The Playa [FICTION]

It is the way they laugh, when you talk to them. How they will hang on to your every word, as if it were the most important word ever uttered, as if the very fate of the world depended on it.

What did you do all day?, she asks him, Did you miss me?

And he tries to sound easy, and he laughs and says no.

The way it feels, as you make your way through the day, knowing there is someone out there in the world, in whose imagination you had been recreated, fresh, a hero, a god, capable of everything.

You have other girlfriends, she says. Her tone is more probing than accusatory.

Why, he says, would I cheat on an uurul aini.

He has used the line before, it is corny as hell and he knows it and she knows it but it always makes her smile.

Sore baayut fen, she says, but the way she says fen she clearly likes when he does it.

Hai suma raka, he says, mock-taygaling, my fen in your mouth. And not the only thing, by the time I'm done.

She titters. Chem. Chaga bi leh, she says, and it sounds almost affectionate.

Your flaws all will mean nothing. Do you have a club foot that has made you always walk with a limp, that you have hid in shame? She will run her hand over it as you lie in bed, and call it her sexy leg. Have a nervous stammer that ruins your conversation and makes you sit resolute and wordless in company? She will listen patiently as you speak, and the spaces of silence she gives you to complete your words in will not feel claustrophobic and judged - they will be vast spaces in which you can roam, finding the syllables you need, carefully assembling them, and you will feel so comfortable your stammer will disappear as if by magic.

When you lie with her, and speak to her of your ambitions, they will sound less like spurious dreams than a future reality that awaits you.

You will be Mansa Musa, you will be Lat Dior.

You didn't call me today, she says, as soon as she picks up.

What're you - high?, he laughs. We spoke in the afternoon d.

Only once.

I was busy at work. You know this. He tries to sound reasonable, and secretly he feels proud, feels chuffed that his presence is missed this much, that in his absence she is so alone.

Not too busy to call the people you want to call.

Neneh - lu hew?

Nothing. Never mind.

Come on.

Ah nothing - how was your day?

It was OK. I was taking about you with Bun and them.

What about me?

Everyone had to describe their dream girl. I told them I didn't have to imagine mine anymore. He cannot see her but he can feel her smile. In any case there is a melting away of tension.

Mum asked me for you today. She speaks softly now, the edges of her phrases melt away like honey and there is a relaxedness in her tone, as if she had been sitting up, and now had lain back with a sigh. She said she hadn't heard from you in a long while.

Wawe Merr - tell her dinaa jaar elayk. Your mother is in love with me.

Yabarteh - dore em! Did you miss me today?

He smiles.

You want to be tender to women. You want to be kind and gentle to them. You want to do this, not for sex, not for gratitude, but because when you are kind and tender to a woman it softens her. Not noticeably at first (though if you listen closely you will hear her tone get warmer by almost imperceptible degrees, over many phone calls). But then the first undoubtable signs. The way she gets just a little mad, at night, when you have to hang up (though she denies it the next day when you tease her). The way she will call you everyday, and pick up your calls sometimes you swear before they even ring. The growing surrender in her voice. How impatient she sounds, at your self doubts. How sure she is, that you will prevail. And more than the vain chest poundings, more than the measuring of penises in public, this is what you think defines you as a man. This ability to have women depend on you, abandon themselves to you, believe completely and without doubt in you - your sisters and your mother, your lovers, past and present, that look in their eyes when they look at you, as if they have, after a lifetime of searching, found hope, and it is your form it has taken.

Some guys in the van were talking about you today. They were sitting behind me.

His smile turns sardonical, though she cannot see him. What did they say?

That they do not know what you give all the girls of Gambia, that they are such fools running after you. A beat - he does not speak. Only her breathing crosses the line, the silence between them.

Finally, she changes the topic. So what did you do today?

You fuck around. The wrong verb, you think. Right from the outset - this is what removes them from the race, fills them with frustrated notions of women, violent and wrong notions. So they accuse you - and admire you - for "fucking around", and you do nothing to dispel them of the belief that this is what it's all about, that you would follow your penis anywhere it led. They make crude jokes, and yours are the crudest of all, in their midst, involving sexual positions consisting of bent waists and bent ankles, and farts belchily erupting from open orifices. And they howl with laughter, and sometimes turning around fast enough as you demonstrate you can catch a glimpse of the envy in their eyes. Things you would never say to a woman. Oh you have your dirty jokes with them - they love those too, just like your boys - but the perspective is different, the tone is not denigrating, does not treat them like objects. Graphic descriptions from their wildest sexual fantasies, scenes you narrate late to them at night as their voices gradually turn more and more husky. You have become quite adept at this, this mastering of another person's sexual appetite, this ability to serve her - with a look, with a kiss, with a word, a half-finished threat implying much and specifying little - the exact dish she has been hungering for all these years, across successive relationships and successive men.

You have a philosophy. You know that a woman's face and body are the wrong places to look for a woman's beauty. For these may display a certain beauty but it is not the true beauty: it is fleeting, and of no import or permanence. You think women guard their true beauties like treasures, deep within them, for they are fragile things, and not for just any fool to gaze upon. And a woman's true beauty cannot be described, but only understood, and each woman's own is of a different shape and a different form. And when will you know when you see it? You will have no doubts - it will come, in the middle of the night when she is in bed and you are on the phone, the last person she talks to, the last person on her mind, everything around her in darkness, half-submerged in dreams, your voice her only link back into a fast-fading reality, a link to which she attaches herself, and lets herself be bonded, and lets herself be led. Or it will come as you sit opposite each other at the nice restaurant you have taken her to, as you look up from reading the menu, and her eyes are there waiting, and her gaze is like a cat's, strange and wonderful and encompassing the whole of the known world, with you at its head. Or the way she holds on to your arm, carelessly, automatically, without a thought, as you stand in a group on the beach talking, the wind picking up and the waves crashing. Or in a hundred other situations - but when it comes you will know it, there will be no mistaking it. And no matter what woman it is, and no matter what she looks like on the outside in that moment she will be the most beautiful being in the world, and you her true man, a real man, the chosen one. It is this feeling that you have spent your life tasting, until you have become a connoisseur of it.

The phone rings three times. On the fourth she picks up, and is silent.

Neh...neh...his voice mocking, sing-song, until

Don't call me tha!

He is taken aback, perhaps more than he should be, at the lack of vehemence in her tone, how flat it sounds.

Guess who I saw today?, he ploughs on. An indifferent naïveté - a technique that has worked before, pretending not to notice how upset she is until she finally gives in and begins to talk, saving her complaints for the end of the conversation, when their intensity has decreased and he is able to dispel them with a few compliments, a few apologies. But she is having none of that, not today.

If you choose to go around being a chaga, then at least do it with women who have class.

He sighs. Who is it this time.., he begins...

Don't lie to me!

He falls silent. Her breathing comes hard, and he feels a sudden sadness, that tugs at him and makes him panic.

If some mbahal from Banjul is all you're interested in... But it is all my fault...

He is suddenly tired, and he feels cold. All he wants is to be alone. He is tired of conversation, and tired of words, and tired of his role - tonight he thought perhaps he could be role-less. Half of him wishes she would hang up, and make more sense in the morning. But there is something in her tone that has not been there before, on other such occasions. A grim resignation, the beginnings of a final decision.

Neneh, he tries again, weakly...

I said don't call me that! You know what - I am tired of this shit - sorna naa - from now on do what you want with who you want, get AIDS from some chaga, die if you want.. Don't call me.

And it takes him a few moments to realize that it is not her silence on the line, that she hung up.

