What’s these gillys and bumpsters Steven keeps talking about anyways?

So I’ve mentioned a lot the “gilly gilly” bus service that runs throughout west Africa but I don’t think I’ve every truly explained it. I have a few good stories from the last week (one of them being my last blog entry which was too big to put in this one) but I’ll go into them later. Let me start to attempt to explain the experience that is a gilly ride. What is a gilly? A gilly or gilly gilly, is usually an old decrepit 20 passenger van that they pack far more than 20 people into. No hubcaps, no bumpers, muffler dragging across the pothole ridden roads. I got in one one time which even had the added amenity of a see through floor like that of a glass bottom boat, except instead of beautiful array of coral reef life you get the pleasure to bear witness to a dirt road and a cloud of dust below your feet. An endless abyss to which if any item is dropped on the floor will surely fall victim to a dusty tomb of dirt and sand, never to be seen again. What’s even better is the “bling” which is placed on the van by the driver. Most carry tacky window drapes across the tops with pictures of famous religious leaders stuck to the windows and remnants of American and western influence. The best of these are the cars with random American paraphernalia on them such as large stickers of “Rambo” and the “A-team”, some of the PCVs have an on going joke on the fleet of “Creed” gillys that flash a large sticker across the front praising the band which if you don’t know is not only typical American rock but have been associated with strong Christian undertones… doubly ironic. Most gillys also include painted saying such as, “Peace to all”, “I’m a lover not a fighter”, and my personal favorites, “American gangsta’”.

So how do you catch one of these gillys? In major cities like Birkama, Soma, Basse, and anywhere in the Capital there are car parks where you can buy a ticket or find cars going to your area. In village though or out walking around on one of the two main Gambian roads (all other roads are merely bush roads) you can flag one down and hop on. If you can though try and get to a car park because in some places at certain time of the day a million gillys may pass by but they’ll all be full. A few words of advice though for riding on these moving hunks of metal. 1. Don’t be offended by pushing, shoving, people coughing all over you, babies crying and/or the occasional biting roster. If you’re claustrophobic you may be better off walking. 2. Be aware they will try and give you the white man fare so always ask around for the local rates. 3. Know the territory, some places have frequent gillys but others you may be able to get one in the morning but good luck trying to get back in the afternoon. 4. You will get dusty so if you’re a man don’t wear nice clothes. If you’re a woman on the other hand you may be better off sacrificing your African apparel and dressing up for the occasion, as that’s what the locals do and you can avoid heavy pestering by doing so (or so I’ve heard). 5. Do use the bathroom before hand, especially on longer rides stopping may be sporadic and if you have to release the entire contents of your colon do to the well water you drank the other day; pray you’re wearing thick pants. 6. On top of this the road conditions are not even close to decent and your seat will be vibrating like a bed in a cheap honeymoon motel; while the ride may feel like you’re on Disney’s Magic Kingdom’s “Star Tours” I insist you do not by anything at the gift shop. Instead of C3PO you’ll have a less than courteous, short tempered driver. Due to some of the obscene road conditions in some areas it makes more sense to just ride a bike part of the way (if you have a place to stash it) vs. getting a gilly. From my site for instance I ride my bike part of the way and pass a good amount of gillys; as they struggle through a midfield of potholes and concrete gorges I wave to the irritated passengers. Also take into consideration road conditions during the rainy season and plan accordingly 7. Most gillys also hire a small boy or two to collect fares. They are usually punk kids and it’s fun to watch them act cool, attempt badly to spit game to girls, and hang off the back of the gillys… then fall off into the middle of the road. Don’t even attempt to carry on a conversation with them, all the conversations will end with trying to get you to take them to America or nothing remotely interesting. 8. Also be careful when giving them large bill dominations that need change. Most of the time it’s just a hassle, and in smaller gillys this may be impossible, so try and carry exact change. Also I had an incident once where a kid posed as a gilly apprentice and tried to run off with my change; don’t though be alarmed if they do run off to find change, they will come back most of the time, mine was just an isolated incident.

