The Phoenix Arises
A couple of weeks ago my communication with Patrick reached a nadir from which I reckoned it might not recover. We’d spent a few weeks sending short audio messages back and forth, messages which were difficult to decipher, as they often consisted of a raging tumult of chickens and strange voices shouting in an unfriendly manner, shot through with Patrick’s persistently formal baritone decorated with his heavy West African accent and occasionally questionable syntax.
Then one day I received a message that consisted mainly of silence, punctuated with the occasional scratch as those someone had drawn a fingernail over the microphone. I wrote it off as a butt-dial but another one came later in the day, and then the next, and eventually it became plain that his phone had finally given up the ghost.
Assuming he could possibly still hear me, I sent a message exhorting him to buy a new phone—any phone—reasoning that we couldn’t possibly move the ball forward unless we could communicate with reasonable reliability. The iPhone I’d sent him was gone—stolen—and I knew there was virtually no chance it would be recovered. So any concerns about the quality of the camera or the degree of waterproofness were perforce meaningless.
One day a week or so later I received a message. We were back on.
The message was accompanied by a bit of good news: he’d found a place in Brikama where he could stay and continue his education. Unfortunately it’s just a room in a friend’s house, so his siblings have to remain in Kerr Amadou during the week, his sister Fatou handling the household duties while a neighbor woman looks in on them daily. It’s not ideal but as long as he’s pushing toward his goal it’s all temporary. And who knows, maybe an apartment will open up sometime soon.
I was shocked to discover that his commute, which he makes each Friday and each Sunday, is a grueling seven hours long. It’s only about fifty miles, with a ferry crossing in the middle, but as usual the Gambia’s atrocious road network turns an hour’s journey into a grotesquely proportioned odyssey involving a series of commercial vehicles—busses, taxis, probably the occasional motorcycle. It’s a ridiculous way to get around and I’m deeply impressed at the way Patrick considers this aspect to be something like a minor drawback. His patience is otherworldly.
He’s excited to be back in school, though he started late and is playing catch-up. Typical Gambian corruption invades the process as usual—students are expected to pay extra for handouts containing the information they need to do their assignments, and as he revealed to me just tonight, they are often incomplete. He can use the internet when he’s in the library, but he only has limited time there. In his room he has only his phone and its tiny data pipe. So I often look things up for him and send him PDFs. It’s a ludicrous way to do schooling, but par for the course for the “Smiling Coast.”
The phone he bought doesn’t have a functional camera—as soon as time and money allows he’s going to get it fixed, but for the time being it’s all text between us. I’ve been interviewing him about interesting Gambian subjects and the blog pipeline is filling up again. His words will appear here again in the next edition in two weeks.
I’ll restart the billing for paid members prior to the next post. Our aim now is to save enough for him to buy the best phone available in-country so that we can get a flow of interesting pictures going again.
Patrick’s ability to continue to get back on his feet after suffering one devastating blow after another is pretty incredible; and to continue to live with cheer and generosity and thoughtfulness in spite of it all is really beyond words. I appreciate y’all reading and particularly supporting him. I have no doubt that in another year he’ll graduate and begin his teaching career, and it should all make for interesting reading.
—Fletch