Girls like you. You open your mouth and speak to them and they do not want you to ever close it, to ever stop talking to them. And in time they begin to want to possess you, to themselves, they wish to make you their exclusive property. And this creates problems, and the more problems it creates the more your reputation grows. As a womaniser, as a breaker of unguarded hearts. And a new girl hears about you, and she thinks, first what does he have, that so many speak of him like this. And she thinks, second whatever wiles he possesses I will not fall under them, he cannot enchant me. And so when she first meets you you can see the wariness in her eye, the reservedness in her manner, the restraint in her laughter. But you speak to her like a friend, like an equal, not like anything she had heard about you, not like anything she had expected. And there, right there, confounding her expectations, is where the first of the softenings happens.

He called her, once, in the afternoon. She would not pick up. , he texted. Then he went back to work, and tried to put her out of his mind. She would call.

But she did not, not that whole day, and she did not text. This had happened before, with her and other girls - he would wait her out, he was good at waiting. Yet a strange feeling filled him, that he had not felt before. The way he kept putting his hand over his jeans pocket, because he thought he had felt his phone vibrate. How every time he got a text how impatient he was to read it, and how disappointed when it was not her. But she did not call, and she did not text, not that day, or the next. And by the third day he began to get worried, despite himself. In the night after dinner he called her. The phone rang and rang. Every time it paused between rings he thought she had picked up, only to be disappointed by another ring. Finally he hung up. Fine! If that was how she wanted it! Why did he feel so irritated? And why, all of a sudden, did he feel so lonely?

So women come and go. That is another thing you had to learn in the beginning, how to grow very attached (because you cannot fake attachment) and yet be able to move on quickly. Cool as a cucumber, the king of ice. They are many, like bazaars, each filled with her own singular riches, places you can always re-visit. And each one that comes brings with her a whole new world to explore, a delightful chain of Islands containing everyone and everything important in her life: best friends and birthdays, aunts and uncles and her frustrations at the tailor, late with making her juli dress. And they explore your world too - you give them full access: your funny friends, your eclectic taste in music, how you cannot pronounce "Russian" correctly (and how this makes her laugh, like a parent showing off their child's clever trick). And this is what constitutes the difference: when it is time for you to leave her world behind, she is never ready to leave yours. She wishes to stay, to continue to play at njaykay-jabarr with your little sister, to be the one who gets to call you baby, to be the one whose hand is in yours as you walk down a beach road, one April evening.

It takes many arrangings to get an invitation, a chance to speak. It is harder than he ever thought it would be. He sits opposite her in their living room, prim and proper. The evening is on its way out, and the room is bathed in twilight.

Let me first say, she says, that what you are about to say makes no difference. I have made my decision, do not feel you have to defend or justify yourself. Not anger - a flatness in her tone. He hears her mother shouting at the maid in the back. Her little sister runs past where they sit, ignoring him.

I do not know what I did. No, he cannot say that, not with the way she looks, like mother justice, a terrible beauty in her eyes - he cannot look her in the eye and lie.

I am sorry. Not that either. It will make no difference, in this room, he has used it far too much in the past. And in any case she is not angry, does not desire apology.

He stands. She looks up at him, and for a moment he can see past her mask to the pain he has caused her, and he almost cannot bear it. He looks down at the ground.

I am sorry, he says. I know it does not mean much, but I am sorry. And there is no artifice in his voice, and when he says mean it breaks, and he has to repair it with a cough.

He turns and he leaves that room, and though he does not look back he can feel her eyes on him as he walks away, and he wishes he could turn and run back to her, and make a silly joke and have her laughing again, and her little sister running into his arms and laughing with them.

But he does not turn, and he does not look back. He walks out of the room, and he drives home, and he takes a shower, and he turns off his phone, and he goes to bed.

The Jaybaleh: an exercise in crude humor [fiction]

The merr sat outside the room in a row of plastic chairs. Some were slouched over, their heads resting in their hands, others were laid back into their chairs, beginning to nod off. The night was well advanced, and it was beginning to grow cold. Everyone else had left, only they were left, the witnesses.

By and by there came the sound of a repeated banging from the bedroom, punctuated by whimpers, which did not seem to indicate pain, but rather seemed delivered as a sign of extreme pleasure... There was a rhythm to the banging and it seemed to go on for a long time, the merr looking increasingly scandalized. Ya Haddy stopped telling her beads, her hand and expression frozen, open-mouthed.

Well they seem to not be having any problems, Ya Yandeh said, to some light titters.

All I know is that a mooti just opened, Ya Haar said, would not leave itself amenable to such passionate philandering.

The titters died down as they thought about what she was implying. Then the banging and whimpering stopped, and there was a collective sigh of relief...

....only to start again, now right up against the wall on the other side of which they sat. Aaaaah! it began, a long drawn-out scream (because, the merr thought, it could not be a moan: what a moan that sounded like that said about the moaner and her sexual experience was something that did not bear thinking about). Then a series of short Uh!s, and what sounded like two pounds of beef being pounded together over and over... Surely the person who made those sounds must be in some pain... And her voice sounded so squeaky, so high-pitched...

The young man is deaf, it occurred to Ya Astou, perhaps he does not hear the result of the damage he causes...

Several merr winced at the image this conjured.

But if he cannot hear it surely he can see it, Ya Arrette said, her hand over her mouth, or is he blind as well? The poor girl.

Now the Uh!s sounded even more desperate, and in between they could hear the sharp intakes of breath.

Poor girl, Ya Arrette repeated, what she must be feeling,

The thing about kids these days, Ya Haar scoffed, is they do not know how to close their legs and cover their mooti.

All this talk of mooti, someone muttered from the back, it is hardly becoming of a young lady, let alone an old.

Ya Haar took out her sorchu, spat off to her left, then put it back in her mouth. At least some of us, she said, stayed intact until we were married.

The atmosphere was tense, and might have devolved entirely if at that moment the screams from the room had not suddenly increased in intensity (how was that possible?). They seemed to be building up - finally there was one loud unearthly cry, what sounded like a woman screaming for help, cut off midway in a strangled gulp. Then the laughter of a man as he insulted her. The merr sprang to their feet, and ran for the door.

Inside they found a strange sight. Isatou lay off to one side, her mouth open and drooling, fast asleep in her nightgown. And next to him - ah what a sight, that shocked the merr and got their high blood pressures shooting up. Assan Musa, the new husband, sitting up in the bed naked, black upon black, his hand in a half-empty tub of diwi ngalam next to him, staring with intent concentration into the TV. From which came the screaming noises they had heard, and on which, haraam on haraam, there was a blonde white girl, a midget, and a black man dressed as a policeman, and what was he doing to the poor girl?!?

Ya Haar passed out.

The Gambian Dream

Lately I have been thinking quite a bit about home. What it is, what it means. Of what materials it is constructed, how to go about building it. First start with an empty space, a place where your heart is at peace, and your mind is at rest. Add a comfortable bed, a warm interior. A living room, a TV. Portraits on the walls - your mother, your father. Dead relatives, pictures of your Serign on calendars. And then the people: a wife (or husband) who believes in you, children who give you pride. The rituals of adult life - the visits to the in-laws, the slaughtering of rams at Tobaski. All what is expected of a husband, and a father (or a wife, and a mother). And from all this, somehow, arising a feeling of contentment, greater than the sum of its parts. Going home sometimes in the car driving and listening to the radio you will imagine your wife waiting to eat lunch with you, your kids home from school, watching cartoons on TV before they go to sleep. And though it may only be fleeting still for a moment you will feel yourself and your place in the world, and the Creation and the part God wrote you to play in it - and all will be well. Is that definition true? And if it is, what of location? Does it matter, really, then? Could you not as well build this in Antarctica as in Timbooktoo?

