One day, Long ago . . .

By Baba Galleh Jallow

‘Daddy! Daddy?’

My mother’s voice did not distract me from watching the drama on the street. I was safely hidden behind our bamboo fence and peeping through a crack. Pappa the mad man was still a few feet away, but I could hear the children taunting him.

‘Daddy is that you?’ My mother called again. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her standing at the kitchen door.

‘No, Mama it’s not me. I’m here,’ I said.

‘Don’t you go out there fighting,’ she warned.

‘There’s no one fighting,’ I said. ‘The children are taunting Pappa.’

‘Well don’t you go taunting any mad men or you will get your head broken,’ she said.

I resumed my peeping as mama disappeared back into the kitchen. Pappa was now almost adjacent my hiding place and I felt my heart beating faster. I was so afraid of mad men, particularly Pappa. People said mad men had superhuman strength, their own strength and the strength of the devils that possessed them. So I was never one to taunt a mad man or go mango stealing.

I saw Pappa walk past me, his gray tattered boubou reaching only to his knees, his big hands dangling by his sides. He was always barefooted and bareheaded. I never heard him talk. Sometimes, he ignored the children and would not chase them as they were now challenging him to do. But it was known that if Pappa decided to chase somebody, he would never give up. A few months before, he had chased Ndoi right into her mother’s bedroom and pulled her out from under the bed and almost strangled her to death. Only the timely intervention of Ndoi’s father and brothers saved her life. And there she was again with the other children, shouting ‘Pappa come and chase me! Pappa come and chase me!’ On that day, it seemed, Pappa was in no mood for chasing anybody and soon, the children gave up.

Pappa was just one of the many mad men in the village. No one knew where they came from and each one of them hated something. Pappa hated ‘come and chase me.’ Gankal, who could not speak and who barked like a dog, hated ‘wet skin.’ Like Pappa, Gankal sometimes ignored the children when they called him ‘wet skin.’ But sometimes, he would grab a stone, a bottle or a stick and furiously haul it at the children. And he would angrily bark like a dog and keep hauling missiles. One day, he smashed Basiru’s head with a big stone and drew a lot of blood. I never called Gankal ‘wet skin’ and when I saw him coming down the road, I either turned back or hid somewhere till he passed.

And there was Alagi, who hated Oh, Tuuk! Alagi did not beat people or throw missiles at them. His specialty was cussing. He had a very sharp tongue and cussed the parents of anyone who dared to call him Oh, Tuuk. I never called him Oh, Tuuk. Alagi knew the entire Koran by heart and people said too much learning drove him mad. They said he had read some verses that were too heavy for his head.

And there were Father Borro, Kumba the Genie and Franco the thief. Franco the thief stole anything under the sun - from clothes left in the sun to dry, to a raw piece of fish - anything that could help buy a glass or bottle of senga, or local beer. Franco the thief was always drunk.

After Pappa disappeared into the distance without a chase, I came out of hiding and joined the other children. It was a happy day for me. There was no school and my Koranic teacher had traveled. So I was free to play soccer and wrestle in the sand and go hunting birds or do anything the other children wanted to do.

Pappa was long forgotten when someone spotted Grandpa Biram in the distance and shouted, ‘Grandpa Biram is coming!’ We all scrambled to our feet and ran toward Grandpa Biram chanting, ‘Grandpa Biram where’s Yasin? Grandpa Biram where’s Yasin?’ Grandpa Biram responded ‘Yasin is in Paradise.’

Grandpa Biram where’s Yasin? Yasin in the Paradise. Grandpa Biram where’s Yasin . . . ?

Yasin was Grandpa Biram’s mother and every time we saw Grandpa Biram coming down the street, we followed him chanting, asking where Yasin was. And he would tirelessly respond, ‘Yasin is in Paradise.’ I chanted after Grandpa Biram because he was not a mad man like Pappa or Gankal. He was a very old man who always wore a red hat and walked very slowly, using a walking stick. But he was a nice old man and all of us children loved him. He never got annoyed at us or refused to answer our endless questions.

That day, as usual, we followed Grandpa Biram right up to his compound gate where he stopped and turning toward us, kindly said, as he usually did: ‘Yasin is in Paradise. Thank you all. Now run home and play.’

‘Goodbye Grandpa Biram,’ we all chanted. ‘Goodbye Grandpa Biram!’ Then we ran back to continue playing.

The next day I saw a lot of people hurrying down the street. I ran up to my mama and asked her where so many people were going.

‘Grandpa Biram died,’ she said.

I ran back to my friends to announce the news.

‘Grandpa Biram died,’ I announced. I don’t remember if anyone heard me or not.