The Gurugu Pledge

by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel

  ‘Sorry, sir, I still didn’t get what you said about football and the occult,’ the Gurugu inhabitant would have asked again.

  ‘And besides – sorry, lad, bear with me – football, as well as perhaps television, is one of very few things that have a positive instructive influence on young folk without meaning to, and I’m talking about fundamental issues. Any European country with a lying demagogue for a leader can talk about integration until the cows come home, without doing anything to make it happen. Yet thanks to football, black children living in Europe have people of their own race to look up to. If it weren’t for black footballers being on TV, do you know what black children would say they want to be when they grow up? Not doctors or astronauts or scientists or policemen, for they wouldn’t know about them, let alone judges or detectives, and least of all bankers. They wouldn’t want to be anything. What do you want to be when you grow up, kid? And silence. They can’t know if they’ve never seen an adult of their own colour doing any job of dignity. You can’t expect a child, no matter how humble, to say when I grow up I want to be an agency cleaner at Charles de Gaulle airport. Or when I grow up I want to be a fake-handbag salesman, never mind a razor-wire acrobat or a shipwreck rescuee. These aren’t professions. It’s football that teaches children that black people get to go on TV, get to be admired and applauded. Perhaps they don’t all end up saying they want to be footballers, but they see a brother up there on the screen, someone from their tribe who has triumphed, and he speaks for them all. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that football is the key to survival for countless black boys. And when I say football, I of course mean footer. Now what was it you wanted to ask me, lad?’

  ‘About the relationship between …’

  ‘Ah yes, what I meant was that we used to think that man only lost his reason when it came to serious things, like God, the occult, family, patriotism and sex, when called love, but now we know that he is perfectly capable of losing it for unserious things too, like football.’

  ‘Many thanks, sir.’

  ‘No problem, son.’

  ‘You’ve offered a rather flimsy apologia for the religion of footer, doctor, although I must say, what you just said to that boy undermined everything that came before it.’

  ‘I have two strata of listeners and I address each in their own way. I could go on for a while yet, but I’ve said the main things: football is useful, universal, clean and necessary. If Hindus haven’t learned to appreciate it yet, well that’s their problem, I mean, they wanted to play barefoot …’

  All this would have been said if the learned scholars had come to the mountain and shown an interest in the black people living on Gurugu, an interest in their immediate and non-immediate concerns. But we all know how it is with Africa, what’s hoped for never comes, and so the black people who lived there had to focus their attention on living, in a very harsh environment, doing what they could to survive, doing the only thing available to them: playing football.

  ‌

  ‌III

  After the tournament was suspended, everyone was on tenterhooks and everything that went on in the camp reflected the unrest. A Gambian and a Malian reminding one another of the virtues and vices of their respective nations was much ado about nothing compared to what had caused the unease in the first place, and so the tension mounted, until the word ‘kill’ was heard. Yes, some people believed that an individual, or in fact more than one, had transgressed to such a degree that the community should take justice into its own hands. It was, therefore, a transgression deemed vastly more grievous than the incident involving the hungry Cameroonians and the protected primate, but it similarly risked attracting the attention of the Moroccan authorities, and such a fatal form of retribution would surely give the fearsome Moroccan forestry police carte blanche to do their worst. The situation grew increasingly heated and the fresh water that came from Mother Africa’s womb and sprung out into the world on Mount Gurugu was needed to cool many heads.

  As the details emerged, it became clear that whatever had happened had much to do with an unsavoury character who went by the name of Salanga. Yes, Omar Salanga. It was said that Salanga had conspired with another Gurugu inhabitant, a man called Aliko Dangote. The curious thing was that many people were acquainted with Aliko, but suddenly they only had bad things to say about him. It was as if the entire camp lacked the energy to abort the plans for punishment now that they’d been set in motion. So who really was Omar Salanga and who was his crony, a man with a name as apparently plain as Aliko Dangote?

  The story of who Omar was quickly spread around the camp and although it spread as most African stories do, via word of mouth, those who came from the same place as Omar confirmed that it was true. They had never doubted his existence, they understood he was very much a man of flesh and blood, and they had been taught to be extremely wary of him.

  Omar Salanga had lived in a village somewhere and whenever he felt he was overheating, he’d taken a path to a nearby river. There he found women and children washing clothes or bathing, but Omar was too much of a man to share the water, and so he forced the women and children, some of them girls, to get out of the river. That river, at least the stretch that passed close to the village and took his fancy, was to be his and his alone. He took off all his clothes, except for a pair of gumboots, the sort used by armies, for it was said Omar had been a soldier in former times. Then he got into the water.

