*Gambia on the Move*



By Baba Galleh Jallow






 It’s Saturday, July 01, 2017. We left my lodgings at 4:04 am and got to
Banjul at 4:45, so we could catch the first ferry to Barra. We are packed
at the Banjul ferry terminal, waiting to cross to Barra for my first trip
to Farafenni in many years. The drive from Brufut to Banjul was almost
effortless. But God, we turned into Wellington Street, the pathway to the
Banjul Ferry Terminal. I could not believe my eyes. The street was one big
pool of muddy water. It was impossible to believe that a street in the
middle of our capital city was this bad. It was almost a series of lakes
and muddy mini mountains through which cars have to wade and wobble to
access the ferry terminal.



Many times I find myself holding my mouth, peering around me, wondering,
whatever happened to this dear little country. The people look visibly
relieved that the tyranny that oppressed their lives for so long is now
gone. But they also seem strangely traumatized, dazed. You could almost
feel the sense of both naked despair and elation in the air. There is a
certain turbulence in the calm. A certain ugly in the beauty. People look
calm, but their eyes bear the scars of pain. Their fear of the dead
dictatorship is yet to dissipate. Their sense of desperation is lifting.
But it remains visible on gaunt faces. The taut skin speaks of tiredness,
of fatigue born of twenty two years of fear, of watchfulness, of a sense of
desperate bondage that threatened to last one billion years. One remembers
calling friends in Gambia and mentioning Yahya Jammeh and being told in
frightful tones, “*hey, bayil lollu. Bul tuda koku*” (hey stop that. Don’t
mention that name) followed by nervous laughter. It had grown so bad that
ordinary Gambians were afraid to mention the name Yahya Jammeh in public.
For fear of being overhead and picked up by the NIA, Jammeh’s secret police
and their ubiquitous network of informers planted in every nook and cranny
of Gambian society. What on earth justifies such mad obsession with
policing society as if people were some dangerous monsters? Perhaps, the
strange mixture of fear and elation on people’s faces speaks of a cautious
optimism that things can only get better than they were for the past two
decades.



I walked past a small group of elderly men standing around in a small
circle, speaking in Mandinka. They were talking about Yahya Jammeh. I came
back again and stopped, just outside their small circle. I was shamelessly
snooping, knowing that my presence would not stop those determined elders
from having their noisy say in the new Gambia. In the old Gambia, they
would not have been talking about Yahya Jammeh at all, except perhaps to
exclaim how great he was.



“They burnt all the ballots,” one was saying. “*Yae bae le jani!”* (They
burnt all of them!)



“Around Darsilameh too,” another retorted, “lots of ballots were
burned. *Senegali
yeng maakoi le deh!”* (Senegal helped us a lot).



“Senegal and Gambia are the same,” another added. “There are Fulolu in
Senegal and Fulolu in Gambia; there are Mandinkolu in Senegal, and
Mandinkolu in Gambia. *Mbay moh killing*!” (We are all the same people!).



“But are not all people the same?” another agreed.



“You know what the Nigerian president told his soldiers?” someone asked.



Everyone said hmmn, hmmn, in anticipation of the juicy bit of information.



“He told them if you go don’t do anything. If they shoot you, shoot back;
if not, don’t do anything.”



“They were going to catch him,” another suggested in a confident tone. “Not
a single shot would have been fired!”



“That’s what he knew! That’s why he ran away.”



The elders laughed and one of them said: “*Gambia diyaa taleh. Gambia diyaa
taleh.”* (Gambia is sweet. Gambia is sweet).



I was pleasantly surprised to hear that statement. Yes, Gambia is sweet. In
the months, weeks and days leading up to my trip, I did not know what to
expect. I had been away so long that I found it hard to imagine how
anything looked like. When I said this in a WhatsApp text message to my
good friend and former Gambia High School classmate, Omar Gaye (Banaa)
responded in his characteristic witty and confident style, “You will be
pleasantly surprised.” And yes I am pleasantly surprised at the new Gambia.
I could not fail to notice our society’s youthfulness. I could not fail to
notice the confident beauty of the people, the respectful way in which
ordinary Gambians in the street treat each other. I could not fail to
notice how the very many young traffic police officers around the Kombos
are so relaxed in their interactions with the bustling public and
motorists. I could not fail to notice the youthful sense of purpose; a
certain businesslike manner that, in a strange and interesting kind of way,
strikes me as a spitting image of the new Gambia. There is certainly
something new and beautiful in the air.  Yes, we do have many problems and
some serious challenges. But I can feel that Gambia is on the move.



I was disoriented for the first few days after my arrival. I had thought I
would feel like a stranger, and I do feel like a stranger. Yet I feel
perfectly at home. This land is my land, these people are my people, the
very laid back, smiling, carefree Gambians I had left behind seventeen
years ago. The magic is that they all seem to have grown younger and more
beautiful! Yes, most people I know have visibly aged. But elderly people
seem almost invisible in the Greater Banjul Area. Almost eight out of ten
people I see on a daily basis are young. It is good to feel the vibrant
energy. I remember my good friend and colleague Dr. Pierre Gomez telling me
during the impasse that Jammeh’s fall was largely due to “the Jammeh
Generation.” I now see what he means by the Jammeh generation. I now see
that Jammeh was outgrown by Gambian society. While he was busy grabbing and
hoarding the vestiges of power, Gambians were growing up, mushrooming in a
manner he was totally blind to. And when it became necessary to topple the
tyrant, the Jammeh generation was there to help execute the feat, to tear
his posters down from billboards, and to shout in his ears that Gambia Has
Decided! The sight of graffiti proclaiming “Gambia has Decided!” and
“Jammeh Must Go!” around the Kombos stirs a warm feeling in the heart and
tells you in no uncertain terms that Gambia is on the move. Our challenge
is to make it move in the right direction. And we will do just that.



Back in the car at the Banjul ferry terminal, I think I recognize traces of
Jammeh’s NIA. I could see that blank indifference in the eyes of a couple
of men. I was almost certain that they are former NIA, now the benign and
restrained SIS (State Intelligence Service). I have pondered over the
wisdom of keeping what used to be the NIA in a post-Jammeh Gambia. Perhaps
to help thwart any evil plans by the former despot to destabilize the new
government? Anyway, as I sat in the front seat of my car and started typing
these thoughts on my laptop, one of the men I suspect to be ex-NIA agents
walked over and planted himself right in front of the car. He was talking
on the phone, or pretending to do so, eating a sandwich, and making small
talk with passers-by at the same time by saying things like *eh boy ibedee?
Waw nakam? Mbinaa mbinaa mbinaa.* *Hey hey naa jang naa jang!* It was clear
that he was watching me, all the while pretending not to be doing any such
thing. In by-gone days, he might have come over to ask what was I writing
about, or perhaps “invite” me to go with him to NIA headquarters. And I
would have had to go. There, I would be asked to sit on a dry chair. And I
would be asked a long series of silly questions. Then I would be asked to
sit on a wooden bench. And I would be forced to watch an ugly system
creaking and cracking and screeching around all day long. That was how it
was back in the day. Maybe now they would have just sent me to the torture
chamber. In any case, I was spared that sad eventuality. *Nii mang kukeh
kutela* is back!


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