Burnt Out

I woke up at 5AM to the sound of wailng. Crying in this part of the world is a mix of screaming, moaning, and tears so when it happens in the dead of night, you hear it. At first I thought it was the man who does prayer call early in the morning and who once scared the wits out of me when I was waiting for a car. I thought he was some crazy man loose in the morning hours. Hearing the cries again I realized it was two different women crying. I thought that the lightning that had woken me up an hour earlier had finally lived up to my fears and struck someone in village. We have been getting late night storms with lightning that you can see, hear, and feel. Almost every night lately I am woken to what sound and feel like little earthquakes. I heard my host moms shuffling outside and peeked my head outside to see what was going on. They told me there was a fire, but when I asked if lightning had struck they didn’t have an answer. We got on our clothes, grabbed our buckets to rush over towards the smoke.

When I got to my neighbours I found that their Bitik (a small store about the size of a small bathroom crammed with sugar, batteries, oil, fish, etc.) had been completely burnt out. The women (including me) started to haul water from the wells so the men could throw the full buckets into the now charred roof beams. The ground was flooded with a mix of rain water, well water, and oil from now melted containers. Though the fire had been put out for a while there was still smoke streaming through the corrugate roof. People were standing around, watching the owner try to find some things not wrecked in the blaze. I saw a half burnt bag of sugar and some melted batteries come out of the soaked room. The will of Allah was mentioned over and over. Randomly there would be a wave of wailing coming from the yard of the house since this was their primary livelihood and there isn’t such a thing as insurance in the middle of no where Gambia.

I was happy to hear that the whole family had gotten out all right. This family has several small children including a new born so they were lucky no one was hurt. I don’t know the extent of the story, who woke up first, how the fire started, if it extended to any bedrooms or just the store. At 5 in the morning with people crying and the lose of so much capital it doesn’t seem the right time to expect people to speak to me in slow easy Mandinkda. After the fire seemed quelled and the family was being calmed by their friends my host mom and I retreated to our place. Later today I will go over and give the family some money. That was my favorite Bitik because the owner and his wife are so friendly. Most stores here are full of cashiers that will barely look at you or answer your questions. I hope before I leave they are able to get their store back to normal.