  Those who remember the facts about Omar Salanga, if facts are indeed what they are, recall that everyone knew of him in the village, a village that was maybe not his own but that of his parents, and the women knew that if they went to the river to wash and Omar Salanga showed up, then bad luck, they would have to go unwashed that day. For when Omar stripped off all his clothes, aside from his boots, and got into the water, he would float leisurely back and forth with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His aim, or so the people who saw him concluded, was to disappear inside himself, to remove himself of all earthly concerns. His going back and forth didn’t mean that he went from one riverbank to the other, veering around the rocks in the middle, rather that he went up and down the river, as if the business of being at one with himself required that he alternate forays upstream, pushing against the current, with ventures downstream, going with the flow, towards a hypothetical meeting with the sea. And it came to be considered some kind of ritual, because he always did it and he always did it completely free of clothes, but wearing those boots, and always with a drooping cigarette hanging at the edge of his lips. Up and down, as if he’d decided to head to the river’s birthplace, only to change his mind on recalling its resting place.

  That’s what was said about Omar Salanga, and indeed they said more. The manner in which he visited the river didn’t overly bother the women, rather it was the way he took so very long about it. Furthermore, they hadn’t gone to the river to witness a spectacle and, if the truth of the story be told, what bothered them even more than the simple waste of time was that while banished into the foliage, they had to take great care to protect the moral well-being of the girls who were present, their own daughters for the most part, or those of their neighbours, because that man went about unashamedly naked and he had an unusually large member. So it wasn’t so much that he prevented their quick hands from promptly getting the household clothes washed that annoyed them, rather it was the moral threat he posed, especially with so many innocent young girls around. And boys, because in African villages little boys don’t mix with adult men until they’re of a certain age. So it was a case of don’t look, girls, nor you, boys, this is not appropriate viewing for children of your age. Look towards the mountains instead, and do so until that man has had his fill of smoking and bathing, until he puts his clothes back on and goes back into the forest. Yes, what they said about that man was that he liked to take his time in the river, having expelled everyone else from it, women and children, and he only got out when the mood took him. When he did get out, he didn�
�t take the path back to the village, rather he went into the nearby forest to smoke, or to carry on smoking. So another question is what sort of tobacco was he smoking while he went back and forth in the river wearing nothing but a pair of boots? Well, whatever sort it was, he needed to smoke more of it, and so he went into the forest, and later on they learned that it was banga, and that he got it from somewhere down by the river. But why didn’t he smoke it right there, by the river, where nobody would have bothered him, given that he’d established himself as lord and master of his surrounds? Nobody knew the answer.

  So there were two factors to contend with, the first being that Omar forced the women to leave the river, stopping them from performing their tasks, and the second being that he would have contaminated the minds of minors if they’d come face to face with his naked manhood. Such a thing wasn’t for little girls’ eyes, nor indeed the eyes of sensitive women. A regular user of the river knew right away what was up when she approached the water and saw numerous women with their sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters of others, huddled in the nearby forest, stealing an occasional glance at the river to see whether Omar had yet left, so that washing rituals could be resumed. They stole the occasional glance, but they knew they’d be well aware if he’d departed, for he usually walked right past them as he left, before veering off from the path that everyone else used. His not using the same path as everyone else lent further mystery to the man. But the main thing was that for a good many minutes, and once for over an hour, nobody else was allowed to use the river, a river that should have been for the benefit of everyone. You might have gone to the river to wash yourself, or you might even have been halfway through washing, when Omar came along and curtly barked out his orders. You got out, you took your tub, you collected your soapy clothes and you headed off, away from the river, so as not to expose your eyes to harmful things. And the eyes of others too, of course, other more impressionable eyes. So you moved away, good mother and responsible adult that you were, and you let Omar Salanga go up and down the river, you let him smoke, go up and down, smoke, up and down, smoke, and you tried to ignore his manhood and his lording it over the river, public morality and the river beasts that might nibble his toes if he didn’t keep those enormous boots on. And because everyone knew what would happen if the self-appointed king of the river came along, the women started to bring things to eat whenever they went to the river. And when the street hawkers got wind of what was happening with that man and his strange smoking habits, they started going down to the river with their trays of fried and baked wares, for washing clothes is a hungry, thirsty, tiring business. And because that man who took possession of the river did so regularly and in such a leisurely fashion, a small market selling refreshments began to form by the river. Nobody could approach the water while that man was in it, ‘nobody’ being women and children, so they passed the time snacking on whatever was on offer and within their reach, their monetary reach. The snacking started out as a distraction and turned into a custom, and soon, whenever Omar Salanga was seen heading for the river, a market quickly formed and everyone took it for granted that it would form and be there for as long as that man was in the water, then pack up and go when he got out and went into the forest to smoke banga. And that’s how Omar Day was born. Or Omar’s Market. Omar’s Market Day. Omar’s Day. Omar’s Mini Market.