Today was a long day at school. Ramadan and Calculus 3: two things that do not go well together. The old teacher dodders around the class - his voice seems to come from the past, muffled by layers of age, cobwebs and dusty rooms, grandchildren and world wars. He takes his time talking - his breathing measured and slow, the way everything he says begins as an almost tangible thought, slowly turning before our impatient eyes into his words, the mathematical concepts he wishes to convey. He chuckles at his own jokes, and we laugh politely (his jokes are of this kind: even the funniest ones can only be laughed at politely). What does he want from life, I wonder. Is it the same as what he wanted, once upon a time, when he was young and the road of his possibilities still stretched out before him, billboards on every side, advertising everything he could be. The richest man in the world, the cleverest, the one who discovered the cure for cancer, the one who found world peace at last. All the accolades that awaited him, the praise and envy of his peers. Ah you young people and your energy, a friend of mine told me recently. I had just finished excitedly explaining yet another idea that would change everything, and this was not the answer I expected. Yet it was a sobering answer, and the one, I realized later, that I needed to hear. In a way it was the answer that led to this writing.

The malls, I tell another friend of mine, the highways and the cars and the jobs and the money - all these things are a mask, that hide the true form of this land, that disguises from us the final fact: that we are not made for, cannot let down our roots, here. For us hotter climes, for us the "third world" (our home), for us the electric power cuts and the indifferent fire of the Sun, the thunderstorms and the lack of privacy. I say these things and I sound sad, even to myself. Why sad? Why not a rejoicing, in knowing where I aim to be, where I belong? The truth is I say these things and I do not know what they mean. The words are not of my making - they issue through me only, the aftereffects of an emotion which lies heavy in my heart. A strange thing: an aspiration, the beginnings of a hope, and yet at the same tinged with melancholy and not the soaring joy - I would imagine - of the true salvation. Where are the certainty and confidence that is supposed to accompany the epiphanies, the thoughts that burn bright and incandescent, and light the path into our future. My friend is silent, and does not reply, and I trail off in mid-sentence, and sit there helplessly looking at my hands. My thoughts are intense but nascent still, and I cannot quite articulate them to someone else, not just yet.

Once, when I first came to this country, I went to Washington, D.C., to visit a monument. In the morning, after eating a delicious breakfast cooked by a Senegalese man, who we teased half-seriously about opening his own restaurant chain. I do not remember the name of the place exactly - only that it contained a giant statue of Lincoln. And something else: on all the walls were plaques, and on the plaques there were inscriptions. I followed them from wall to wall, reading what they said. And as I read one after the other, it occurred to me that though they all spoke of different events still they were all part of a larger narrative. The story of America, and how great it was, and remains. The story of the heroic men and women who fought every single step of the way for this privilege. And I found myself carried away by it, this narrative, how inspiring it was, how it made you want to be a part of it. And then later thinking about it I saw past the rhetoric, and beneath it I saw just how profoundly powerful this narrative was, how effective, how it had linked men and women across the vast distances of this land and even across time, so though they worked individually and each in their own time and place still their minds were bent to a single purpose. And in my time here this has been the thing I have noticed most: how this narrative, this story - this idea - of the greatness of America is what lies at the heart of the nation. So central is it that every person who wishes to be successful politically - from Obama with his change campaign, to people like Glenn Beck and Palin with their hate-mongering - deploys it to their own advantage. And it all began with a colony determined to shake off the yoke of their colonial masters, the oppressive British - and ended after much hard work with the land of the brave, the home of the free, the greatest nation on earth. This is the story they tell themselves. And though there are dissenting voices, though it does not correlate exactly with history, no matter - it is sufficient for its purposes. The day of the presidential inauguration I watched Obama speak, and heard how he took this narrative and extended it, showing how it could be further refined, toward creating a "more perfect Union". I watched and for the duration of the speech, and many days afterward I thought, what can I not achieve in this country, under this President? The power of story, what it feels like to be part of a grander design, all in harmony, you and everyone else doing their part towards achieving a common goal, a noble goal.

Some - the lucky few - get to create their own narrative. To sit down and in collusion write the story of their nation, a collective dream, a way of being in the World as a people. Not so for us. "Undeveloped", "Third World", "Rampant Corruption", "Despotic Rule", "Tyranny", "Demagogues". Whether you agree with their descriptive veracity or not still you must realize: these are labels others have bestowed on us, and not ones of our own choosing. The personality of a person is an emergent phenomenon, built from the person's dreams, and the narratives the person has created to explain himself and his presence in the World. A country is no different, except in scale: it is built from the consensual narrative created by its citizens. On my last day in Gambia I went around visiting elders, to say goodbye, to have them pray for me. And without exception every single one of them told me the same thing. Torg fa deh! Bull jegeh waat fee yaip. Do not come back, when you have been fortunate enough to escape. They did not speak with bitterness - no one is bitter. We have learnt to joke about NAWEC, and the price of sugar, and how much faster your passport is processed if you buy "attaya" for the officer in charge. We shake our heads wryly, and chuckle at the state of things, and go on with our lives. This is the story of Gambia, we seem to be saying - what can we do but shrug and move on? And if somehow we manage to escape, who would be foolish enough to come back? Would that not be madness?

During the summer I met with people, and started work on a couple of projects. The digitization of government departments, the re-integration of the youth. I spoke with people about my ideas, and everywhere I was met with support and excitement - from the CEOs of tech companies to sunye boy yi sitting drinking attaya, of an evening. I was greatly moved, and filled with a sense of purpose. The first glimmerings of a destiny in waiting - the re-imagination of my country. Out with Gambia the poor, Gambia the corrupt. In with Jollof, richly cultured, filled with a people whose largesse and kindness of heart knew no bounds, who were willing to work hard for the greater good, for a time when our youth would watch the TV, and see on the news how desperate African youth from other countries tried (and died on) the back-way, and say Alhamdulillah, that I am content in my own country. Thank God, that neither I nor any of my friends would give up the comfort of our homes in order to break into our neighbor's houses, where we are greeted with neither friendliness nor welcoming. It will work, I said over and over about my plans. It will work and the youth will be saved, the country will prosper. Repeating this over and over to people I had already convinced, people who would vehemently agree with me. As if I myself needed convincing, and sought it in the faith of others.

In time our narratives come to represent the truth, until the two are indistinguishable. And then how hard it is to change them. The truth, after all, cannot be changed, but only escaped from. And so once our narratives have assumed this air of truth - because, perhaps, we have heard them so many times repeated we have lost all certainty as to their falsehood, we are filled with doubt - we give up on ever changing them. We settle into them, and define ourselves using them. And there lies the great and the sad and the true danger. For it is our narratives which define our actions, and in what ways we will attempt to leave our mark on the world.

