BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS

In the morning, we walked to Naffi’s house, where I brought her some of the fabric I had selected in Serekunda so that I could order some bags from her (she was a seamstress). On the way home, we stopped at a nearby resort on the ocean, Halahein.

We saw a man walking on the beach with a baby on his shoulders. We waved to him and he began to walk in our direction. He was a cab driver named Mosha and his little son was Ibrahaim (a very popular name, we were learning.)

The calm, friendliness of the Gambian people is striking. They just talk to you with no agenda other than to greet you and learn about you. No fear or awkwardness. No social anxiety. No judgment.

When we said we wanted to go to Nemasu in the afternoon, Mosha said he would be happy to take us. But he must have been needed elsewhere as later, it was Janko who appeared, and not Mosha. Janko dropped us at Medina village where we were engulfed by a river of village children. They walked with us the rest of the distance to Nemasu, tugging our shirts and asking for pens or candies. Karamba explained that the village kids will always want something sweet and that if they get pens, they will give them to their older brothers and sisters for school. The children were as uninhibited as they were beautiful and posed like seasoned models in front of the camera.

At Nemasu, we ate lunch, used the internet, and chatted with other travelers before returning on foot to Boboi via the beach path.

Back at the lodge, we met Karen, a Canadian woman in her sixties with blotchy, sunburnt skin and wild, graying blonde hair held back by a magenta headscarf. She wore a snug, blue boubou and seemed eager to chat. A young, Gambian man trailed in her wake—her “boyfriend”, she explained with a jejune sort of giggliness. He was tall and handsome and around Karambe’s age (twenty-six) with a footballer’s physique. He did not speak, only smiled sheepishly, eyes darting between us with deliberate quickness. Later, I would rue giving her my WhatsApp, as she texted frequently, never anything of importance, only oversharing about health problems or providing an unsolicited blow-by-blow of her relationship woes. The latter seemed an inevitability, as her partner was clearly more than thirty years younger than she.

Soon after, we crossed paths with Alke—a fast-talking, redheaded German girl that we had met at Nemasu. She was, of course, on her way to surfing lessons and flew past in a haze of sunscreen and sandalwood, merrily hollering, “Tschüuuuuss!”, like a sort of dredlocked Pippi Longstocking.

Antje’s friend, Sarjo and Idi the tailor came by in the evening. As soon as he saw me, Idi shrugged apologetically because he had forgotten to bring his tape measure. I waved it off and we had a Julebrew. It seemed I would have to wait another day to be measured for my custom tailored Gambian pants.