Sometimes Things Get Surrealistic

Sometimes things get surrealistic. One of the difficult things here is the lack of information; how to find resources. There is no telephone book; no yellow pages. Don’t expect to find it on the internet. One simply has to ask. Answers are often inaccurate and conflicting.
If you need, for instance, an automobile part there is a strip along both sides of the highway in Old Jeshwan where, for half a mile, there is store after shop after store selling automotive items. You might be lucky and find what you need there. It might take looking in a dozen shops. Then, not finding it, you might ask around and eventually be told there are more auto parts shops on the Brickama Highway in Latrikunda. So, you go to Latrikunda. After finding and then exhausting those shops and inquiring even further you might, if you are fortunate, be told about the used parts shops in another place called Paka. You then seek directions to Paka and are misled with vague directions and a lot of pointing and then finally find the narrow, oil-saturated alley where cars are dismantled and the parts sold.
If you are a toubab the prices will be inflated astronomically since, by Gambian reckoning, if you are white you must be rich. Thus, some weeks ago, after 4 hours trying to find some simple retaining springs for the brake shoes I was replacing I was offered three sets for 900 dalasis, about $30. These are the same springs that if you walk into a brake shop in the US they’ll give you a handful for free. I told the man he could keep his parts and I would keep my dalasis. I ended up reusing the almost-rusted-out ones I’d taken off. No way was I going to get jacked up. Nosiree.
Stupid pride? I admit it.
Today I was motoring around on the bike, looking for plastic bags in which to start some cashew trees. I’ve bought a chunk of land and I plan to plant cashew trees. They are a valuable crop. Besides, I love cashews. Caramel cashew ice cream is the closest thing to heaven I can imagine. They had it in Michigan when I was in med school and I’d never tasted anything like it before nor have I since.
So, my good friend, Edward Gomez, attorney extraordinaire and aspiring agriculturalist, gave me a container of seed cashews from Brazil for starting. Much bigger than the ordinary cashews grown here, they should fetch a good price. Here, cashew trees begin bearing two years after planting.
Cashews are not nuts. (This author may be, but cashews are not.) They are the pistil of a flower. A fruit that looks much like a delicious apple forms after fertilization and the “nut” sticks out the end of it. The “nut” is surrounded by a very hard shell and the meat is inside. The “apple” is edible. The juice is slightly sweet and has an astringent taste I’m not crazy about. I’m told though, that the juice is used for making a potent alcoholic drink that is very popular among non-Muslims. The left-over fruit pulp, squeezed out and dried, is valuable fodder for cattle, sheep and goats.
So, why are things surrealistic? you ask. As I said, I am putting around on Timpa Marong, my F650 BMW motorbike, (Blackest of motorcycles in The Gambia and envy of all who look upon him!), stopping hither and yon and asking puzzled Gambians if they know where the garden shop is. “I was told it is in New Jeshwan”, I tell them, and so all whom I ask send me in the direction of Old Jeshwan. I ask a policeman directing traffic at Jimpex Junction. He knows me and gives me a big welcome and smile and sends me in the opposite direction to ask his fellow officer, Jobe, who sends me back the way I came with detailed directions which prove to be generally – but not specifically – correct. Cruising past the crossroads he had directed me to and not seeing anything resembling a garden shop, I stop near another officer who is sitting on a guard rail in the median, eating groundnuts.
I pull the bike up on the median near him, shut off the motor, take off my goggles and look at him. He looks back at me, takes another peanut, cracks it and eats it. Then he stands up slowly and approaches. “What do you want?” he says. This is very abrupt for a Gambian. The norm is a greeting: how are you, how is the evening, how is your family, They are there, How are you, I am fine, Thank God, etc. Only then does one get down to the business at hand. So important is this, I might add, that being warned of a charging rhino would only come after a polite series of greetings and a handshake or two.
“Good evening”, I said.
He looked at me for a moment and said, “Good evening.” He was a nice-looking, young man in navy blue trousers, light blue shirt and the natty, black military beret the National Police wear. He had a newspaper cone of peanuts in his hand and an oddly flat expression.
“How is the evening?” I asked, trying not to be too hasty. He considered this. At length he replied, “It is fine.”