I miss my mother, and my family. I miss my boys at T Road, and my Kombo crew, and my Lancaster youth. I miss walking down the street feeling, if not pride, at least a contentment at who I am, and how I am perceived. We like your writing, people tell me, and I smile and I feel rewarded, and I am encouraged to write more. He knows so much about computers, people say, and though this is an exaggeration still it is one I wish to grow into, to fill, and so I learn new technologies, and give lectures at our local youth computer club. Yet all these, on closer inspection, are not enough of a reason to return, when it comes right down to it. The people I miss I could see as many times as I can afford to come on holidays - many Gambians are "based" in Europe, returning every December to all-white parties and with new cars, and perhaps some more progress on the house they are building, to stand empty and as a promise of home, a placeholder for themselves in their absence. And - note that I do not say this in any mean-spirited way, or as a put-down - it is easy to be the best in Gambia at something. We are small, and have had neither the opportunities nor the experience of other nations. And so to excel in a field - whether it be writing or computers or football - one would be served much better living abroad, where good writers - to take one instance - are a dime a dozen, and the people considered emasters are truly dazzling in their virtuosity. Why come home then? I do not know what I would do in Jollof, is a common - and valid - excuse. Where would I work? Where would I live? And then there is the bigger problem, the unnameable one: our political system, and how rotten it is, and how it has somehow managed to infect every arena of our lives. So there is no such thing as staying apolitical - one must swear allegiances, or suffer the consequences. Silence is opposition, and opposition is bad. People are persecuted day and night for their beliefs. At least this is what sites like Freedom Newspaper would have you believe. The situation is irrecoverably bad, their lurid headlines scream at anyone who cares to read them. Yet this constant fear-mongering and doom-saying about our prospects is more a reflection of the minds of the people who write the articles on those websites than of reality which, as usual, is much more nuanced.

In our heads we are all writing the story of our lives, composing and editing it, imagining ourselves in the way we would like to be imagined by other people. Imagine a para and one of the boys fighting, at a Nawetaan match. The same reality for the both of them: two men struggling with each other, a shirt pulled until it ripped, an increasingly hostile crowd, tear gas, match flames under noses. And yet how differently each writes down the story in the book of himself, in his mind. The Banjul Boy: I am a citizen of Banjul, I have my rights, how dare they bring some uneducated fool from up-country and give him power over me? The Para: These Banjul boys have no discipline, they look down on us, spoilt brats the lot of them; bring one to live with me for a month and see how he fares. And both men feel persecuted, and both men feel great indignation. In the narratives you write of yourself you are always the hero, even your bad actions justified, at increasing levels of sophistication. I saw a news article once that spoke of a society in the American south, which was printing leaflets "proving" that contrary to popular belief the owners of slaves had in fact benefited the men and women under their bondage greatly, causing them to begin to get educations and become a bit more civilized. Our narratives do not start and end with us. They stretch back into the past, running over into the narratives of our ancestors, and all that they did. Or did not do. And at the same time our own role changes, we move into the position of ancestor for a new generation, our actions defining them. Our children, and their children after them, inheriting what we have left behind. Sunye maam yi denye baayorn sehn lohor deh, we say, nunye feheh beh toubab yi nah lehn?

What will be said about us, by the generations yet unborn?

A man is ugly and stupid, and shames himself every time he opens his mouth in public. He thinks, I must dress better, I have too little hair, my hands are too big, if only God had made me more handsome. I must listen to the popular ones speak and parrot them. Yet no matter how long he does this for he cannot ever seem to become happy about himself and his place in the world. He is filled with a resigned envy, at everyone who is more "perfect" than him. He lives out his days like this. Until one day he realizes: it is I who decide whether I am ugly and stupid and uninteresting, and not anyone else. Such a little thing, this discovery. Yet it changes the tenor of his life. It is OK if, sometimes, he says things that people laugh at. He laughs with them, and learns. It is OK if he is not the prettiest person in the room, or the most well dressed. He is himself, and he is imperfect and unfinished, and he realizes this and he works at improving himself. He lives happily after that, knowing no envy and no jealousy. And he notices too, that all that he admired in others he himself possesses, more or less, but that he lacked the most important thing: a confidence in himself, a belief, a narrative of his own making that cast him in the light he wanted to be seen in.

Once I used to be scared of my insomnia. The way it stretched on into the night, a flat and empty road, dull and dreary, filled with despair. Like a metaphor for life -and how heavy the rest of my days would seem, as I lay in bed and stared into the black caverns above me. I would drink sleeping pills, and surrender to merciful dreamless sleep before it was midnight. I studied, I read, I went to class. To what end? I did not ever ask myself this seriously, but only had vague ideas of what I would do. A relaxed daydream of one day opening a tech company in Gambia with Serign. All in the future, all to be approached lazily and at leisure. Sometimes what we lack is a sense of direction, of what we ought to do, now that we are here. There are Gambians abroad who have lived in the exact same apartment for ten years, worked at the same low-level job, slept on the same bed, and never aspired for anything. They may know a peace I do not know. But rather I think it is that they lack a dream, have become stuck in their situation, while time carries them along as they stand still. Living out lives of apathy, an undercurrent of desperation. Sometimes I feel that this is the way Gambia is too. Daf kor nampa, people will say, of behaviors. Might as well say chi kow suuf sim judoe la... We inherit our religion from our parents. And we inherit too their dreams of us, whether these become our guiding light or the thing we struggle against becoming all our lives. And from our country, our homeland, what do we inherit?

Ham sa borpa chi jaamu yaala la borka, our Oustasses say. We as a nation are imperfect and unfinished. How mean that sounds, how jaded. Yet look around you and tell me what nation is perfect and finished. Tell me what nation does not have its problems, qualities that its citizens do not like about it. Everyone who leaves the country to go to Europe or America comes back with the same story. How hard it is there, how difficult life is, unlike anything they were ever trained to expect, by TV, or by the common dream of America. For it goes both ways. People create narratives of us, not as detailed as the one they create for themselves. But still having the power to affect our own self-narratives. Ku nyayp tufli nga torye. If everyone you know believes you are a bad person for long enough, you WILL become one. If your fellow nations see you as poor and corrupt and beyond saving for long enough... And so we admire other nations, and look down upon ourselves.

I do not wish to suggest there is no hope. Far from it. We live in a good time, our country full of more promise than at any previous time. There are more Gambian college graduates - and even PhDs - than ever before. And that is only speaking of the educational side of things. Then there are all the Gambians who have traveled abroad and come back - even if not with new skills - at least with an expanded view of the world. Then there are the skilled and educated within the country, who have never traveled. The only Gambian I know who I would call a genius without reservation went to the University of the Gambia, and could do advanced Math problems which I couldn't solve even with the help of a computer. And then there is our greatest untapped resource: all the fine minds, sharp as whips, that have been labelled part of the illiterate majority, their lack of command of the English language a layer of ice frozen and concealing them and their talents. What if, for a whole year, all these different categories of people came together, and set aside their differences, and subscribed wholly to a new narrative of Jollof, one which traced its lineage back to our proud roots, our empires of old, and from thence made its way into the future, our present. A story of self-belief. A reclaiming of the language used to describe us: "forming" instead of "undeveloped", "sutura" instead of "baadorla", "saaku kaatan" instead of "naywe dorleh"? What if we believed this for more than a year, for five years, for a decade, what if we let this become our national dream, our common vision, convincing the people abroad to come home at last, and the ones here to stay - or leave to acquire what skills and knowledge they could, and then return.

One can spend all night, of course, speaking about dreams and narratives. But daylight throws our reality into sharp relief. We do not have that much money. We are such a tiny part of the world. And this will only work if we all do it together - I'm not going to sacrifice my happiness while others enjoy their lives with their families. All common excuses, all in some way based on "facts". Those outside dread returning, those inside think only of escape. What a way to perceive one's country: as a prison - a prison containing all the people one loves, but a prison nevertheless, the visa issuers at the various embassies the only ones who can release us from it, the all-powerful gatekeepers, elevated to almost mythical status. Sitting behind reinforced glass partitions, deciding our fates. Subjecting us to all manner of humiliations, starting out with the assumption that we are liars and thieves, who will do anything to get into their countries, and be a great burden on their social systems, that they have worked so hard to build, over the years. And though we are a proud people we take all this and more. It is not so much that we hate our country - no Gambian would choose to live anywhere else if what they sought existed back home. But what they seek - a chance at a better life - seems only achievable abroad.

