The sheep are stacked sideways*, chewing smack in between the cars, motos, trolleys, people and parcels. The three boys herding them can not be older than twelve, the oldest a big kid with the swagger of an adult, pulling an animal by the rope around its neck, prodding at the side of another creature with a stick. The crowd surfs me onto the ferry. I have been helping a mother and her daughter by carrying one of their big parcels on my bicycle but when the little girl asks me if I’ve seen another one of their bags there is nothing I can do; she has to go back against the pushing crowd and find it where it was left by the gate. For a moment I feel sorry as I look into those big eyes right before she turns, but there is nothing I can do. I can’t leave my bike or turn around in this crowd. She disappears between the knees and the elbows.

The people are streaming and screaming by me, falling like a flood as soon as the gates opened and we were allowed to board the ferry. Suddenly the Africans who I’ve known to be all patient and calm are nothing but elbows and sharp voices, the sun straight on top of us and everyone dripping with sweat. The military and police officers blow their whistles but nobody listens or follows the pointing hands. We press as close to the walls of the ferry and the thin strips of shadows as we possibly can. When the ferry departs the people selling snacks and drinks start pressing their way through the crowd and the stuff, working despite the many notes in the port forbidding them. Waves beat in over the open front and shower the cars and the people standing the closest. The ride is not long, but everyone is strained. This is Tabaski-times.

…

Nothing catches my attention in the sleepy Banjul and so I head out, onto the wide, flat road rolling my wheels for me. More people means less screaming and attention on me. They smile and wave, some looking down on me from the backs of trucks, dancing or laughing or giving me a thumbs-up as they pass but I laugh right back when I swoosh by shortly after, them stuck in traffic.

…

I get lost on the shortcut. The compound is nicely tiled and flowers are growing over the wall and high iron gate, but the eyes meeting mine in the dark seem cautious. No smiles at me, no replies to my small talk. I am invited to eat around the dish but their eyes turn from mine as if I am making a mistake.

I am given a big room with a double bed and posters of Bob Marley and a door leading outside to bird song, sculptures, a green wall and a little sink. In the morning one of those birds with big beaks wakes me up by knocking on my window. Through the reflective glass I can get all up close and look at its black-and-white pattern and straight short eyelashes. Its partner or friend is sitting on the wall behind.

…

“What is the worst thing, you think, here in the Gambia?”
I don’t want to say it’s the trash. I don’t want to say it. I want to show that I don’t blame the people for what is a massive lack in infrastructure, I want to show that my thinking is nuanced and non-judgemental. But he says it for me.
“It’s all the trash here.”

My host has brought me to a plot of land near his family compound where he is constructing his house and, most importantly, growing his own garden. On the wall facing the street he has written “NO TIPPING”. Inside the high walls the land is swelling with green and a neat driveway leads up to the house. He shows me the banana trees, the flowers, the cassava and the chickens strolling free. All the trees he’s been pruning for several years already.
“I learned how to take a cutting from the trees and bushes I liked and how to make it grow roots,” he tells me. “This way is much cheaper than buying a young tree from the market. If I pass a plant that I like I can just cut a branch and plant it here.”

“My family and friends told me to stop this,” he says. “They didn’t believe in my garden. But every day I would come here to water everything. I only installed the water tank last year.”

He has bought me a bean sandwich and made me tea. We’re sitting on the porch of his half-finished house. He himself is fasting for the day before Tabaski. He is my age, on the verge of moving into his own house, into his own adulthood. Now his family accepts his spending time in his garden, especially since he has something to show for it. But it makes me sad to hear that he had to fight the people close to him just to spend time with his passion. I could never have imagined that a hobby so innocent as growing a garden could be looked down at for any reason.

In the concrete in front of the house he has cast “FUCK THE SYSTEM”. I wonder how rigid and tight must a system be if even hobbies such as pruning trees and watering bananas are scorned at. What can a person become in a society that has little tolerance for anything other than one’s getting married and having children? Compared to many, this country seems more open. But I know there are many things that I, as a traveler, visitor or tourist, am not invited to see. How tired must people be behind the smiles if they have to put up a fight for even the smallest of deviations? How small is their space to move, to be, to breathe? And here I come, barging in with all my freedoms.

I sip my tea as he fasts and we wait for the rain. I am happy for every flower blooming in this garden.

—
*Not literally, don’t worry.

…

(This story told in pictures.)