“There is supposed to be a garden shop near here. You know, a place that sells things for farming, agriculture and gardens. Do you know where it is?”
He looked at me. He looked away into the distance.
“You are looking for someone,” he stated, quite missing the mark.
“No,” I replied, puzzled, “I am looking for the garden shop,”.
He seemed to ponder this conundrum. He took a moment or two to consider. I thought we were getting somewhere but nothing happened. “You know, agriculture,” I finally suggested. “Do you know what agriculture is?”
“Yes. I know what agriculture is.” He turned to me and asked, “What is your name?”
I hesitated. Usually when the police ask you for your name it is not a good sign. “Dawda”, I told him. He looked at me, waiting for me to add a surname. I waited him out.
“My name is Famara,” he said. “And how long have you lived in The Gambia?”
“What,” I thought, “does this have to do with the garden shop?”
“How long have you lived in The Gambia?” he repeated.
“Off and on for more than three and a half years.”
“You have lived here almost four years.” It was a statement, almost triumphant; the closest he had gotten to any emotion. I was wondering where we were going with this. There was something oddly disconnected about his manner, like his thoughts had gone on vacation but might come jogging back for a visit if I was patient. He kept looking at me, then looking away distractedly over the mangroves. I was waiting for Rod Serling to step out from behind a billboard.
“Do you know where the garden shop is?” I asked again, trying to bring him back on task.
“My job is to look after this 25-kilometer-per-hour speed zone,” he began, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the other side of the divided highway, the one he had been sitting, facing away from. “I am in charge of this.” I kept waiting for him to tell me I had somehow violated some obscure statute, or one he had just invented in order to hit me for a bribe, but this man was not operating true-to-form. He had some other constellation whirling in his cosmos.
I cut in and asked him again about the garden shop.
He pondered this. I waited on his pronouncement. “No.” he finally said, “I don’t know where it is, but give me your number. I will call you when I discover it.”
Before Rod Serling could return control of my TV set to me I thanked him heartily, not quite sure what planet we were on, cranked up the bike and took off in a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi Yo, Silver!”
Some days I think I’m out of my cashews.
***
My land is flat, sandy and measures 60 by 90 meters. There are some scattered oil palms on it but over all the cover is grass and low brush. I bought it from the Alkalo (chief) of Busumbala through his younger son, Musa Jatta. He and his older brother and Kinteh, who provides security over the land, along with myself, my friend, Lamin Kuyate and his neighbor, Ebrima Jawara, all gathered there to measure the borders of the property. I had my handheld GPS along to record the coordinates of the corners. As well, I brought a lensatic compass to double-check the GPS bearings, and pen and paper for notes. I also brought a surveyor who works for the Physical Planning Department.
The surveyor and I had been there two days before, trying to measure the land, but I couldn’t find the first corner we had established a few days before that. At the south end there is a 60 by 30 piece walled in waist-high with concrete blocks. It turns out there are two such compounds, which I didn’t realize, and we were trying to measure from the wrong one.
Surveying in the West African bush isn’t quite the same as the surveying I’m accustomed to. The surveyor had naught but paper, pen, and a 60-meter measuring tape in a round, flat, green plastic reel. No transit. No alidade. No theodolite. We found the stake at the southwest corner of the property, which I then assumed would be the index corner. I took a bearing on the next corner while everyone headed somewhat north toward the northwest corner.
It was hot and the sun slammed me in the head from a clear sky. Hundreds of butterflies danced among salmon-colored flowers. The air smelled of dust and wild mint. I followed the men through the bush. Pausing by a clump of shrubbery, I looked down to see the greenish-purple tail of a meter-long Nile monitor lizard a bare inch from my boot. The tail was as thick as my forearm and powerful. I froze, delighted to see this creature, or at least its tail. The rest was hidden under the bush. With a quick rustle it slipped under the overhanging leaves and disappeared.
Ninety meters was measured and a stake placed. I recorded the position then took a ninety-degree bearing and directed the gang toward the leftmost of two tall palm trees. They measured out sixty meters. I realized I’d neglected to get the position of the northwest stake, so I went back and recorded it. When I returned to the position we had measured for the northeast stake everybody was about ten meters south and further east near a fence line. That was where they had decided the corner was. Hold on a second, guys! You’ve gone too far.