We are a religious people. If I asked any Gambian, can God not make us prosperous, their answer would be swift and not even requiring thought on their part: Of course He can! Yet Yaala yaala bey sa torl, our elders say - and though it may sound trite sometimes it is all we have. To do our best, and to know we have done our best. To leave the rest to God - that which is not in our hands. It is not as if this is a new way of thinking. It has always been our philosophy as a people. Suma haalis b dama kor nyaha!, people say with great (and deserved) pride, fog mu am Barr-keh. This family has Barr-keh, people say. Meaning all in the family worked hard to achieve all they have achieved. The closest word to barr-keh is "blessing". But blessing, the word, does not cover everything barr-keh is. There will be the fruit of our labors: that is prosperity, naataangeh. But barr-keh we do not work for - it arises naturally as the result of our toil. And if we all nyaha for Jollof, how much Barr-keh will that be? For Barr-keh is not just external, something from God. That is only a part of it. A larger part is what is inside us, the ability to look at what we have done and think, we achieved this, and no one else.

There are sacrifices involved, of course. It would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise. The small conveniences - access to wallmart, and movie theaters, and all the other front-facing products of a capitalistic society. And the big ones - better health care, access to better education. These things seem impossible to live without. Yet it turns out that this is not true. There are people who have returned, with their whole families, and they have survived it. We do not live in trees, after all. And though it is a slow process we are always improving. And as with all sacrifice, soon we come to realize that the things we want are not always the things we need.

A nice paragraph at the end, then, to summarize all I have said. If only it were that easy. If only I could write "let us all go home, and work at developing our country", and pretend that because I am thinking along these lines I am a "better" citizen. But though this is tempting, it is not a position that will in the end achieve anything, except perhaps make me feel better about myself, nor is it a valid one. We all have our own lives, and our reasons for what we do, and who among us has the right to decide for another. There are no easy answers. I cannot say, let us do this and it will save the country - no one can. But I want you, wherever you are, to stop for a moment and imagine Gambia, Jollof, our nation that has given us so much and never complained or asked for anything back. And I want you for a moment to think of her, not as ugly, not as a hopeless case,not as others see her. But also do not think of her as what she is not: rich, or powerful. Here is what want you to imagine instead: Once there was a small country west Africa, home to less than two million people. And this country was a young county, and though she did not possess what other, bigger countries possessed, though she lacked resources, still she held her own, and believed in herself, for one reason: her children, spread all over the world, always had her in mind, and would come back to her, and care for her, and change her into everything she was yet to become.

"Africa dream again", Youssou Ndour sings. All we need to start with is a dream. And then who can stop us.

Returning Home #4: Of Banjul

It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities


His nightly walks. Starting at the Arch and ending at the 22nd July square, the beginning of the market. Something in him that makes him rove, a restlessness, an inability to sit in one place for any length of time. He is coming back from one of these one night when the power cut happens. It catches up with him as goes past Shell - all the streetlights and all the house lights going off, the darkness racing past him as the power cut propagates, he stands there and looks at it, or rather feels it, and it is as if some being whose power was beyond imagining had covered Banjul with black cloth, to isolate it from the world… and though this thought crosses his mind he feels no consternation - quite the opposite: he feels calm and at peace with himself and with the world, as if the darkness carried with it hypnotic power, causing all in its path to forget their world-weariness and their sorrows…

But once he gets home the reality of the waiting world catches up with him: it is hot, and the spiteful mosquitoes seize the chance. He takes mad swipes at them in the dark, always missing, he slaps his ears until they ring, he curses the power company and the temperature.

He has been thinking about writing an essay about Banjul, before he leaves it once again. But it is not as easy as he thought at first. First there is a problem of representation. The more he knows about writing the higher the standards he sets for himself to beat, the greater the length of the road he sees he must travel, on his apprenticeship. Only a year ago he would have written a clever piece, a look-at-how-smart-I-am essay describing the City, with many asides meant to be humorous. Perhaps using the tired trick of inserting himself into the narrative, attempting a feat of recursion, and then waiting in barely muted anticipation for the comments of his friends who read it, keeping score: the ones who liked it, and the ones who liked it very much. So in the end what he wrote would be more about him than about the City, yet another example of the modest vanity he has cultivated so well over the years. Now he has become more wary, has begun to see just how difficult a task it is he has set himself. He is no longer as sure of what he can and cannot do, the hard certainties which made him begin to write turned into brittle doubts.

How, then, exactly to go about distilling the essence of a City, of his City, of Banjul - distilling it and recreating it on paper: of what it feels like to live there, to grow up there and be a waa Banjul, a person on the other side of the bridge.

He thinks, I will write of the great struggle between the Island and the Sea. The Sea always on the verge of destroying the Island, a dream of rushing through its streets and byways in a great flood, in an ecsatic wrath, crushing and destroying all in its path. He thinks he will write about them without anthropomorphizing them. A centuries old struggle, the Sea and the Island old enemies, and like all old enemies with a bond existing between them, that held them together. He writes:

"What did I miss?", the Sea asked, yawning. He had been asleep for 200 years.

The Island shrugged, and did not speak. She was in a bad mood.

He stops there. The lines do not ring quite true to him - a good first line contains the story within itself, curled up and stowed away ready to be unfurled and released. But he cannot think of what to make of these lines, where to go with them.

The next day he is in a van on his way to work. Riding past the christian graveyard, he can see bits of the beach, in between the houses and the trees. The waves lapping at the shore in determination, hundreds of them, thousands of them, coming in and going out, only to come in again. There is a woman at the side of the road, three bags of rice in front of her. The apprentice stops the van and begins to negotiate with the woman, and he watches them and is filled with impatience. He hates waiting, in any form. From where the van has stopped he can see the beach again. Now the waves seem to be stroking the beach, a hand running over hair, a woman in bed next to him… how wrong he got the relationship. It is not an enmity, has never been that. It is a love story, one older than all the humans on the Island. He is excited at the idea, can see where it will go, though he does not have the lines he will write yet. He lets it stew all that day. And in the evening when he gets home and has dispensed with the social actions required of him, he sits down in his room and begins to write.

He knows a little about love. He has fallen into its current a few times himself. So he knows how it changes the blood to ichor, that burns through the veins with such passion that you stop being the center of your own universe, and the person you love becomes it. He knows too that the underside of love is sadness and sorrow, that if circumstances do not separate you from the object of your affection, then death will, sooner or later. But he is only a man. How could the Sea feel these things, how could an Island? And he thinks, perhaps love itself, the emotion, can be abstracted. Perhaps it need not apply only to humans (could a cat love? could a dog?). And with these thoughts in his mind he begins to write:

On Monday he came in slowly behind the tide. He found her with the winds, which excitedly blew about, bringing her news from their travels. He sat in a prim silence, pointedly not laughing at their jokes, not commenting on anything they said. And she continued to speak to them, hoping they would not leave, trying to draw him into the conversation. But finally in the face of his hostility the winds left, skipping off with light laughs, promising to return… She turned wearily to him, waiting… but he sat there still, in a moody silence, and did not speak. And her irritability changed, to a kind of sympathy, despite herself. Who knew what went on in his tortured brain? What is it, she asked him. Is everything well with you? He muttered a gruff reply, and then again was silent. They sat like this until the evening descended, the Sun a perfect orange ball framed at the horizon, in the space between the clouds and him. And she looked at this scene, the way he was laid out with the sun, its fire almost dead, hovered over him, taking its last few breaths, before it was submerged within him forever. And his grumpiness did nothing to spoil it, and she could not help but smile. He looked upon her face at that moment, and she saw the misunderstanding in his eyes. I was not laughing at you, she protested, but it was to his departing back, the foam rising angrily behind him. And all that night she thought guiltily about what had happened.

