miscellaneous

going upcountry you have to know that often things will not go as planned. The plan gets lost at times, and their are moments when your only safety is with Allah, and in this way you are brought closer to Allah.

"If you just believe in the most high, you know you'll be alright." Akon Mama Africa

I expected this going in. The situation was this, I had no car and my friend had no car. One guy we knew, Seeni, had a car and he was already going upcountry to visit his Uncle, so we were just going to "tag along".

So that was the plan. But ofcourse in the upcountry Africa nothing goes according to your best laid plans...

...however...

...I did not expect that my plans would go ary before I would even get out of the city!

The city of Gambia is seperated from the upcountry of Gambia by way of the ferry. We got up early in the morning expecting to catch the first available ferry around 8am. As I mentioned, one must always expect the unexpected because it was not until 8pm that night, that we finally caught the ferry.

Our whole day was spent in a traffic jam of cars all vying for position to enter the parking lot to the ferry. The traffic jam actually appeared to move backwards, not forwards, and there is no system in which it is to move, no visible program for moving cars in and out in an orderly fashion, rather it involves payoffs for positions in lines, bargaining with officials at the gate, and at one time a member of the group actually went and opened the gate while the guard was distracted to allow the car through.

Then that wasn't the end of it. Once inside the parking lot it was then understood that one of the ferry ships was in repair, thus they were running only one ship, the wait was tremendous. The time was only eased by the companionship of other strangers all crowded together in the same mess.. somehow the common experience made way for conversation... I met a couple European guys who basically were taking their truck through all parts of West Africa, they told me nice stories of being in villages and joining in on fireside parties, drumming, dancing and so on. This is a rare quality in upcountry Africa that a stranger can engage in such events so easily as they pass from one village to the next.

I met some "Bifawl" Muslims. They basically said they were Muslim but also embraced their ancient African traditions and even pieces of Rastafarianism into their religious practice. They invited me to visit them in their hometown in Senegal.

Finally we made it across in the night, and just when I started to relax and feel comfortable underneathe the full moon as we rode alone into the night... we were stopped at a checkpoint... and then another checkpoint... and then another checkpoint... and then another checkpoint.... seemed every few miles there was another checkpoint... always interrogating and checking the car over and again.

Finally I was in the upcountry, but my mind ld not be free, as we were constantly hassled by one hang up after another until finally returning to the "freedom" and "unhassled" life of the city.