No, no, they declared. This is the corner.
But it’s not where we measured. It’s more than sixty meters and it makes the northwest corner less than ninety degrees. Is the land a rectangle? They assured me it was. And they insisted this was the correct corner. I pointed out that if that was the correct corner then 1. The land was not a rectangle, and 2. They were going to give me more land than I was paying for.
No, no. I could not be correct.
Yes, yes. I know what I’m talking about.
It went back and forth like this until I began to realize they didn’t know what a ninety-degree angle is. I asked Musa’s older brother. He thought I was referring to meters.
It seemed also, the definition of a rectangle was a bit beyond their Euclidian knowledge. OK. I called everyone over and smoothed a patch of sand with my hand. I drew out a rough map of the land, including the fence line (it is a very rough fence of rusted barbed wire and squiggly wooden posts). I drew a picture of a rectangular piece of land. I then drew out what the land would look like if we used their northeast corner: roughly a parallelogram. “Oh, no mattah!” Musa said, “We will give you the extra land. You are our brother.” (I get a bit nervous whenever someone I’ve known for a scant three days starts calling me brother.)
Fine. They all set off for the southeast corner. I asked what they were doing. We are going to measure from that corner to this one.
Hold on! I said. You should measure from this corner to that one. The idea of measuring from a known point to an unknown point just didn’t compute. It took a lot of convincing, but they finally agreed to measure from the northeast to southeast and then back to our index corner in the southwest.
So, it looks like I will own a sort of parallelogram-shaped property, slightly over 90 meters at the north end. I’ve got the GPS coordinates of the corners and the surveyor knows the surrounding pieces of land. I have to get used to the fact that land here has never been measured and bounded precisely. Here, in The Gambia, instruments for establishing boundaries are not lasers or optical devices, they are fences and negotiation,.
I went riding with David Beardsley Sunday before last. We met at the Tanji River Bridge at 9:30; the sun sharing sky room with cumulus banks. The point of the exercise was 1. To have a good time riding, 2. Get to know each other a bit, and 3. For me to learn some off-road riding skills, especially how to get through deep sand.
David was leery of my relatively smooth “dual sport” tires (Metzeler Tourance), which are designed for relatively firm surfaces: asphalt, gravel roads, light sand. “Let’s,” he suggested, “follow a track down here that’s reasonably well-packed. There are sections of deep stuff, but they don’t last long. Are you up for it?” I certainly was. I was also reasonably nervous about the deep stuff. Same sort of anxiety I would feel standing at the top of a steep ski slope with waist-deep powder. Not something I’m used to and afraid of consequences.
David rides a Honda XR-650; a dual-sport closer to a pure dirt machine than my BMW. It is old technology, with a bullet-proof, carbureted engine from the ‘80s, traditional tank layout, and a suspension he has tweaked a bit. He rode trials, ndure and moto-cross for many years as a member of the British Army racing team. He knows his machine. He knows how to ride it. And he is essentially fearless. Not my traits at all!
With a twist of the throttle and a scatter of dirt and pebbles from his knobbies, he skidded the back end around 180 degrees and was off with me in teeth-gritting pursuit. Onto the asphalt of the coastal road, down a kilometer, then abruptly off the pavement onto a dirt road into the bush. Mourning doves and ring-necked doves exploded from the road before David’s tires. I watched him cross a deep patch of rutted sand with a sudden blast of throttle. I tried to stay in the tire tracks left by automobiles that had passed before us, while trying to follow David’s line and emulate his throttle technique. Nonetheless, my rear tire was fishtailing and occasionally the front tire would start weaving back and forth in the sand. My heart was in my nose by now and twice I almost lost control of the front wheel. I was sitting back on the “step” of the passenger seat, trying to keep my shoulders relaxed, wondering if my death-grip on the handlebars would leave dents. I was also wondering when the seemingly inevitable dump would happen and wondering if I would have any dents of my own.