When he came on Tuesday she had prepared herself. She would let him shout, let him shed all his anger. And then they would speak normally again. She knew him, knew his moods passed as swiftly as they arrived - and then in a show of introspection he would apologize, analyzing his own behavior, promising to not repeat it in the future. But when he arrived he said nothing of the previous day. He was in high spirits - a large schooner had sunk early that morning, taking with it all its crew. He couldn't stop talking about it, and the deaths - how the men had wailed out at each other in the dark, and screamed when they bumped into any moving object. She found the topic rather too gruesome for her liking - how could someone swallow a living, breathing thing with blood in it, and bones. And so she tried to change it. But she met with no success, and after a while she just sat there, lost in her thoughts, muttering the occasional unhu. Finally he left, shouting out a cheerful goodnight.

On Wednesday when he came he was in a strange mood. He would not look her in the eye. After failing with several attempts to start a conversation, she finally asked him, what is it? She asked him, What did I do this time? It is nothing, he said. Only, and he stopped, but she was silent, not helping him, not hindering him. Only these….feelings, he said. What feelings?, she asked him, and her tone was stern, and brooked no nonsense. I am… confused, he said, still not looking at her. About what?, she said, and she was looking straight at him. About us, he blurted out. What is there to be confused about?, she asked, and her tone could have cut ice, would have cut him if he was frozen, We are two friends who spend the evenings in conversation. Oh, he said, never mind - I am not confused anymore - of course that is it. But she would not drop it - she wanted this to end here once and for all. What else could we be?, she asked him, have you seen in me any manner which would incline you to think that we are more than just friends? He looked up at her quickly, a look of confusion on his face - or perhaps it was panic - and then he was looking at the ground again. He shook his head no. Good, she said, then perhaps I can believe that nothing in your actions inclines me to either. Glad to have that settled. Now you must leave - I would like to be alone for a while. Of course, he said, and his voice trembled a little at the end. Then he was gone.

That night he returned, bringing with him a collection of shells, dragging it in with the tide and laying them out on her shores. They are beautiful, she said, smiling and looking at him. And he looked at her for a moment, and he was smiling too. And then he left, just like that, without a word.

After he had left she sat alone.The night deepened. She looked at the Sea, its wide expanse, blanketed in blackness, and where the blackness met the Sea's surface it was a dirty gray. At some point she fell into a dream, in which he came to her, while she sat alone in the night like this. He came with a great roaring, and a fierce fury, and it excited her, and he came to her shores, and he did not stop, and he came ashore, and he did not stop, and she felt alarm, but her heart raced too, at this new boldness of his, how he did not stop, or ask her leave. And he covered her, and she gave herself in to him, in the dream, until she was almost submerged - and then at the last he stopped, and regarded her. And his eyes burnt with a fire she did not recognize, that she had never associated with him, or his kind. And then the night passed, and the Sun rose, and she shrugged off the dream and once more sat regarding the wakeful world.

He made good conversation, when he was not in one of his strange moods. He could be funny - some days he made her laugh so much she would still be chuckling as she remembered his jokes a week later. Yet as a lover how below par he would be. How cold his embrace, lap-lapping at her shores. Fumbling, containing no tenderness. A roughness, in the way he spoke, the way he held himself - excusable in a friend but unacceptable in a lover. And the chill that came off him, especially at night. So far from the warmth of other lands, a warmth she thought she remembered but that she might only have dreamt - she did not know how long she had been an Island, could not remember a moment when she was not. His salt and his spray. How unpredictable he was, how every day you could get either the most interesting friend in the world, or an irritable, lovelorn mood changer - and you never knew what you would get on what day.

And yet there was the way he looked at her, as if she were the greatest City in the world, greater even than the much larger cities the winds described to her in their stories. How increasingly these days she felt herself in a strange mood when he came. Not elated, not exactly, more a soothing calm which descended over her, as if everything in the Universe had a space perfectly matched to it, and she had found hers, and was content in it. She felt needed, she realized when she thought about it, that was it - she felt needed, and it was a feeling that filled her with a tingly sensation. And she thought about how he had said he was confused, how vulnerable he had looked in that moment, and she smiled to herself.

When he returned the next day there was a difference. In the way they spoke to each other. In the way their eyes met. A look, a shared space between them that only the other could see. A newfound gentleness, so at times their words seemed like caresses, almost, vessels of emotion loaded to bursting with desire… A fact each acknowledged only silently. Neither watched what they said - he not trying to be perfect for her, she not trying not to offend him, at something she said, at the way she looked at him. And so they spoke, and every word each spoke was just the right word, in that time and that place. Like two sisters, sharing a room from birth. Completely comfortable in each others' presence. They spoke about random things, inconsequential things, and yet the conversation was not uninteresting, to either of them. He said nothing about feelings now - there was no need for that - and she was glad. And she in her turn let her guard down completely, and spoke to him frankly, and with great intimacy. Was that affection in her voice, he thought, or was he only imagining it. So this is what he is truly like, she thought, how I have wanted and missed this all these years. And her heart softened toward him, and he grew in his boldness. He did not leave until late, until the moon hung over both of them in the night sky, its halo spreading outward in the darkness, but insufficient and barely lifting the darkness off her trees, and his waves. I must be going now, he finally said. Now? Must you?, she asked, and though she tried to make the sadness in her voice sound as if she were only mocking, pretending at sadness, he saw clearly in her expression that she must mean it, or at least a part of it. And for a moment he felt what it must be like, this moment expanded into decades, into centuries - what it must feel to be loved by her, to be looked at in that way every morning, a look that dissipated the night and was the Sun before the Sun rose, filling him with an energy which would take him through the rest of the day. And his heart was filled with such joy at the possibility that he shivered, the waves rising higher behind him. Then her expression was once more its old cast, one friend to another, revealing nothing. Yes, he said, turning, goodnight - I will see you tomorrow.

That night after he had left she did not sleep. One of the winds dropped by, but she was in no mood for conversation, and soon it left, flying off to the North to join its companions, leaving her in a pensive mood. She sat, deep in thought like this all night, an inscrutable expression on her face. The time passed quickly. And then it was dawn, and a pale light on the horizon announced the coming of the Sun. Can Islands cry? Or was it only the spray from the waves, carried to her eyes by the flippant sea breezes?

In the morning he had to stop himself from going to her immediately. But when the Sun was at its midpoint waystation in its journey across the sky, he could bear it no longer. He set out.

