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Published: March 30th 2008
I live in a compound with two other families. There are 3 houses (one being mine), and the other’s belong to Gambians…very domestic and traditional Gambians. Pretty much the day I moved in they expressed their concerns to me and my roommate, Julia, that we were not fit to clean an African house, and urged us to hire a maid ASAP. These people are very lovely, but are completely up in our business. They peer in my bedroom window just to see what’s up. Usually nothing besides my nudity and possibly some dance exercise to David Bowie. They knock on my windows at 7am to ask me questions, and tell me that I should feed my cat more often. All very nice, when I’ve had 2 cups of coffee and a cigarette. There is no such thing as privacy in an African compound. They like to gossip about us, because we are strange white creatures. I swear, they probably talked about me catching my curtains on fire for 5 hours, they had a serious meeting about it on their porch in Mandinka. They also like to come in when I’m cooking food and question it, and look at it like its rot. My favorite is when they touch my underwear hanging on the line and say it’s “no good” because it don’t know how to wash.
The other day they played a clever joke on me. I was sitting on the porch taking my morning coffee, and writing on my computer. I went into the house to plug my computer in the wall and sit on the toilet, and when I came back to my spot on the porch my cell phone was gone. Everyone knows that white people (me and Julia) live in my compound, so it’s a semi-target. I figured someone came in and stole off with it. After about 30 minutes of semi-looking for it, I gave up. I climbed the wall to my neighbor’s house to see her puppies and bitch that my phone was gone. Then Fatou (one of my compound ladies) pulls my phone out of her pocket and says, “See Ali, I saved you from the robbers. This is Africa, you can’t trust people. So I decided to teach you a lesson.” And then we both started laughing, and it was beautifully hilarious for us both.
As a side note, I watched Deliverance the other day. I didn’t realize I owned it, and I don’t think I really do. My brother likes to slip weird things into my suitcase whenever I leave, like his Zombie movies and The Passion of The Christ. When I first went off to college he put “transvestite santa” in my luggage without telling me. Transvestite Santa is a scary ass plastic Santa that his friends dressed up like a drag queen when they were high. It then became their mascot, one which my brother thought needed to be in my life. He used to hide it in my closet when he knew I would be home alone to give me a good scare. I’d like to pause and give my brother a birthday shout out (its tomorrow), so if you’re reading this, which you’re probably not, then Happy Birthday! Anyway, I found Deliverance and felt it was important to view it to be an American. Let me just say, besides Burt Reynolds looking dead sexy in his tight canoing outfit, it was quite possibly one of the most disturbing films I have seen. I had to sleep with the bathroom light on and the door cracked, in fear that I would be forced to make pig noises by an intruder. I’m not going to elaborate on that reference…I will never go canoing again, mark my words. But here’s a little song with a wink and nudge to the film…“Have you seen the little piggies crawling in the dirt, and for all the little piggies, life is getting worse, always having dirt to play around in” -The Beatles (Piggies)
Quote of the post:
“When all is lost,
All’s left to gain” -Mat Kearney (Won’t Come Back)
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Kathy, Loora's mother
non-member comment
HA
Love your blogs beyond words. This was a laugh out loud for a while. Tell your Gambian neighbors of April Fools Day, just love the trickster games. Also your brother's random surprises. We have some similar traditions in the Oxenreiter household, we like to buy strange little flea market figures for 10 cents or so and hide them in peoples shoes or soccer bags or in a surprising pose somewhere. Classic!!!