What’s a bumpster you ask? Bumpsters are sadly an intricate part of Gambian life. It may be the easiest way for a young Gambian man to make money to some extent “legitimately”. Bumpsters are the blue collar boys of the Gambian sex-tourism industry. You can always find them on the beach and in the tourist neighborhoods and they later become a plague on the smaller villages as the tourist season slows down and they return home. Identifying characteristics: sleeveless net shirts and wife beaters with bright colors or country flags, rasta haircuts/hats and/or accents, 70s basketball shorts, and like most Gambian boys will also be sporting a wide assortment of g-unit/50 cent attire. Will be seen doing pushups, sit-ups, running on the beach, and doing stretches that attempt to show off their muscles. Will also be seen holding hands with unbelievably old and unattractive European women. Like the small boys on the gillys most conversations you have with them will be an utter waste of time and scientists have proven that for every hour you spend with a bumpster your IQ will decrease 2.3%. Unlike the small boys, most of the time they are not to be trusted, these are boys who make a living suckling off ancestral European titties, drinking, wasting their lives away smoking hash, and listening to bad reggae music with random laser sound effects (it’s like someone got their first soundboard and wanted to use all the buttons in random places). I have thought for long periods of time though of what would encourage these kids to choose such a life; but realistically who could blame them. To them it’s not a bad gig at all, I’m not supporting it but put yourself in their shoes. You get to sleep with many exotic (although repulsive, still exotic) women, relax all day on the beach, listen to your favorite music, have conversations and exchange knowledge with people from all over the world, learn new languages, and now have a window to reach a Gambian boys true mecca… the west. America and Europe to them is paradise and thousands have died trying to get there: on overcrowded passenger ships trying to sneak onto European soil, to diseases passed through sexual promiscuity in Africa and to malnutrition. I’d like to make it clear though that I do not judge the bumpsters, but rather make sure I take adequate measures to avoid dealing with them. It should also be stated that there are, although very rare, female “bumpsters” but they aren’t characterized with that word as you know. TIA. If I could only find a strong argument against theirs to urge them on the negative effects of such a life, but most won’t hear it.

Where the game isn't just a game

It was Thursday on the first of May. I awoke in a pool of sweat like usual, shivering from the cool Atlantic breeze coming in through the window of the stodge (the peace corps frat house). I hadn’t planed on breaking three month challenge by staying the night in the capital but with Dan leaving and everyone in town to take a break from village life time got the best of us, and by the time we realized it I wasn’t going to be able to catch a gilly back to site. I went back to the office to check some last minute e-mails then took a taxi to Westfield to hail a gilly gilly to site. It was game day. And as the newly elected coach of the village’s football team they were counting on me to I guess pull some sort of miracle win for them from the sidelines. Half the village still thinks I’m English or German and thus an expert in football, ironically if they only knew how much the entire country of America loathed soccer and saw it as a “child’s” sport. Luckily for them though I am the rare American who has obsessed over the beautiful game my entire life.

The afternoon arrived quickly and the entire football team came for an inspirational game day speech from their coach… and yes I gave them the ‘ol “win one for the gipper/mighty ducks speech”. An empty “15” passenger van arrived shortly after and we crowded the entire team into it along with coaches, substitutes, reserves, and a few supporters who climbed on to the roof. Now it was transformed into a 30 passenger van, TIA. It was a half an hour ride along a sandy bush road to get to the game and we must have prayed 6 times before we got there. Before we left we prayed, along with stopping at every village on the way to say a little prayer, not to mention when we got there I was told to give a candle to a random woman and tell her to pray for our team (a common tradition in the area I’m told). We arrived into a wall of sound and energy, so immense it practically swept me off my feet. This wasn’t a 70,000 capacity Stanford Bridge or Anfield stadium in England but a bumpy field in west Africa with tree limbs for goal posts and it had me mistaken. The team and I were escorted through a maze of rice bag fencing and metal partitions amidst a large number of puzzled stares aimed solely in my direction. Frankly I think the administration of the football league here thought my village was cheating somehow having a foreign coach. The football commission in the area is incredibly anal about cheating and with full right. Corruption isn’t exactly alien to west Africa and in this major tournament it was common place to have first division national footballers come back to their cousin’s uncle’s brother’s village, claim to have lineage there, and play for the team. In Gambia though that’s fairly easy considering anyone can easily trace their family trees throughout the entire country. It’s become such a problem that the Football commission literally has to match each player to a photo to make sure that they are in fact from that village and/or have lived there for at least 6 months (which is why I’m thus coaching and not playing).

