Gabú Bushcamp
Guinea-BissauOne of the constants of the journey through the African, as opposed to Arabic, landscape is the delighted cries of the children as they spot our big orange truck full of strange hairy pink people. And spot us they seem to do all of the time. They seem very alert and vigilant to anything different in their known environment. At least, that’s my interpretation.
It was around 6pm and I eyed my watch with some concern. It’s no fun setting up camp in the dark and it gets dark at about 7pm here. Then the truck shuddered to a halt on what looked like a football pitch. Surely we can’t stop here, I thought, we should ask permission first. As soon as we stopped, lots of locals appeared, including kids. We asked if it was ok and as we were way off the beaten path. They seemed happy enough and as it was unlikely that any game would be played that night – they had no floodlighting – it was ok for us to stay.
We got the field kitchen set up in a jiffy and tents and sleeping equipment unloaded and began to set up camp. As we were doing this, more and more locals appeared and just stood in that slightly unnerving way Africans have of standing very still. When it got darker, all we could see was their eyeballs and white teeth when they smiled, which they did frequently. Eventually, it seemed, the adults got tired of us and went back to their village leaving 20 or so kids behind. We interacted with them a little but they were very shy. One of the tasks of the cook group is to lay out the folding chairs, generally in a semi-circle or arc, in preparation for mealtime. This they did and one brave child sat on the end chair. A while later, another child followed him and they slowly spread along the chairs like the tide coming in. It was so sweet to see this.
I wondered if they were hungry or expected us to feed them. It felt cruel, though this wasn’t intended, to shoo them off their seats and take them ourselves when the dinner was ready. We ate what must have appeared to them as huge portions while they looked on. Eventually, as we finished up and began to put the kitchen away and prepare for bed, they slowly peeled away and went back to their village. Their goodbyes were effusive and authentic. One of them shook my hand and held my hand with his other one. Another kid did the same thing, followed by several others. It’s so easy to misinterpret actions from another culture but it seemed that they were doing this with a sort of reverence. Maybe it’s an age thing. To them, I must seem as old as a fossil and maybe their culture has a reverence towards old age and elders. However, my immediate response was to pull back. As in most western countries, and Ireland especially given our official involvement in child abuse, safeguarding children is a hot ticket. My thought was, don’t touch these kids, HANDS OFF! I thought it through in a second and continued. I was being appropriate. Later on, I reflected on this and contrasted these kids with the stressed and scared kids in the west. We have lost so much in our frenzy to make the impermanent permanent, the insubstantial substantial and the unsatisfactory, satisfactory.
Next morning, they gathered again and waved us off
I also wondered what might happen if a group of dusty Africans, in a big dusty truck, pulled up and parked on a GAA or soccer pitch and interacted with the local children. The Gardaí or police would be around in a flash along with social services and possible RTÉ news. No doubt, some gobshite would post on WhatsApp or similar that illegal immigrants were molesting OUR children and the lumpen proletariat would slither out of their hovels and scream abuse. They probably would have signs like ‘Ireland for the Irish’, ‘The country is full’, ‘No Great Replacement’etc etc etc. Behind them would be some shady, malevolent far right or christian extremists with their message of hate and division. This is how the recent riot in Dublin happened.
Again, how much we’ve lost.
I went to bed shortly afterwards and slept like a log.
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