The deep sand was just a bitch. I was scared every moment I was in it and was right at the edge of control. After a few kilometers I finally told David it wasn’t working for me. He agreed. He’d noticed I’d almost lost it a few times and suggested we go back and ride some packed roads to a beachside restaurant he knew and go have a cuppa tea. So we did. We made it back to the coast road without me making a fool or a cripple of myself. After that sand the dirt road was a piece of cake. Past ladies carrying buckets or baskets on their heads, sheep wandering the road, and men driving donkey carts.
We settled down to cups of good English tea at an al fresco bar overlooking the beach. One doesn’t converse with David. One attends. He told me stories about his days with the British Army Racing Team, racing in the UK and on the Continent. Well worth listening too they were, as well. He talked about arriving, for example, at a track in the mountains in Germany. The team would get there a couple of hours early for the race and spend their time running the bikes (BSA 350 and 500 singles) and experimenting with the jetting of the carburetors and suspension setup. He had a notebook in which he’d enter the parameters for that specific track with the particular atmospheric conditions and, armed with this notebook, he could return years later to the same track and know how to jet his carb, what tires to use, etc. Sort of like the rutters kept by ancient navigators.
We talked about tires and about suspension setup. I asked him if he’d take a ride on my bike to get an impression of what needed to be done. He declined. “With those tyres I won’t like it. Get your tyres first,” he said. “Then I’ll ride the bike and we can start setting up the suspension.”
“in the sand,” he said, “you’ve got to use the throttle and ride fast!” He got off his chair and squatted down on the sand. “Here’s what happens when you’re riding slow.” He took the knife-edge of his hand and pushed it through the sand. I watched a bow wave of sand form and flow away from the sides of his advancing hand. “See, you’re pushing the sand out of the way. Now, hit the sand with your fist.” He punched the sand. I punched the sand. It hurt! It’s behavior was different when struck than when pushed.
“If you hit the sand hard with your tire you don’t give it a chance to flow away,” he said. “It acts like a solid.”
It hit me suddenly, the analogy with boating physics. Sand, like water, is a fluid when pushed slowly. It is solid when it’s punched.
The motorcycle tire moving slowly through sand is like a boat with a displacement hull. The sand parts and flows along the sides. Speed isn’t going to happen. Once you start moving faster a different physics goes into play. The tires become planning hulls. They ride up on top of the sand and, as in a boat, the captain has to keep the power on or the hull/tires settle back down, become displacement hulls and the sand becomes a fluid again. Ride fast enough to turn the sand to a solid and things become more predictable.
“It’s the transition that’s tricky,” he said. “It’s while you’re getting from riding slow to where you’re up to speed that’ll get you in trouble.” He was, of course, right, but I found that giving it power, just like in street riding, settles the machine down and gets you through.
So, how is changing direction accomplished? A boat, planing at high speed and trying to change direction will drift sideways unless prevented by some lateral force. In the case of the boat it is the keel or skeg or centerboard. In the case of my motorcycle it is the side ridges on the tire treads. On David’s bike it was the sides of the knobs on his tires. On mine, I had very little of this lateral resistance and I tended to drift out.
There are various techniques for turning but the one David explained to me and the one I used was contrary to all my street training. You stay upright and lean the bike under you. Weight on the outside peg forces the tire straight down into the sand. With the bike leaned over and weight pushing down the centrifugal force of the tire pushes sand to the outside of the turn and, at speed, this wall of displaced sand becomes an instant berm, pushing back against the tire. Force and counterforce. Pure Third-Law Newton.
We finished our tea and David proposed we ride the beach back home. Fine with me. I’m up for a nice, leisurely ride to settle my still-frazzled nerves. We mushed through the deep stuff and got out to the firm sand at water’s edge. There were gulls and fairy terns overhead, broken shell and cuttlebone in the sand and David set off like he had a hot date waiting at home. (Perhaps he did!) 60, 70, 80, 90 kilometers per hour. I kept trying to relax my shoulders and grip and gradually it worked. I experimented with leaning the bike, sensing the counter-push of the sand against the tires.
David would get well ahead of me and then noodle off into the deep sand up the beach, wasting time until I caught up. He did this twice and then I figured, “Sod it!”, turned up the wick and raced him all the way to Brufut Village. I kept thinking of the book A Twist of the Wrist, II, and the constant admonishment to fight one’s normal survival instinct to back off the throttle. Crank it on! Apply power. Power is what settles the machine; what gets you through.
