then the two women return to giving me directions. I am either emitting a “hopeless at directions” vibe or they’ve been watching me trudge up and down this road, because before they get very far in their direction-giving, they look around for someone to show me the way instead.
A grubby looking kid steps forward to volunteer. When we are out of earshot of the women, he tells me to give him fifty dalasis. I tell him that is too much. I silently consider giving him five dalasis, but change my mind after he repeats his request for fifty dalasis two more times. Also, he did not have to lead me very far at all. The immigration office is on the left side of the road, past the sandwich seller but before the corner fabric store. Everyone had been giving me correct directions after all, but I hadn’t known that “turn this way” might mean “turn this way into your destination,” not “turn this way down the road.”
Also, the immigration post looks nothing like I’d been picturing. I’d thought the immigration post would be an un-missable road block with men in navy blue uniform, boots and berets. What I actually found was a building with a tan and green GID truck parked outside (GID—Gambian Immigration Department) and some men sitting in the shade outside the building’s two entrances. I approach two of the men.
“Jam nyelli.”
Silence. Maybe, like seemingly everyone else in Basse today, they don’t speak Pulaar.
“Salaam Maleekum.”
Silence. That’s annoying. Maybe I said it too softly.
“Salaam Maleekum.”
Silence. I can’t say it any louder without yelling it. I try to think what I could be doing wrong and spend a few awkward seconds staring silently at the two men, wondering why they’re not at least attempting, in any language, to ask me why I’m standing and awkwardly staring at them. Luckily I notice another man, hidden in the other doorway, motioning me over.
“Jam nyelli.”
“I don’t speak Pulaar.”
“But you speak English?”
“Yes.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I am looking for Ous Camara’s pharmacy.”
“Ous Camara, eh?”
He pauses to think. I worry. Everyone—the bitik owner from the first day of my quest, the women who suggested I take a taxi that day I had all those groceries, the police officers earlier today—had given Immigration as the landmark for finding Ous Camara’s pharmacy. If the pharmacy is so nearby, why does this man need to stop and think?
“Walk down this road and turn [his arm points left] at the small junction, where there are people selling jewellery.”
“Thank you.”
I stop at the first side street I see. It is very small and smells awful, like sewage. Somehow water has managed to collect in the middle of the road, even though it is hot and dry and hasn’t rained in months. The road is bumpy, with miniature dunes of sand piled on the sides, and I decide to hop off my bike and walk rather than risk toppling into the foul-smelling water. I see the metal-workers’ yard ahead, and behind, what look like people’s compounds. I remember what the police officer had said about Ous’s compound, so I figure I’m on the right track and maybe he runs the pharmacy out of his home. Or maybe this large building on the left is the pharmacy. There’s a kid swinging hot coals for brewing attaya; I stop and ask him where the pharmacy is.
“Jam nyelli.”
Silence.
“Honto ‘pharmacy’ woni?”
Silence.
“A nanni Pulaar?”
“Seeda.”
“Do you speak English?”
A helpless shrug.
“Pharmacy,” I say slowly, figuring that word, at least, will be the same in whatever language he speaks and hoping he’ll realize I’m asking “Where is the pharmacy?” rather than any of the other questions a lost person would ask about a pharmacy. But either “pharmacy” is not “pharmacy” in the kid’s language after all, or he’s never been to a pharmacy, nor heard of anyone who’s been, or the directions are too complicated for him to explain through sign language, because his response is again silence, accompanied by a blank stare. An approaching man comes to his rescue.
“What do you want?”
“Ous Camara’s pharmacy.”
“You just missed it!”
Actually, I had not “just missed” the pharmacy but was instead “almost there.” I had turned down too soon. I needed to walk back to the main road, continue the direction I’d been going, and turn “this way.”
“This way?” I confirm, not wanting to make a mistake now that I was apparently so close.
“Yes. You will see a building it is written ‘Ous Camara’s Pharmacy.’”
This is the first detail I’ve been given about what the actual pharmacy looks like. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to ask anyone how to recognize the pharmacy once I found it, it’s not like I could expect a booming voice to announce “Stop Sonja, you have arrived at your destination” and if one did it would probably be cause for alarm. Anyway. I am glad to learn the pharmacy is labeled.
Back on the main road I could easily have tripped over a goat or been run over by a donkey cart because I keep my eyes glued to the shop names. I’d never bothered reading these before, and am surprised so many of the shops even have names. I’m even more surprised when I read “Pharmacy Ous Camara.” I’ve found it! I’ve finally found it! I’ve really and truly found it!
I move my eyes down to look at the actual pharmacy. Given the number of people all over town who knew about Ous Camara and his Pharmacy (and they always said his name like he was a personal acquaintance, “Oh, Ous Camara?”) the pharmacy is surprisingly small and over-lookable, squeezed in among all the other buildings. Despite this, it is quite pharmacy-like. There’s a white counter with a glass display case beneath, and another glass display case in a corner. These, and some shelves, contain boxes and bottles of medicines, Children’s Vitamins, and feminine hygiene products. Behind the counter a man is napping and a woman is eating a sandwich. I greet them. They return my greetings. This is a good sign.
