Open Look Solidarity Project with Gambia

A Gambian tale ...

Albert Domènech

At the end of the road I see him moving slowly. He wears brown pants with very ugly tweezers that look perfect on him. A white and blue plaid shirt half unbuttoned leaving visible a bright and strong pectorals. He elegantly wears a dirty brown wool hat on his head and a cane in his mouth. He advances at slow, long steps, carefree steps, fearless. It’s like a slow rhythmic dance of an attractive, athletic dancer who knows the right rhythm. The delicacy of advancing his feet in search of a new impulse that makes him rise as if he were a bird about to take flight. It is the beauty of a beautiful body advancing joyfully without haste, without anxieties ... I would like to walk like this. He passes right in front of me and with a white-toothed smile greets me. He extends his hand to me, asks me how I am, how are you, tells me what they call Duda and you are nineteen years old. He goes to his brother's house. He smiles again, and I realize that I am also smiling, that I like to be there planted under the Gambian sun, listening to Duda tell me that he has sixteen brothers from three different mothers, that he is now on holiday and that study, though I don't understand why. Now the older brother will spend a few days at home, he doesn't know how many, much less what he will do next. Time does not require prior notice, life is today and so is the future. He sets the pace, and is rhythmic and knows how to dance happily over the limitations of a simple, short life that will begin again tomorrow.

Doubt is gone. I continue to sit under the silk cotton tree, look around me and it is obvious that I feel weird. A different world, a way of looking, smiling, talking, waiting, eating. I come from a world full of haste, of anxieties caused by the inability to manage our real needs. I wonder if I will be able to learn to minimize the contradictions I live in, if I will be able to find the walking of my friend Duda, if I will be able to dance happily over the loose rope of time, of the day I have to live without be conditioned by tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.

As the afternoon falls, the children continue to run up and down. “Tubab, tubab” they call me happy. They raise both hands, greet me cheerfully. A goat passes in front of me dragging a rope with a stake tied at the end. Seven yellow birds play among the majestic branches of the baobab. The Gambian sun goes away and a thousand lights appear silently in the darkness. A man, I don’t know if big or very big, greets me. He approaches, asks me if I’m okay, and I tell him yes, that I’m strangely relaxed watching him spend the afternoon in front of me and that all the actors who have accompanied him have been wonderful. Take a smile. He asks me if I’m hungry, I tell him I don’t know, that I hadn’t thought about it, but that maybe I did. He invites me to his house. My son with his wife and children have gone to Brikama today to visit a relative, for sure there is a dish on the table for you. Thank you, I would love to spend some time with your family. I try to see where I put my feet, he seems to move forward with his eyes closed in the middle of the blackness. We turn right and a few meters we enter its compound. In the middle of the courtyard is a woman stirring a pot that is heated by a small four-log fire. Seven children run around him. The night is pleasant. Quiet conversation, good food and better company. Night falls, or dawn, or maybe a new day begins in Berefet, I think I’ve lost sight of time and I like that. I go down slowly walking towards the river, I am sleepy. I go to sleep. Good night.