As soon as he arrived he noticed how things had changed, how this day would not be the same as the previous one. It was not that any physical thing had changed - it was only that there was a new taste to the air, a tautness between them where before there had been a warm, affectionate space. Her eyes would not meet his. They sat in awkward silence for a while - he could not think what to say. And then she began to speak, softly, her voice like the wind. You know, she told him, I was not always an Island. And he looked at her, and her eyes were sparkling. Oh, he said. Once upon a time, she said, there were Lands all around me. And they kept me warm, and were my friends. We had such good times together. Oh, he said. Lands makes the best lovers, you know, she said, they are so gentle, and so kind. And he saw where she was headed with this, what she wished to say to him, and his heart sank - deep, deep to the Sea floor. And he would have turned then and left and never returned, but for something in him which hardened in that moment, that made him feel a flash of anger. Let her complete it, then, and then he would tell her his mind, and then he would leave. She was looking off into the distance with a wistful look in her eyes, and she saw none of this. I am betroth to one, you know, she said, and there was a strain in her voice, a different timbre, the slightest hint of a tremble, and he loved me deeply. I am sure he roams the world still, searching for me. One day we shall meet… And she stopped. Then he prepared to speak, and he looked into her eyes, and what he saw there shocked him. She remembered nothing, her whole story was a lie, a fabrication. Or perhaps, he thought, more charitably, a dream. Yes, a dream, her eyes seemed to confirm, and he felt the anger in his heart subside. And he said to her, I am sure he is. And he said, I must go now. Very well, she said, and he thought there was a little coldness in her manner, as if they were already proper strangers again. He looked back at her as he left. He will come - I am sure he will, if you only wait. Thank you, she said, and she smiled at him, and in her face was a sadness so deep, so profound, it seemed to originate from a place within her that no one could reach.

They never saw each other again.

He reads over what he has written. He does not like it. It has a few good sentences, but he is not happy with the way it turned out. Or the line about the underside of love being sadness and sorrow - it paints him as too much of a cynic, makes him look cold and unaffectionate. He had not known how it would end, but he had assumed it would be a happy ending, that the fumbling, inept Sea would get the girl (or the City, as it were). And they would be happy together. But man proposes, and the plot disposes, he thinks wryly, and the thought makes him smile.

But he does not give up. The next day he is at it again immediately after work, sitting in his bed, leaning against a pillow propped up behind him, the laptop open in front of him. He thinks, I will write a word-painting of Banjul. Descriptions of sights and sounds and smells, a recreation on paper of my experience. A description in which the City will be the main character, instead of a person:

The chsss of fish being fried on an open charcoal stove, a furr-noe. A blind man walks through the streets, loudly singing prayers and asking for money through a megaphone, the sound announcing him before he ever turns onto a street. The Sun is bright, so bright - there is not a cloud to be seen in the sky. And where the Sun goes life follows: young half-naked boys playing football on the streets, the kids at daara, yelling out the Arabic harraf after a teacher, who reads it from a board in a sing-song voice…

He stops. He does not know how to continue. The sentences are too loose, too disconnected - in all the best writing one sentence leads to another almost as if from natural consequence, brother-sentences and sister-sentences, all lined up, all connected. But this - it does not have the right… feel to it. When he reads it it is merely a collection of words, giving rise to no form, a body made of clay but lacking the breath which is the difference between life and non-life, successful writing and unsuccessful.

That night his walk is different, and not entirely enjoyable. He has abandoned Independence drive, and walked deep into the heart of the City. Streetlights at irregular intervals, half of them flickering on and off, the other half not being even on… The shadows are filled with a heavy menace, feeling somehow more *real* than the objects and people casting them… As if the shadows came first, moulded out of the darkness at the beginning of Time by a Creator who worked without illumination, and then the objects, the people - a tree, a house, a person passing by - came after, a product of the shadows and the way the light fell on them… The heat is stifling - he walks at a fast pace to get home, to his room and his bed, into the tender hands of sleep… He feels flustered, his skin itches. But when he goes home he thinks, this is as well an aspect of the City - its deep, dark, hidden interior. He thinks, Let me try writing about it. And though he is not in the mood he opens his laptop and begins:

But the night has many aspects, and takes many forms. The darkness is an oppressive presence from an adjacent World, seeping into the city through the gutters and the steaming pot-holes, spreading like night through the streets. And where it goes failure follows it, heat and mosquitoes follow it, electric lights go off as if snuffed out, televisions fall silent, their light extinguished, no longer reflected on the faces of the enraptured viewers in the rooms of the city; there is the occasional loud cry of dismay, the rare saaga ndey, but the spread of the darkness is marked principally with a silence, as at a wake, the city itself the corpse, all the men and women and children on it marking its passing, by now used to this; even the streetlights fall under the advance of the darkness - nothing can survive its passage. There is no moon tonight - when he looks up the sky is full of stars, pinpoints of light in the night, and they look old, balls of fire traveling across great distances and bearing the malevolent motive of their creator, part of a grand design which includes him but over which he has no control… an approach toward an abyss, an inability to turn, to even look away, for a moment… The air above him presses down on his shoulders, and it is a weight that has always been there, yet he is only just noticing it… shapes loom out of the darkness and turn out to be little boys… a man throws a shadow the size of a midget… He passes a street where one lone streetlight is on, and under it stands a bent old man, and on his face there is an expression that makes him shudder and walk on, thinking of suicides, the end of emotion… Men stand in consort with each other, waiting to rob and murder him - when he comes up close it is a group of children, who do not even seem to be with each other - lone walkers through the City in the dark - yet who knows what they are capable of? What was age after all - sidestepping what he imagines are holes in the ground he is filled with feelings that cannot quite manage to become sighs, so heavy are they with the knowledge of the futility of all things, a kind of anti-emotion… he sees blood, and how it has been spilt… men have died here, and women too. He thinks of the city, he thinks of a jealous man living amongst his brothers, one day in a fit of rage killing them all, one after the other. Afterward an Island, drifting alone through the waters of the world. Forever marked and cursed: slaves marching through marshy ground, mud on their cracked feet, a rotting smell in the air… furtive dealings in the darkness (which was much older than he had thought at first, so old it could be tasted, with just a little effort). A reaching out… an attempt at empathy: not jealousy, after all, on the brother's part, but only a fierce need to be needed… the beginnings of a faint hope, of the arrival of a savior, a messiah - but too late - the curse uttered: the Island's children wailing, its muezzins with terrible braying voices, cracked with sleep and hunger (or perhaps a tiredness, at faithful who never answered the call anymore, emptying mosques and emptier collection boxes)…. A future of dust, and sand, a great drought; or failing that water, a great drowning; or failing that man falling upon man, a great war… Arguments on the streets turning into fights as easy as night falling - brutish ugly fights involving shattered vimto bottles and exposed jugulars, screwdrivers and slender necks, knives and eyes… All who can have escaped, to Kotu, to Brusubi - for what is left here? Death and ruination, shattered dreams, youth grown old and impotent, and painfully aware of how badly it has failed - yet still holding on to one last hope, one last dream of an old toubab woman, descending from the skies, desiring only love, and in return ready to give the world and everything in it… A heat which burned everything it touched, yet did not consume it…

He stops. He is filled with gloominess - it infects him, it infects his thought and his writing. In the past he has discovered the seeds of essays and short stories in a certain controlled kind of melancholy - but always they have turned out in the end hopeful (or at least beginning to approach that), always they have made him feel better, that things are not so bad after all. But tonight he cannot seem to write anything else - he sees the inevitable doom inherent in all things, he sees it clearly and he can see nothing else. He thinks he will stop writing. He thinks if his pen can write nothing good then better not to write at all.


