Bought for the price of four Singer machines

Soundtrack: Lou Reed – Just A Perfect Day

The muslim people here in West Africa seems to be very nice and there doesn’t seem to be any extremism regarding religion. They are very open minded where ever I go, even the women are well respected. It also happens that you see muslim people drinking at the bars. Not exactly what you many other places like in Europe for example or what you are being brought up to believe. Regarding circumcisions people still practice this, which is a horrible operation on a person without anaesthesia. Especially on women it can have fatal consequences. Regarding what I have been told by the locals in Gambia, it has more to do with old rituals than Islam. I spoke with a guy at my age on the snake farm in Gambia, he still recalled getting his circumcision done at the age of 6. My arrival to Banjul was not suppose to happen on a dark Sunday evening. I had already spent four days hanging around at the Zebra Bar in Senegal with a crazy Dutch guy in an old Mercedes 307 diesel van, who had gone from Europe down to Gambia, combining his travel with doing charity work for West Africa. On his departure he had already broken down with the old Merc 1 k from his home in Holland, and spend 12 hours troubleshooting an electric failure in the charging system, only Dutch people are as crazy as this. Africa must be the continent with the largest amount of old Mercedes. The age of them are probably ranging from the early 80’s to mid 90’s, but occasionally you do see new models as well, even    Humvee’s are seen down here, so there must be some people with cash. Most of the Mercedes are converted to contain as many people as possible, passengers even hang outside the buses to get to get further down the street or to the next village, and if that wasn’t it, why not stow 10 goats on the roof together with the luggage of the passengers. Yeah everything sure is possible in crazy wonderful West Africa. These Mercedes are without a doubt the most popular vehicle used all over West Africa. The cars that hasn’t been able to pass the yearly road worthiness test’s in Europe are being send down to Africa to end their life on the potholes and dusty roads. It means goodbye Europe, welcome Africa and they will end their days here when the chassis is  totally fucked up, and none of the doors are able to close. While we have so strict rules regarding emissions in the western world, Africa gets all our junk to keep on polluting their own continent and everybodies world. It is sad but true. If we only think about removing our problems in our own little part of the world, what good is it if we just move the problem to the neighbour country or continent? The Dutch fella was accompanied with a young Nigerian bird named Miriam who he had “bought” for a couple of Singer sewing  machines, to be exact it took him the price of four of these American quality machines, I still wonder what exactly he got out of it? When it comes to sewing machines it doesn’t matter so much that you are skilled at your profession. It is more important that you show your customers that you have more than one machine, though you only have two hands using four machines. People believe your product is good if you have a big quantity of machines. In plain simple words, one sewing machine tells you can sew, four tells your are the best tailor in town. Things sure works different here, but I still love it… At the campsite there was also Monica a middle-aged divorced German lady who had been travelling West Africa in a group of people driving 30 tonne trucks down to The Gambia. She had got tired of the group thing and decided to get off in Senegal at the  way back and wait things out to see where time would take her, more travel of Africa or on the jet back to Germany. She might still hang around there? I hadn’t had in mind staying at ZB for more than a day or two, but the atmosphere quickly changed my plans. We would sit together in the evenings drinking “Bier La Gazelle” and smoking Wacky Baccy till early morning, while the other guest’s at the campsite would have a hard time sleeping due to our annoying laughter and silly conversations and not to forget the special smell of the lovely stuff. I had a great time and I often thought of how great the hippie days would have been like. I would have given my right arm for living in those days when people really got together at the Woodstock concerts in the late 1960’s. Back in those good old days it was Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘N’ Roll and travelling east on the “Hippie Trail”. I would have fitted in perfect. They really knew how to have a great time, I wish I was part of it. After the fourth day I had enough and checked out of the ZB with a bill that shocked me more than first time I saw Ian working on his bike butt naked. Both me and the bike missed getting on the Senegalese tarmac again or what is left of it due to potholes. The road down to Dakar and Kaolack was decent, but the last piece of tarmac or what was left of it before reaching the ferry in Barra was more than terrible. Most vehicles simply chose to drive next to the road on the corrugated gravel as the tarmac is full of potholes as if some someone had dropped hand granades for every 10 meters. I am sure my nuts are still to be found 30 k’s before the ferry where I went into one of the holes when I gunned the bike to reach the last ferry. When I finally made it to the border it was starting to get dark but it didn’t seem to put an end on the traffic situation and the life at the border area. It was still full of life and locals were selling everything from bananas to cheap crappy massed produced Chinese lamps. Africa is suffering under the import of horrible cheap Chinese product’s. Everything down here has made in China on it. Even on the road you will see Chinese people helping the African people building up the infrastructure, I wonder how long a Chinese build road will last? A couple of ladies and a funny dudes came over to me as I stopped in front of the Duane’s, just before the ferry taken me from Barra to Banjul. Two of the ladies were money exchangers and one of the dudes were just eager to score a gift from me, a t-shirt or a couple of CFA’s. In the end we didn’t get down to any business as the exchange rate was too low and I didn’t have in mind giving away my things to a bloody bumster. The border formalities were quite quick and easy-going, though the police insisted on interviewing me in a back office regarding my doings and entry into Gambia. As if this interrogation was not enough, an officer tried to unburden me of 1000 CFA for his part of the formalities which he finally gave up on when he found out that it was the last money I had on me for the ferry to Banjul. After my final stamp in the passport I gunned the bike as fast as I could to get the last ferry. David had previously informed me that I should be nice to the guys working on the ferry. They were awesome, great guys, three of them entertained me the 40 minutes or so it took us to get to the other side of the Gambian river in a rather lazy pace when you know the age of the ferry. It is 5 years old but looks and performs like a ferry that has been in service for four decades. Sailing after dark made me think on all the the ferry disasters you always hear about in east Asia. The Barra – Banjul ferries are filled with about as many people you can think of, and then another 200 more. If it gets into distress every child, woman and man are on there own. You shouldn’t expect too much on these kind of ferries. If you get to your end destination it means it is your lucky day, I really felt it like that. I had during the day been in contact with David about my progress down to his place. He advised me to follow some fellow passengers on the ferry when reaching Banjul to guide me into the Denton bridge on the other side of Banjul. I would there meet with David at one of the major check points. As I already had made several new friends on the ferry it was no problem, one of them a young Gambian called Abdoulie . It was quite a strange experience following a cab with 5 people you really don’t know in late evening through the slums of Banjul. Each time the bus stopped an old wrecked Toyota Hiace minivan, people would come and speak with me, all saying that I shouldn’t worry about my security. When you have heard that three times in a row, you really start to think about your security, but in the end everybody were nice to me. I guess they were just curious to see a Toubab on a huge bike. (In West Africa it is not that common to own a big cubic bike). Meeting with David Z. Levine was just what I had expected, a tall light bald slim guy in his early 60’s with the classic look as a doctor should have, at least in my imagination. David had been standing at the check point waiting for me half an hour. When he arrived he had parked his BMW F650GS and went over to an officers to advise them that he was expecting a friend to show up any time. As he left his bike for 30 seconds he suddenly heard the sound of a one-stamper torquing its way down of the Banjul highway away from the check point. The high ranked Gendarme had taken it for a spin without asking. That is how things work in Africa. After a little hassle and much interest in my bike, David and I finally went through the formalities and were heading home to his place in Kololi for a cold JulBrew and a shower.