As the woman appears the most awake, I address my newspaper question to her.
“Mido faala…andi kaytol, si goto yeeyay mburru, sifa o, goto wii ko ga on yeeyay dum heewi.” I want…you know paper, if someone will sell bread, like this, someone said it is here you all will sell a lot of that.
“Speak English.”
I am both deflated at the un-success of my explanation and relieved I that I can use English instead.
“Someone told me you sell newspapers here.”
She says they do. I say I would not like to buy a newspaper, but I want to know where it is she gets them from. She explains, without enthusiasm, that the papers are printed in the Kombos and then brought to the different regions, each region has a different newspaper, this is the Upper River Region, in the Upper River Region it is The Point. In the Central River Region…
I realize she thinks I want to read about current events in The Gambia. I explain I’m looking for old newspapers, ones from Europe, like what people will use to wrap bread when they sell it.
“Where are you from, America?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She unwraps the newspaper from the remainder of her sandwich and spreads it out.
“I don’t know if this is from America or England,” she says, and I’m hoping she doesn’t think I’m interested in that particular grease-stained scrap of newspaper.
“I think England,” she continues, “This store, Boots, is in England, but I do not think it is in America.”
”No, it is not in America. Also, the prices are in pounds, not dollars,” I say, pointing to one of the £s in the advertisement. She refers me to the man sitting outside, the one in blue, do I see him, right there.
There are two men in blue, but as they are sitting in the same group, I do not bother to point this fact out. I thank her and go greet the group of three elderly men.
I begin my explanation about looking for the people who sell the papers, the ones for bread… “Speak English.” After listening to my question, the men direct me to that shop over there, the one with the car outside. I am told that man outside will be able to help me.
I walk over. Things proceed much as they have been recently. I greet, begin explaining my quest, am interrupted, told to speak English, and start over.
I begin by confirming that he knows the newspapers I’m talking about, the ones sent over from Europe that people will buy to wrap bread in. I say I think after they are sent from Europe they will arrive in Kombo, and then where will they go? The men sitting over there said you would be able to help me. When the people in Basse want to buy the newspapers, do they need to go all the way to Kombo, or is there one person who will buy them and bring them to Basse?
No.
Each person must go to Kombo and buy what they want?
Yes.
The man actually was not giving me one syllable answers, I just forget the other words. I also forget how the conversation went next, but I remember that just when I’d worried I’d reached a dead end, because he didn’t seem to know where in Kombo the newspapers were kept, or wasn’t understanding that was information I wanted to know, he asked if I knew Gara Gambi Sara.
“No, I don’t know.”
“¿Habla español?”
“No.”
He says something in rapid Spanish either to himself or the man standing next to him. I do, actually, remember “izquierda” and “derecha,” but as “left” and “right” haven’t seemed to be words people use when giving directions, this tid-bit of remembered Spanish would probably not have been any help.
He begins again in English. “Go straight on this road, past the junction and keep going. I will see the place where the taxis park”
“Yes, I know there,” I interrupt, because that time I’d taken a taxi (after failing to find the pharmacy) I’d been dropped off on a road lined with parked taxis. This didn’t mean I’d be able to find my way back there. Or that we were thinking of the same taxi-lined street.
The man continues and tells me to go past the taxis until I see a big building with Coca-Cola painted on it. Ask the people there.
I thank him and walk back to the house, saving Garas Gambi Sara for another day.
On the way back to the house, I stop at the mini-mart for a soda. Two unidentified toubab women are also in the store. I’m not a striking-up-conversations-with-unidentified-toubabs kind of person, so even though I’m curious to know what they’re doing in Basse—tourists? missionaries? Peace Corps volunteers from Senegal?—I remove a can of Coke from the fridge in silence. But other people are more sociable than me.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“You smell really nice.”
“Thank you.”
She is, however, lying. I cannot possibly smell “nice” let alone “really nice.” I’d just come back from biking around the market, in the sun, in the middle of the day, in The Gambia. Not only that, but I had not bathed since the evening before, and then only barely, because it had been cold and windy. I decide she must be a missionary, dedicated to brightening people’s days, and having searched in vain for something more normal to compliment me on, had settled for my scent.
Or…wait! I reconsider. She must be a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, who’d been spending a lot of time with volunteers smellier than I, so that by comparison, I smelled really nice. I laugh to myself about the joke I’d made to myself, but continue puzzling over her compliment for the rest of the walk back to the house.
The sunscreen! She must’ve smelled the sunscreen I’d slathered myself in! Back at the house, I take the bottle out of the cabinet and copy down the information for the benefit of anyone else hoping to smell Really Nice.
Coppertone Water Babies
sunscreen lotion
70+ SPF #1 Pediatrician Recommended Brand
Broad Spectrum UVA/UVB Protection Waterproof
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