Encyclopedic Knowledge

Most of us go to one every day, more than once a day. I’ve mentioned their precense before, and I’m surprised it took so long to give a more detailed description of an institution that is essential to our daily lives, the bitik. A bitik serves as the one stop shop for many people who want a quick solution for breakfast, matches to light a candle, or soap to wash clothes.

So what exactly is a bitik? Well, Todd’s Encyclopedia of World Travels, famous within the foundtheriver.blogspot.com readership has this entry:

Bitik - Redirected from Boutique.

Common in West Africa, a bitik is a small store or shop that sells common household needs and foodstuffs. The name originates from the French word “boutique*,” but has since undergone a Gambian-ization and in Gambia is pronounced bih-tih-k. Bitiks are often run by foreigners or people belonging to the Fula and Wolof ethnic groups. Most commonly Fulas are bitik owners and often come have emigrated from other West African countries such as Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, and Sierra Leone**.

Construction Bitiks are designed similarly to standard Gambian homes. Concrete blocks, wooden roof support, and corrugate tin forms the outer shell of the building while large double wooden doors open outwards, inviting customers to come inside. Inside of a bitik is usually dark and at night a small lantern, candles, or powered lights create a dim glow from within the shop. The customer stands in a small rectangular area, often with the comfort of a wooden bench for relaxation. Communicating with the owner happens between a wall of mesh wire screen that usally stands approximately 6-9 feet tall. The screens vary in thickness and quality and are meant as a security measure. Physical transactions occur through a small square opening in the mesh wire.

The bitik owner does most of his food preparation and money collecting on a long counter that faces the customer. On the counter are common foodstuffs (bread, bread spreads, eggs, etc.) ). Behind the bitik owner are tall shelves containing the rest of the items the bitik sells.

Featured Products Bitiks contain a large variety of ordinary household goods. Essential everyday items such as soap, thread, candles, matches, razor blades, and plastic bags are common, but bitiks each have their own personality often described by the variety of random grab bag style merchandise they carry. The grab bag items can be things such as balloons, pens, incense sticks, or envelopes.

Foodstuffs that are commonly available in bitiks include perishables such as loaves of bread, eggs, and potatoes, and permanent fixtures such as macaroni, tea, sugar, salt, oil, powdered and canned milk, mints, candy, peanuts, or tomato paste. A variety of bread spreads are available and highly popular with customers. Spreads include chocolate spread, margarine, and mayonnaise.

Most products come and go in a constant flow. There is no back storage or stock room. Rather, items are replaced when they run out. Customers often return home angry or upset that their certain product was not available at a certain time. This is most common with bread which is replaced throughout the day at certain intervals.

Classifications Bitiks come in, for lack of a better term, various skill levels of service. A level 1 bitik is the simple neighborhood bitik which holds only the essentials as listed above. Moving up to level 2 will include basic sandwich creation including the ever popular potato, MSG, mayonnaise, and bread sandwich. Next are level 3 bitiks which are more like small neighborhood diners. These bitiks often are fully featured sandwich shops preparing eggs (fried or boiled) or potatoes, as well as other foods of the owner’s choosing. Sometimes they will also have a local lady selling fried beans to be put into the bread. Level 3 bitiks often also make coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or an assortment of other warm drinks. Finally there are level 4 bitiks which are the same as level 3 but add a refrigerator. These are mostly found in the urban areas and offer cold drinks (small water sachets, Fanta, and Coke being most popular), juices, or yogurt.

A level 1,337 bitik with a staff of eternity and magic belt of protection is extremely rare to unheard of because the owner would be required to be an uber nerd, which does not exist in The Gambia***.

Culture Not unlike the Coffee House Culture that has sprung up in Western metropolitan areas, bitiks have created a culture of their own. Their location, time of day, and respective owners reflect what types of customers frequent the bitik and therefore the cultural aura surrounding the shop at that given time. For example, in the mornings it is common to see school age children buying bread for a breakfast snack. At this time the culture is one of chatter of the day’s gossip, thoughts on tests, or complaining about impatient computer lab teachers. In contrast, around twilight bitiks are frequented by groups of young males smoking cigarettes. These men are usually finishing a day of watching football at the local field and unready to go home to inquiring families. A culture of resistance to the home and slow movement characterize these times.

Waste Management Known or unknown to the recycling world of Europe, much of their paper waste comes to Gambian bitiks to be used as wrapping paper for the various items. The paper is probably originally deposited in bins labeled “Recycling,” with the users expecting that the paper will go to a factory where it will be restored and used again. Instead, the paper comes direct to the Gambia where it is ultimately burned. The paper waste comes in the form of old phonebooks and newspapers. A bored customer can read news from a few months ago or look at advertisements to homes and cars that won’t be available in the Gambia for an unforeseen amount of time****.

Price Structure Bitiks create their own price structure. There are some items that are so common that the price is known country wide. However, with less common items it is left to the discretion of the owner to set the price. This can result in items that are over priced, but will always be bought because the customers are in dire need of the item (candles, sugar, and tea are often victims of price hikes).

* Thanks to Laura Smith during WAIST for this clarification.
** For example the 3 bitiks I visit most commonly in The Gambia are all owned by Fulas, two from Guinea and one from Gambia.
*** Does not exist yet. For a further description of this type of nerd please read the entry in Todd’s Encyclopedia of World Travels entitled “Steevo.”
**** Provided you can read whichever Scandinavian language the recycled paper comes in.

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Last night while sitting on my mat the night was cool and rewarding after one of our first truly hot days. The stars were out, Venus shining particularly brightly in the early dark just after sundown. The moon is waning so it would be a while before its glow blurred out the rest of the stars.
Daboe and I were talking about the pains of Monday and I felt rather normal, as Mondays are horrible anywhere in the world. Here we have come to call them “Sanji Follo” or “the coming of the rainy season,” meaning it is when everything is new again and you see an unending field of work ahead of you.
I was drinking hot tea and having my bread (both bought from the bitik) when Buba, aged only 2 years, came up to me and grabbed my copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that I am currently reading. Instead of slamming it on the ground, throwing it, pulling at pages, or trying to draw on the pages, he picked up the book and opened to the maps at the back. He stared for a moment as if truly reading them. He then took about 100 pages in his hands and used his little thumb and forefingers to flip through the pages in rapid succession. It’s something I usually do with books unconsciously, as if scaning for the thickness and contents. I couldn’t withhold my joy watching and realizing how his hand-eye coordination and dexterity just took one giant leap for Gambian kind. It made a lot of the frustration and anger that I’ve been having melt away. Small victories.