For some reason - perhaps the quality of the night, its restorative abilities - he feels much better in the morning. He is in a playful mood. In the shower he gets an idea - what if for the final attempt he subverted the language of a tourist information brochure, used it for his needs. He would set up the outward facing side of Banjul, and in a running commentary show the actual reality, a sort of side by side comparison. After his shower he goes to his room and gets his laptop, too excited to go eat some breakfast first:

Known as the smiling coast of Africa, The Gambia is one of the most peaceful developing countries on the continent. [A smile, to start with - evoking warmth, and happiness. Choose 'developing' over 'developed', the former continuous and active, the latter a stagnant state, self-satisfied, unmoving - and speak also about peace, our greatest strength. Note to self: revisit theme of peace later on. He debates whether to keep using the official-but-absolutely-detestable "The Gambia", or what Gambians actually call it: "Gambia". Finally he decides to let the "The" stay - he does not want to confuse tourists.]. Its people are warm and genuinely kind, and its cuisine one of the best in the World: from our famous mbahal bu tilim (with diwtirr added), to our delectable Domoda Yaapa (with diwtirr added). [Perhaps there was too much diwtirr here - perhaps it wasn't necessary to mention, a superfluous piece of information. But no - how could mbahal or domoda be complete without diwtirr, and adding it to the foods gives them a certain exoticness, he imagined, to a foreigner who could not speak Wolof, and did not know what "diwtirr" really meant.]

And at the heart of the smiling coast lies the most beautiful city in the world: Banjul, formerly known as Bathurst, formerly known as Banjulo. [He likes the idea of using all three names linked together - it seems sort of a condensed history of the Island, and he thinks it sounds rather poetic.] A lively but quaint [quaint presenting our old, in-need-of-reconstruction buildings as simply a beauty that has aged, and aged well too - tourists *love* that kind of thing… lively to show that age did not necessarily mean boring - to assure them that if they were the partying kind they would have plenty of places to go] Island located on the Atlantic Ocean [was it the Atlantic Ocean? He had to check] Banjul was originally known as Bathurst, and started out as a British guardpoint to intercept slaveships attempting to enter the ocean. So you could say it had humble but honorable beginnings. ["humble but honorable'. He liked that. But would "honorable but humble" have worked better? No, no, didn't sound as good]. As the main focal point for the fight against slavery, Banjul played a very important part in the eventual abolition of the practise. [OK enough about the slave trade - he might start sounding like he is on the attack, and if there is one things toubabs hate it is being reminded about a past in which they were not humane and did not act in a noble fashion - best to start a new paragraph, leave all the bad business behind us, where it belongs]

Home to a population of about 60,000 people [ people ends too quickly and ends the rhythm of that part - it needs an adjective in front of it to adjust the sound. He tries "beaming locals", but it sounds vaguely insulting (evidence of idiocy even). Finally he leaves people in, and makes a note to think of something later] Banjul is right next to the Atlantic Ocean, and as a result is much cooler than many other African cities [not an untruth exactly - he is sure there are at least *some* African countries is less hot than]. The Gambia is known for its hospitality - the inhabitants of Banjul are extremely hospitable and friendly. We defy you to see a frowning face. [? As in, excuse me are you trying to make this whole thing entirely unbelievable? Ah - doesn't hurt to exaggerate here and there - it is to be expected, after all].

At the center of Banjul there is a large, bustling market called "Marche Banjul", where you can everything from dried bonga fish (a great local delicacy - we urge you to try it) to new sandals (locally known as "nyamba" and very useful for playing football on the beach). [ Good, good - everything interlinked, one thing leading to another - let's see if we can maintain this tone…]

Because of the size of Banjul - neither so large that your neighbors are strangers, nor so small that everyone knows everyone else by first name - people often walk to places. The Sun does get a little warm sometimes though, so we advise you to stack up on suntan lotion [is it 'sun lotion' or 'suntan lotion'? He'll have to look that up] and umbrellas [the thought of a toubab walking around with an umbrella under the hot sun, peering shortsightedly at all these locals who look exactly alike makes him smile.] If you are in a rush you can grab one of the taxis that patrol the streets, painted in a bright yellow and green. There is a fixed rate for traveling to anywhere within Banjul [should he mention town trips? Would that be too much detail?]. In addition you get to share your ride with three bona fide Banjulians, exchanging smells and words as you travel to your destination. [Attempt at a joke - would it work? Is it too crude, too unsubtle? But then again toubabs would laugh at anything.]

Other cities have open-air fruit markets, in one destination you have to go to no matter how far away you live. In Banjul we have Peul (one of the local tribes, known for their hunting and cattle-rearing prowess, now the Invisible Hands of the Gambian Commerce) [casting the Peul as mythic - toubabs love mythic] who wander the streets with wheelbarrows, hawking whatever is in season. In the mood for a quick apple? Grab one from a passing Peul at a very reasonable price. (Super Traveler Hint: Never buy a thing at the price stipulated. Haggle over everything, even if it is free to start with). [OK - much better than the first joke, even made him smile. But enough jokes now - we want these people to take us seriously and start buying tickets and booking hotels.]

In addition Banjul has a beach which is one of most beautiful in Africa. Its glistening sands are soft and warm to the touch, as you walk there in the evening, looking out at the Sea and the Sun which has lost its fire, and floats there helpless and hopeless, looking out at a World about to be engulfed in darkness… [Alright, alright - enough of the corn. Too much darkness. Must remove that particular sequence when I edit - but leave it in for now.] The beach is at most a 15-minute walk from anywhere in Banjul, and affords a peaceful location to just chill, or play football with the locals. [He still has a problem with the word "locals" for some reason - maybe it's because in Wolof "local" meant a hillbilly?] Be sure to bring back a pair of shorts. [Should he say something about bikinis? He has never seen anyone in a bikini at the Banjul beach - does this mean it's a great taboo?]

He stops writing. He does not like it. It attempts to be too clever, it has deviated from his original goal of setting it up as a portrait of the difference between outward-facing Banjul (the heart of the smiling coast, the bush taxis and tourist market, the rides in coasters high than any other car on the road, viewing platforms and sunglasses, beaming smiles and digital cameras flashing…) and inner Banjul (the houses with corrugated fences which leant further and further to the ground every year, the houses that flooded during the time of heavy rains, the forgotten youth, finding solace in gaanja and Baye Faal, the women in their worn T-shirts and much-used malaans, selling ice on the street, everyone together on a vessel which travelled with them inside it through time, and they all held hands and lived and fought and loved and hoped that one day in the not-so-desperate future the vessel at last would land at its location, and they would all unboard, and then what? No one knows - that is what hope is). He gives a heavy sigh, and looks at his laptop screen. He cannot write about the City yet - he is not ready. He thinks it the best City in the world, deep inside him he has no doubts. But he cannot show this yet to another person, he does not yet possess the words for it, or even if he does he does not know how to wield them, bring them together in the correct configuration. He is not yet that good a writer. With time this will change. One day he will wake up in the morning and hear the calls of "Serekunda! Serekunda!" from the nearby road, he will go out onto the street dressed in shorts and an undershirt, completely un-self-conscious, he will say "Asalamu Aleikum" to the merr passing, on their way to the market and they will ask after his mother, he will see the kids from Gambia High buying Mburoe Pompiterr and Mburoe Omelette, joking and teasing each other, he will see the fitters in their garage, one beneath a car while the others pass him tools, he will see the Serers next door at their washtubs, washing clothes for the whole street. He will stop for a moment and breathe in the air of Banjul, Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide, Gutters and Rotten Fish, Fried Fish and Chicken, Thuyi Diwliin, Thuyi Diwtirr, Netetu, Gehja, the fragrances the women put on in their houses before they leave in the morning, this and a hundred other smells. And he will know he is ready, and he will go back inside and show Banjul to the world, as he and all the other people who live here see it.