  The people who witnessed and suffered those inconveniences ended up incorporating them into their daily routines and in this manner Omar’s Market was established down by the river, on its western bank, far enough from the water’s edge to ensure little girls weren’t exposed to disturbing sights. It’s said Omar himself stopped at the market only once, asking to buy tobacco. Which kind of tobacco? What brand? Did he smoke regular roll-ups while he floated up and down the river, but the forbidden kind under the trees, when the forest filled with acrid fumes? Things would have gone on like this forever, or for as long as that man lived, or perhaps until a stronger man than him came along and made him see the error of his ways, but then something else happened, something that had nothing to do with the market that had been named after him.

  There were a number of Christians in that village where people had come to accept Salanga’s authority, and they were preparing for an important event in their calendar: the first communion of a number of boys and girls. The boys and girls had passed a series of tests set for them by the minor hierarchy of the local church and their families had been informed that they would soon receive the body of Christ. When the big day came round, the mother of one of the girls rushed out of her house with her daughter in tow, for she planned to give the girl a thorough soak in the river. The girl usually bathed herself before mass or school, but this was a special day and the mother had determined to supervise, the better to make sure she was spotless when she received Christ for the very first time. It would be a proud and transcendental moment and her daughter had to be immaculate.

  Such occasions involve a multitude of tasks and you have to plan ahead to get everything done and not be late for the ceremony. So they set out for the river in good time, today’s your big day and there mustn’t be a speck on you when you enter God’s temple, and with nervous tension they fairly scurried along, and they reached the river and there they came upon Omar, as previously described. ‘Good Heavens!’ the woman exclaimed, in the language she used to speak of matters of God, before adding ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ for good measure. Acting quickly, because she knew her daughter’s delicate little soul was in danger, she made a shield with her hand and placed it before her daughter’s eyes. When a child accompanies an adult along forest paths, the child usually goes on ahead, for no responsible woman wants her little one to get left behind, so it is highly likely that what she wished to avoid had already occurred. ‘Oh no,’ said the woman, ‘what a catastrophe!’ All she could do was cover her daughter’s eyes to prevent further damage. Now she, as an adult woman, faced quite a dilemma, because there was no time to waste and yet who was she to disturb Omar’s leisurely bath? If she’d been as strong as him, or as strong as he was thought to be, because a weakling would surely not have taken such a defiant attitude, weaklings don’t have markets named after them, then she would have confronted him and suffered the consequences, demanded that he either put some clothes on or go upstream to bathe. But she wasn’t as strong as him, or didn’t think she was, and so she didn’t confront him, but she also knew nobody would wait for them if they were late for the day’s main event. Whoever was in charge might have had a list with the girls’ names on and might have done a tally and might have noticed someone was missing and might have held up the ceremony for a few minutes. But they wouldn’t have waited very long, allowances couldn’t be made for a girl running late because her family hadn’t finished sewing the buttons onto her outfit or hadn’t finished making her look sufficiently angelic for the most important day of her life. So the woman didn’t know what to do, other than make sure her daughter’s eyes weren’t further stung by the sight of that man’s shameless nudity. She knew she had to hurry, so she thought quickly and she approached the river, ignoring the terrible fact that Omar was in it, and she filled her bucket with water, thank goodness she’d brought one, and then focused her energies on giving her daughter a thorough scrub, all the while averting the girl’s eyes from the disturbing scene nearby. She had to go into the river a second time to get more water, for this was the girl’s first sacrament, it was a unique occasion and she had to be perfectly clean. The woman came back with a second bucket of water and washed her daughter thoroughly and then she dried her down, gave her the special knickers she would wear for the ceremony and a piece of fabric to cover up her chest. They would finish dressing her at home.

  They left the river and as soon as they did so the mother was struck by how scandalous the whole affair was. It was outrageous that her daughter should be exposed to such a sight, and when the girl’s heart was pure besides, for she’d confessed the previous afternoon in read
iness to receive the Lord. The mother began to cry and she cried all the way home, where family members were busy preparing food and setting up for the party. They rushed out when they saw her and they asked what dreadful misfortune had brought tears on such a glorious day.

  ‘My poor girl,’ spluttered the girl’s mother, ‘and today of all days, when she’s already confessed.’

  The mother’s primary concern was the state of her daughter’s soul, which had been tarnished by its encounter with Omar Salanga’s nudity. The girl’s purity had to be recovered in time for the Catholic ceremony that would mark her definitively. A discussion ensued involving the entire family and one or two neighbours, and it was decided that the best thing to do was to take the girl to see the priest again and have him take away the burden of what she’d seen. So that’s what they did, and they managed to do it quickly enough for the girl to get to church on time and receive her first communion, freshly confessed and clean of conscience, thus ensuring the Christian ritual would have an everlasting effect. Seeing the unabsolved Omar Salanga in the raw was a sin that would have prohibited her from taking holy communion, and indeed she would have been prevented from doing so had it not been for the priest’s intervention.