Ch. 10 Which is mostly about signs

It's the end of a long day of work and it's also the beginning of the hot season. My transport arrives and I cram into the gele-gele van and begin the hour sauna ride back home.

There is a young boy next to me who is dressed in his white top black pants high school uniform and he is surrounded by a few of his classmates. It's the last day before Easter break and you can tell there is an air of excitement within the boys; no one likes a break better than school aged kids.

He looks over at me and says hello and asks if I am a Christian. I think he is assuming that I am Christian since most Gambians think foreigners are and when I tell him I once was a Christian there is a hollow and troubled look on his face.

You know you should be a Christian he says. He tells me that if I left the faith that means I must not know God and that if I truly knew him I would return to Christianity.

I am unaccustomed to of this type of conversation with a Gambian, and I wonder if this kid's life is hard being enclosed in a country that is 90% Muslim.

I tell him there have been many great teachers of peace and humanity and that Jesus was one of them. I tell him that all of the teachers must have known something of God, and that there might be a common thread to link them. I tell him until I feel from God otherwise I will respect that plurality by trying to uncover that thread.

Before I can finish those statements he repeats that I have not opened my heart to God. He tells me until I do and return to Christianity I will never get into heaven. He asks me if I know of God's heaven and if I want to go there when I die. He says this all in near perfect English, and I can't help but let my mind wander to questions of what school he attends, who his English teachers are, and how I can obtain their English lesson plans.

I am pulled back into the conversation by his echoes from the Apocalypse of John. He explains to me that now is the worst time in human history and if we don't find faith we are all doomed. He tells me people are doing wrong and behaving poorly onto each other more than ever before in human history. I am unconvinced of the scope of his claims, but can't help but be intrigued by his devotion in the midst of the majority religion.

We come to the end of the trip, and as we get out of the van he tells me he will pray for me to find Jesus in my life.

I walk home being mindful of the breaths and steps that I take.

***

It's the next day and I'm riding my bicycle down the same roads I traveled on the day of revelation. I think about the lack of directional choices in the Gambia and I wonder what Mr. Frost would have done with only one road in the wood, and I am reminded of the smallness of this country. One highway on the south bank and one highway on the north bank.

Daboe is riding with me and we are on our way to buy sour milk for our porridge dinner and a bag of rice. Both of our hearts are a bit sunk because we know that the price of rice has gone up 50 Dalasis. We know that no matter how hard we bargain we will not be able to get the old cheaper price, and that is the way of life here, prices go up. We ride down the road towards the market and despite the distaste of the price increase something else doesn’t seem quite right.

We come to the market junction and the eureka moment hits me and I see development standing tall and proud. Here is development smiling back at me in the form of a large metal sign post gleaming in the afternoon sun. It is so simple that it was easy to forget but gladly accepted, a street sign. On the top is a large pizza box sized advertisement for GT BANK and below it are two signs pointing in opposite directions: Banjul this way, Trans-Gambia highway this way. I look at the street sign in its freshness and function and I grin in content when I see that the bottom of the pole has been vibrantly painted in the colors of the national flag.

I tell Daboe I am impressed by the development and consideration of aesthetics and he tells me that it is very nice and must be new since you can still see the concrete drying.

It's later that day and the more we ride the more signs we see. We realize there are new signs all over for village names, speed limits, yields, children's crossings, and genuine octagonal bright red stop signs. I'm a bit speechless and remember my thoughts hen I first arrived, I remember thinking two years is too short a time to ever see tangible signs of development.

Then I stand in front of the bright red stop sign, its shadow covering me in geometric perfection, and I realize I will never understand The Gambia. I realize how much of a foreigner I still am, and how many positive and negative experiences still await me, and how much those experiences will not make one drop of sense.

We ride back to our neighborhood feeling like things are changing for the better, and I almost have to stop in disgust when we pass our village sign, less than 24 hours old, crudely defaced by a amateur and rushed bathing of white paint. I feel civic responsibility shattered and I want to “go native” and beat whoever did this. I look at the defaced sign and I look at the wide endless road and I wonder if this is what The Gambia wants, contrasts and contradictions.

I think back to my time at University and I remember Professor Robinson teaching us about the mentality behind the creation of the German autobahn. I remember its intention to compliment the natural surroundings, to beautify the landscape. I remember that it was supposed to be a civic project so unified with nature that it became an essential feature of the landscape itself.

I wonder how much people today consider the road in this way and I wonder if aesthetics are included in Westernization.

I look back at Daboe who tells me he didn't even notice the sign or the defacement of it.

Then I look out on the tin roofs, burnt desert yellow grass, and the old man riding by on a shambled bicycle, and I wonder who would worry about the essence of a road when the price of rice has gone up by 50 Dalasis a bag.