Lamin!

Yesterday (and I'm in front of the computer now, so yesterday is actually yesterday) I went to Lamin to visit my host uncle Kairaba, who is actually my host-first-cousin-once-removed, as Google tells I should call my host mom’s cousin. He was staying with a family there and I’d been instructed to visit while I was in Kombo because he had something for me to give to Neene. In other words, I was being small-boy-ed to run their errands.

 First I needed directions to Lamin. This was a multi-step process.

1. I called Kairaba. He started giving me directions, in Pulaar, over a semi-crackly phone connection, that went something like, “Go to Serrekunda. Then go to A-Village-You’ve-Never-Heard-Of. If you get there, go past there until Some-Other-Place. And then…” I figured I could find an English speaker who could give directions in person, as long as I could be sure of the name. “Lamin?” “Yes, Lamin. Lamin Koto.” 
2. I announce to everyone present in the living room, “Does anyone know how to get to Lamin? Lamin Koto?” Am told to ask the guard.
3. I ask the guard, “How do I get go Lamin Koto?” He says he has never been, but he believes first I must cross the ferry at Banjul. When I get to Barra, to the car park, there will be cars going to Lamin Koto. I find it strange, and annoying, that Kairaba would claim to be in Kombo when he was actually somewhere across the river.
4. I open a Gambia guidebook and discover Lamin Koto is somewhere near Janjanbury. There is no other Lamin Koto.
5. I remember I am in Internet Land and search for Lamin Koto on Google maps. Receive confirmation that it is somewhere near Janjanbury. Search for Lamin and learn it is right next to Serrekunda. Decide Lamin, not Lamin Koto, is my destination. 
6. I’d originally told Kairaba I would meet him on Sunday, but it pours rain Sunday morning and that makes the roads a mess, and I had other things I wanted to get done, so… I call Kairaba to tell him “until Tuesday” and also to say that, unlike I originally thought, no one was able to tell me how to get to Lamin, so could he tell me? He says go to Serrekunda, to where the cars are, and say, “Lamin! Lamin! Lamin!” I ask, “Where in Serrekunda?” He doesn’t seem to think this matters. I ask, “Westfield?” “Yes, if you go to Westfield, then say Lamin! Lamin! you will get a car to Lamin. Then call me and I will meet you at the road.” 
7. On Tuesday, I stop by the Peace Corps office on my way to Westfield. I run into a couple of volunteers who ask me what I’m up to. I explain I’m trying to go to Lamin and it turns out both of them have been there before. One says he doesn't know Lamin very well, though, because he'd only gone to meet someone at Starfish Academy. I tried to keep listening, but it is hard to pay attention after someone has said "Starfish Academy" in a serious tone of voice and even harder when the person keeps repeating "Starfish Academy" and even now, writing this, I just want to burst out laughing. Anyway, both volunteers confirmed that I should do as I’d planned: Go to Westfield. Find a car to Lamin. Tell the aparantee to tell me when I reach Lamin. 
8. I call Kairaba when I get in the car. He says he’ll meet me at the road, then calls back to specify, “At NTC junction.” And that’s where I find him. 

Given how long this introduction is, you’re probably thinking this adventure was AWESOME!!! To save you disappointment later, I’ll disappoint you now. Nothing at all happened. It was a long and boring afternoon spent doing nothing, because no one could speak Pulaar and the kids were too busy running up and down a pile of dirt to come play with the toubab. But in preparation for the Something Interesting I kept thinking would happen (and to give myself something to do) I took copious notes, via text messages I sent to myself.  


Thus I present: A Detailed Account of a Very Long Afternoon in which Nothing of Particular Interest Happened. 

• Kairaba is staying in the back-room of a bitik that is empty except for a lone can of insecticide and some plastic crates holding half a dozen empty soda bottles. His room is nearly as bare: there is a bed and some items scattered next to the mat on the floor. These items include: nail clippers, a Koran with gold letters on the cover, papers with Koranic passages he's written out, some coins, candles, matches, a bottle of cologne.
• I ask Kairaba if it was him who wrote out the passages. He says yes, prayer is medicine.
•  I notice a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. I ask if there is electricity. He says yes and gets up to turn the switch on. We admire the glowing bulb for longer than necessary. He flips the switch off.
• Kairaba tells me they will buy me a soda, they want to buy me a soda. I say I am fine with just water, "Soda has too much sugar." "Would you like cold water?" "Okay."
• Do I want to bathe? No. Lie down? No. What I'd really love is to go home, but Kairaba says I must wait until evening, when his host returns from work. He works at the airport.
• After we finish eating, a girl comes in to sweep away the fallen bits of rice and the fish bones we've spat out. Kairaba comments, "Here and Fatoto are different." I agree. "Here," Kairaba continues, "the people do 'respect.' In Fatoto, there is no 'respect.'" 
• Lamin is not the worst place to spend an afternoon doing nothing, because the cool salty wind lets me drift into New England memories.
• "Do you known Foday Susso? He is in America." "Where in America?" I reply, as if I know numerous Foday Sussos. "...I don't know. He is in...I forget. But he is there, he plays the kora." 
• Kairaba says his hosts want to put a T.V. in his room, but he shrugs to indicate he doesn't understand of what use that would be.
• There are clumps of false hair hanging on the laundry line next to the shirts.
• One woman who spoke some Pulaar told me she has been to America. She has been to New York, Atlanta, Canada and Chicago. She wants to know if I think The Gambia is sweet. I say it is. I say, "The Gambia has mangoes and attaya." Then follows a discussion about the price of mangoes in America.
•  A woman arrives in a cloud of perfume. She’s got short styled hair, rhinestones scattered across her dress and eight orange sparkly flower puffs around the collar.
• There are a lot of toys in the compound: a teddy bear; a stuffed character from Barney the Dinosaur (the green dinosaur, I forget her name); a bouncy ball filled with glittery liquid; a rainbow bouncy ball; a plastic giraffe with knobby knees and a kink in its neck; Barbie-like dolls but made of cheaper plastic and with tackier clothes and yellow hair that quickly gets ripped out, leaving only enough for three small braids (and after the doll's hair is braided the girls take turns tying it to their backs with a length of fabric); and a child-size plastic lawn chair with the words "Smile Factory."
• "Where in America? Toronto? Detroit?" "Near New York." I wish that weren't such a tongue twister.
• Mom ate the leftover baby food.
• Two men step out of a white and shiny car—the airport host? Finally? Yes, but I won’t learn this until a half hour or so later when Kairaba emerges from his nap.  
• They used to live near Fatoto, in Pasamance. Do I know Pasamance? Across the river, three kilometers, or four. "Where is more sweet, here or there?" he asks me. "Here, a little." He laughs, "It's not just a little!" 
• There are teal buttons on the teal skirts of the school uniforms, and ties for boys and girls. 
•  “He likes police business too much,” one of the women says, in English. “They say I talk too much,” he replies, to me. I nod, even though I cannot understand how those thoughts are connected.
• One of the men back from work brings his lunch outside to eat. He asks me what it is, it's a test. "Isn't it plasas?" "Yes, it is plasas. Very good. You can open a restaurant when you return to America." But later he tells me, "You can sell bread when you return to America. Bread and mangoes." I tell him that will not give me a lot of money. He says neither will teaching. Touché.

And then I went back to the transit house and ate Rice-a-roni and did Nothing in Particular and went to bed.