AGAINST OF THE LAW
We arrived at breakfast at around 9: 30 AM, where Antje sat with us, still shivering a little until the sun streamed down. Along with our usual coffee, tea, tapalappa bread, jam, peanut butter, and marmalade, we shared amongst us a huge papaya that Karamba had brought from his village of Berending.
It was such a huge papaya! While we ate, Antje told us about her concert pianist uncle back in Germany who is still teaching at ninety years old and gives concerts sponsored by Busendorf. She said he plays Bach and sometimes Brahms with such deep feeling that people in the audience hug each other and cry.
After breakfast, I found Saffi and she began the process of plaiting my hair, there, on a pillow outside the kitchen while Kaddy and Boboi ran literal circles around us. She brought a speaker out and played the music we had danced to the week before, the same music she used in her class at school—Tiwa Savage, Kondele, King, etc.—and we sang while she worked. Antje and Tor came over to observe every so often. Lady, the head of housekeeping, appeared now and again, smiling and nodding with approval as she appraised Saffi’s work.
While she braided, Saffi told me about meeting Bubba in 2009, about her family in Dakar and Serekunda, and Buba’s family in Kartung. She explained more about her work at the Norway-Gambia school and how she volunteers as a dance teacher there to keep the students engaged and relaxed as they pursue their studies. She talked about visiting Spain the year before and about how even the smallest cultural differences can complicate relationships with international friends and visitors, alike.
Village life in Kartung is very simple, but it is also a fishbowl of sorts, and can make a person long for air, freedom, and the autonomy that comes with larger and more diverse places. I got the impression that perhaps Saffi would enjoy living somewhere bigger, like Dakar, or even—abroad, if given the chance.
What Saffi did with my hair was truly amazing. When she had finished, I marveled at the new length, the vibrant color, and the unfamiliar weight of the many long braids that ran the length of my back and swung like jungle vines off of my head.
Afterwards, we walked to Naffi’s house. There, we bought three of her large, handsewn bags and five small ones, and she made us an amazing lunch of grilled fish, bean salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, and green pepper. We also met little Mohammed—the smallest of her four children at three months; an unreasonably adorable baby.
On the way back to Boboi, we saw Suele and Ibrahim in the lane, Suele had a small transistor radio and they were oblivious to the world, singing and dancing to hip-hop music. When they caught sight of us, they waved us over and pointed out a long-limbed monkey skimming across the canopy overhead and a large swarm of bees industriously flying in and out a tree trunk.
Later, as we lounged at the beach, a “Bumster” came by with a very long story about coming from Syria on a boat. His story kept changing the longer he went on and in the end it came down to: “So, you see, I have this book I want to sell you about Gambian Tourism and I really wish you would buy it because I have no money for anything now that I have survived this terrible journey from Syria.”
I clucked my tongue and shook my head. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a hard time but we are leaving Africa soon and have no room for more things.”
“I will give it to you as a gift!” He interrupted.
“No, no. I would rather you keep it and sell it to someone else since you need the money.”
At this, he waggled his head and I could tell he was giving up.
“Ok then,” He said. “I hope you have a nice day. It was nice to meet you.”
I wished him the same and he walked off in the direction of some other people enjoying peace and quiet on their sun beds.
Soon after this, Tor arrived and we went to see what a group of vultures were paying so much attention to down by the water’s edge. It was a turtle shell, it turned out. Some time ago, it had had an occupant, but no longer. The fascinating thing was that the pattern on the shell was white on green, and it made the shape of Africa!
Antje came down then, cradling her arm (which she hurt coming out of the shower, slipping on the wet tile). She admired the turtle shell with us and then went to Hotel Sandele to use the internet and contact her friend, Modous about taking us sightseeing the next day.
Playing games on the beach with Miss Kaddy ….
While I waited for Idi (he was coming to discuss some bags that he was sewing for me), Kaddy and I played her memory card game. We were joined by David Clay who had just arrived from Gunjur by bus. Dave was a very kind, inquisitive Englishman with a slight, springy build and curly, gray hair; a semi-retired biologist on a week-long holiday, gamely checking out the Gambian coast. He had considered going on to Senegal but Buba told him that the border would be closed for three days until the election was over and trying to cross it could result in a €7000 government fine! So, he wisely opted to lounge by the sea in Kartung.
Saffi came to fetch me when Idi arrived and stayed to interpret between us in Mandinka. Idi agreed to sew twelve bags for one hundred and fifty Dalasi ($3 USD) each. They would be simple strap bags with one zipper, and made from the ten meters of colorful fabric left over from our trip to the Serekunda markets. He was a speedy sewer, he said, and promised that the bags would be done in three days.
When I returned to the restaurant, Tor and I chatted with Dave while we continued to play a board game with Kaddy. She was in high spirits, as usual, and kept switching the rules. She laughed uproariously as we feigned shock at her silliness. Whenever something happened to move one of her opponents further than she on the board, she would shout in a loud voice:
“It’s against of the LAW!”
Which, would also send Tor and I into hysterics, making this particular phrase a sort of mantra for us and one which we still repeat, to this day.
Dave Clay found all of this extremely entertaining, and drank his beer and smoked his cigarettes quite contentedly as he watched us play. But it wasn’t until after the game board was cleared away, and Kaddy and Boboi were whisked off for their own supper, and we all ordered Saffi’s Butterfish and rice with doumada, that we were able to engage in uninterrupted conversation.
Antje joined us for dinner and we all talked together until midnight about all our collective adventures. We discussed travel at large, Gambia, Senegal, biology, oceanography, technology, geography, our families and friends, our jobs and our interests.
I explained to Dave that in 2016, I had taken a six-week solo trip to a mountain-top cabin in the Canary Islands where I met Antje, and that when I returned to the US, I became very sick and never thought I would travel again. But after several long months, I finally healed. And in the two years following, went on to travel throughout Bosnia, Croatia, Germany, England, France, Mexico, Spain, Hawaii, Canada, and of course, the great, American West.
Dave told us about his travels through Africa and Oceania, and about his fourteen-year-old daughter back in Sussex who was an aerial gymnast.
Antje explained that she was building yet another solar-powered building on her property in Garafia and that in the future, she wanted to host meditation retreats.
As travelers out in the world often do, and with unmatchable fervor and curiosity, we talked about it all.