Shooing Monkeys

Life continues to be good in The Gambia. Despite having to deal with shooing away monkeys off the school campus (I now know that these adorable looking little critters have an extremely mean streak in them when provoked (they don’t take too kindly to big white guys with ties chasing them away with a stick) and hungry (are monkeys ever not hungry?), and both Madeleine and I being completely flattened by this strange and vile, stomach-churning, fever-crippling someone-get-me-some-demerol mystery flu, life continues to be good on the smiling coast of West Africa.

We had an unexpected holiday last Friday. Unexpected holidays seem to be common here in Africa. These off days are called by presidential decree, and are usually announced at the 8 PM newscast the evening before the day of respite. Not being privy to the one and only national news station of The Gambia, I am usually the last one to find out about these unexpected holidays. As was usually the case in Conakry, someone more in tune with what’s going on outside the ex-pat bubble phones me up late at night to let me know about the declared day of holiday, subsequently necessitating the launching of the school phone tree rigmarole and letting parents know that the school will be closed the following day.

This used to annoy me back in Conakry, this shutting down of the whole country at the whim of the big guy in charge, and especially the fact that it was done late in the evening leaving you with no time to effectively execute a smooth, organized and un aggravating business/school closure. But then, I quickly realized that I was the only one getting aggravated. After all, I was a mere novice to this don’t worry, be happy African lifestyle, unaccustomed to the way things were done here in Africa, you know the whole live for the moment/expect the unexpected/quit being so anal mind set that we North Americans seem be caught up in.

In any case, last Friday’s day off turned out to be a real gift. After a trying week of chasing invasive delinquent monkeys and just barely coming out of a severe bout of a disabling mystery flu, an unexpected day off to just ‘hang’ was nothing short than god sent. We have yet to find out what this one-day of leisure was all about. The hypothetical raison d’être behind this holiday ranges from celebrating a national day of peace (always a reliable hey-lets-declare-a-holiday premise here in Africa) to celebrating the re-election of Barrack Obama. In any case, whatever the reason, thank you Mr. President.