We parted in Brufut, both with many things to do with the rest of our day. It has been nine days since that ride and my confidence in the sand has leaped exponentially. Thanks for the great mentoring, David.

All in one day our golden rooster disappeared and the feral orange and white tom cat that lives in the mango tree ate one of our chicks. I turned the generator shed behind the house into a chicken coop with nesting boxes and a perch. There are three hens: a speckled grey, a golden-brown mama with (now) two chicks, and a white one with a crest like a rooster. Despite her assertive crest she is at the bottom of the pecking order and spends a great deal of time scuttling away from the other chickens. When I had first built the coop and was getting the chooks accustomed to it the now past-tense golden rooster pecked the top of her head into a bloody abattoir. Moose, the older of the two schoolkids in the compound and I had to nurse her back to health. She recovered well physically but now spends a half hour at a time standing by herself on one leg with her left eye shut tight. Some sort of avian Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Or perhaps she just has a headache.
A few days ago a white rooster with black speckles showed up in the compound. We don’t know who he belongs to or where he comes from. I noticed this morning that the family at the back of the compound have tethered him to the empty water tank. He certainly belongs to someone. Perhaps they are planning a surreptitious rooster stew for Tobaski.
The older son, Pa, is a friendly, helpful guy who works out daily and is built like an obsidian Adonis. He needs to buy his taxi driver’s license for D2000 so he can earn money for the family. The stepfather, Bakary, used to do field work for the Medical Research Council but that dried up and now he is unemployed like 80% of the other urban men in The Gambia. An aunt in the UK sends money for rent but otherwise it is hand-to-mouth the rest of the time. I’ve been giving the two schoolchildren money for breakfast but I’m short on that myself right now.
In spite of it all the family sits outside in the evenings –their electricity was turned off – and they talk animatedly among themselves, enjoying each other’s company. The skinny, ten-year-old daughter skips around, has a quick smile and sings to herself. Poverty and satisfaction.
Ibou Jallow, the kid with the pre-leukemia syndrome, is back in hospital again with a massive abscess on his right hip. He is stick-thin. His father, a tall, handsome man in traditional beard and caftan, attends him with pathetic dignity, hoping for some sign of hope.
For nearly two months I have been trying to send digital photos of his bone marrow microscopy to a doctor at Mass. General. I went to Banjul to Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, where I used to work. First I was put off by the Cuban haematologist because he was too busy. Come back next week. Then he was in examinations. Then, we finally assembled myself, him and the head pathologist. The camera was locked up and the guy with the key was “in a meeting”. Then the slides of the bone marrow aspirate got lost. The haematologist was blasé. We still have the peripheral smears, I was told. We got everyone together again and the camera still wasn’t available. Most recently I found the haematologist has gone back to Cuba on leave and won’t be back until December. It’s a good thing I’m bald or I’d be tearing my hair out.
Meanwhile, the kid’s bone marrow malfunctions. His hemoglobin, which should be around 13 is between 4 and 5 and he has little ability to fight infection…or even be a kid. If the haematologist’s diagnosis is correct there is little chance he will live, even with the best of treatment.
A hospital in London wrote that they’d be happy to treat him, for £180,000, prepaid.
I donated a pint of blood for him two months ago – we are both O-positive – but they wouldn’t let me donate again last month. Only every two months, they said. In the States one can donate every month. I’m guessing the extra time here is because with poor diet people don’t regenerate their red cell mass as quickly here.
Almost daily I am approached – even by total strangers – to participate in business deals. Would I like to help import used cars? Would I bankroll a bulldozer? Would I provide the capital for a Mercedes 190D to be used as a taxi? Would I underwrite the purchase of rams from Senegal to sell for Tobaski?
Thank you. No.
The latest fillip in the land deal is that the Director of Physical Planning in Brikama produced a law that supposedly limits foreigners to 50 X 50 meters. He refused to approve my purchase. My attorney, the eminent Mr. Gomez, was indignant. “That is unconstitutional!”, he sputtered. “What about Gadaffi who owns massive tracts of land in this country?” He promised me he would straighten things out. “You will have your land!”, he said.
Is anything ever straightforward here?