The match was coming up fast and we barely had time to do a full warm up and stretch. We were pushed off towards the field, our captain running out first into a herd of screaming fans. Even university football games in American don’t get this much crowd support. At the very least for a soccer match played on a sandy field with the lines merely the referee’s shoe indentations dragged across the ground. The whistle blew, the game began. The drum beats in the background were thunderous vibrated your very soul. Supporters gathered in groups to dance and sing as they screamed profanities at the referees and opposing team. This is how the game should be played; with passion and grace, pulse and pace. Logistically the first half was a disaster going a goal down early in the game ending the half down two to nothing. We barely touched the ball and I was on the sidelines trying very hard not to throw chairs and benches at the ref and my own players. Coming into half time though I urged the other coaches to be calm and remain supportive. If the kids needed anything it was to see our composure. Something had to be done, I told the team to catch their breath and I switched our formation from a standard 4-4-2 to a 3-5-2. We needed to start controlling the ball and the pace of the game, and considering every game in this tournament was a must win the sacrifice of a defender was well worth the support of a larger midfield. The second half started and from the first minute it was apparent a new team had entered the game. The opposition seemed to have felt very content with their 2 goal lead and gave up even with a few of their key players being injured in the early minutes. We took control of the game, having the majority of the ball possession and attacking chances and slowly came back. One goal came in the ‘75th minute, and as the final seconds wound down the emotions were high. You could feel the goal coming before it ever happened, a perfect pass through the defense to a sprinting attacker. He shot, and the goal was blocked by innate reflexes, only to be deflected into the path of our other striker. The crowd rushed the field like a summer storm and cheers erupted like thunder. The game ended as a draw but our team surely took the better result coming back from two goals down. I shook the hands of the opposing coaches and refs and the team celebrated by breaking out warm sodas from a cooler. Thankfully there was no ice… I had a nice shirt on.

We crowded back into the vans and headed back to the village chanting, the driver literally holding his hand on the horn the entire way. Coming back into town the atmosphere was overwhelming and overpowering. It was a raucous clash of boisterous chanting and screaming. A loud mess of spirit and rhythm like nothing I could ever imagine. These kids could have been war heroes coming home from a long and perilous campaign in a distant land. Their faces tan with distinct patches of dirt, their bodies riddled with growing bruises and dried blood, but their voices loud and clear. We drove through the entire village in song, children hanging on to the site of the van and the girls singing and dancing. Ending our parade of chaotic children we did another couple victory laps through my compound, barely fitting between the walls of mud brick houses and the low branches of a mango tree. This is how the game should be played: on a shitty field, with tattered shoes, degraded uniforms, and a pure heart. If only our lives could be lived as simply.

In recent news my football team played their second game in the group stage of the regional dry season tournament. We won 1-0 and advanced to the quarter-final round by a perfectly executed free kick. We won even with two of my players randomly collapsing on the field due to “Black Magic”. (… sigh). No joke 20 minutes into the match my goalie just falls over complaining of pulsing pain in the back of the head, but he’s able to get up and grit through the rest of the game a few minutes later. Then at the end of the first half my left defender keels over to the ground screaming in agony, yet he wasn’t near anyone to make any sort of collision. He began tossing and turning in the sand exclaiming that his body was “extremely hot” as if his very blood stream was circulating molten lava; as well as abdominal pain that he said felt like an anvil. I rationally attempted to have the situation explained to me but was told that I “wouldn’t understand… this is a black man’s curse, African sorcery.” They went on to tell me that the opposing team must have paid a ‘Maraboo’, a Gambian shaman if you will, to cast a spell upon our team so that it’s players would begin to burn up and not be able to play. My defender began to stand up all of a sudden, drunkenly stating he was fine but he was obviously delirious. Attempting to reduce the already rapidly spreading hysteria among my team I urged a few of the older men to keep him down or take him somewhere else. We walked back to the locker room and I gave my usual inspiring halftime speech over the gut wrenching cries of my cursed outside defender. The game ended and both players seemed to miraculously feel better. Whether that was because of the coursing adrenaline from the win or the curse wearing off, who knows. As a scientist I’d love to discredit the entire event medically, but a piece of me still thinks it’s pretty fun to believe in magic. What would life be like after all without the romantic lure of the supernatural, that enchanting thirst to explore the unexplained. *X-Files theme plays in background*