Gay Erotic Stories

A Beach-Boy Part 1

As a country, The Gambia is a strange entity. The surface is 11.400 km², roughly the size of Jamaica, and it had just 490.000 inhabitants in that year, 1978. It is one of the world's rather unknown countries. Situated on both banks of River Gambia, it stretches from the Atlantic toward the East over 470 kms, and the distance from the Northern to the Southern border varies from 24 km inland to 80 km of shoreline. The country forms an enclave entirely surrounded by Senegal, and when the Senegalese travel to the South of their country, they have to cross that foreign state. The official language of the former British colony is English; whereas Senegal speaks French. As both countries are inhabited by the same Mandingo, Fulani and Wolof, the common language is Wolof.

Gambia is a small country – all their statements begin with that – and one of the world's poorest, despite a certain economic activity. A small country has a small administration and almost no defence expenses, so customs taxes are low and cause a permanent thorn in the flesh of Senegal, an active smuggle trade. The British tradition of simple but efficient red-tape had as effect that foreign investment and land purchase were easy and fostered the development of touristic infrastructure by foreign companies. Tourism became the main source of external revenue. The extremely friendly and peaceful population made the best of public relations. So tourists, mostly from Northern Europe, used to come back and encouraged their friends at home to follow them. It must be said that Gambia is not a fashionable destination and caters rather to the more simple middle-class visitors.

In this context, a European company had contracted our services for an investment study on airborne exports of fish and early vegetables. The opening of Europe's greatest fresh food market in Rungis near Paris, had developed a high demand of Atlantic fish, shrimps and cephalopods as sepia and calamares in countries like Germany and even in the Benelux. Despite its narrow size, Gambia has, as all sea-bound countries, an exclusive fishery zone of 200 miles.

On mornings, I went to Banjul, the capital city, to proceed to inquiries and interviews in the Ministries, banks and private enterprises. As is frequent in African countries, public services opened very early in the morning and closed early because the hot afternoons did not serve the efficiency of work. I had registered in a seaside resort at Fajara beyond Cape St. Mary, 20 km from the capital, and enjoyed the benefit of paid holidays with sunbathing and swimming; the breakers are not dangerous there.

And so it all began. I was lying on the sand, entered from time to time into the waves, and scrutinized continuously my shoulders to see if the burning sun of early afternoon began to give my cheese-white skin a better looking tan.

There were not many people on the strand; the guests of the hotel were taking a deep siesta after the plentiful seafood buffet, and the two watchmen of the hotel, positioned on the outer limits of the hotel strand, hindered local peddlers from hassling the white tourists.

There was just a single young man ambling along at the seam of the waves that died on his bare feet, where the sand is hard enough to walk with ease. He continued towards the horizon on the left; after a while he came back on the same way, and returned again to the end of the strand. While ambling along, his face was constantly turned upwards to the hotel and to my lonely presence there. My attention awakened, and indeed, after some hesitating returns, he crossed the strand in my direction. He was a handsome black lad (but then aren’t they all?), decent looking in ironed jeans and a white T-shirt. I recognized him: a beach boy!

He stopped at a 10 meters distance from me and called: "Hej! Hur mår du? Är du turist? Tycker du om Gambia?"

I turned to him, and made big eyes, but did not say a word. He continued, with a different accent: "God dag! Hvordan går det? Er du turist? Må jeg sætte mig her?"

I looked again at him with raised eye-brows: "Try it in English."

He laughed, "Oh, excuse me Sir, how stupid from me. Everybody speaks our national language. Well, do you allow me to sit down here?"

"This is your country, this is a public beach, and I am a foreigner."

"You are a foreigner indeed, but you are our guest."

I laughed, these boys have an efficient routine to force foreigners into conversation. In Dakar for instance, when the European tourist is tired of being hassled continuously by the peddlers of "airport art" and does not answer, they use the standing expression: "You don't want to talk to me. Are you racist?" Nobody, absolutely nobody, can resist, and the sales talk is engaged at once. There is one escape, which I am the only one to know or use: With a sadistic jubilation I hiss, "Ah oui, absolument!" (Oh, yes! Absolutely!) Immediately, they turn on their heels, disgusted by such a mean mentality.

That boy however was polite and good-looking, so I had no reason to humiliate him. As he did not carry anything for sale, I was curious to know what he expected from me.

"Okay, the guest invites his landlord to sit down wherever he wants."

The boy sat down on the sand at my left, with the sun fully on his face; it gleamed as did his eyes and his teeth. Intentionally or incidentally, he sat at a distance of about four or five meters, slighty behind me; close enough for our voices to cover the noise of the waves but also at a polite distance from a man in treacherous bathing trunks. I appreciated his discretion, because Europeans from a certain age on are easily embarrassed by their body in the presence of the breathtaking bodies of black or east-Asian youngsters.

In some African countries where Europeans are rarely found on the strands, little village boys used to sit close to their feet and stare at the exotic animals; sometimes they would shyly ask for permission to touch these strange, straight, brass-like hairs. Their innocent closeness can be very embarrassing for an adult, even if he has not the slightest hint of being a pedophile.

Older or educated boys however are instinctively respectful of other people's intimacy. I once traveled with one of my students to his village in Spanish Guinea; before supper, I asked Agostino where I could wash all over, since the car had been sticking several times in the mud of the rain forest. He led me through the garden behind the compound to a small pond and sat down on the earth. I entered the water up to my knees for my ablutions, turning my back to him. When I began to remove my slip for the integral job, Agostino lowered the wick of his kerosene lamp to the extreme point. He was not conscious of his gesture, but I was impressed. Decency is a natural attitude in societies that live in promiscuity.

Now, my landlord slid towards me and stretched his hand out. "Hello, Sir, I am Stephen." I shook his hand, and he slid back to his remote place.

"Tell me, Stephen, what did you say when you first talked to me?"

"That was Swedish, and when you did not answer, I thought you were Danish. All tourists in Fajara come from Sweden or Denmark, a few from Holland or Germany. The hotels here are owned by Swedish companies. So we know who are all the white people lying in the sun. Well, I just welcomed you because you are new here."

I rose. "I'll have a swim. You come with me?" Secretly, I wished to see more of his person.

"No Sir, we reserve this beach for our guests. We boys have our own beach on the other side of the cape where we swim, play football or train for the famous traditional wrestling competitions. There is not much more to do for most of us."

When I came back, had dried myself and lay panting on my bath towel, he was sitting there as before, smiling to the horizon. After a while, he began again. "You be American?"

I looked at him in surprise, and a bit weary of being the main guest of a merciless quiz show. I raised my brows.

"Well, you speak like the American tourists. I mean, the white Americans."

"No, I am not. In my younger years, I had to do with the Americans and I worked over one year for the US Army as a native clerk typist."

"Excuse me Sir, where are you from? It's just an information; if I know where you come from, I will not annoy you with more questions about your private life."

"Well, I am from Germany, I live in Holland, and my language is French. I am here for one week on an inquiry mission. Is that enough?"

"Happy to hear that. I have a good friend in Germany, in Hamburg, you know the city where they mince the meat and send it to America. But excuse me, France, Holland, Germany, that sounds complicated." "At University, my friend Jean-Louis used to say, ’Paul Oeuf, you are an international whore’.“ I did not feel obliged to explain to a barefoot anglophone beachboy the persiflage of Jean-Louis: my middle name began with an F., American style, that bad fellow pronounced Paul F. as oeuf, egg, meaning egghead. My intention was however to push the conversation near the cliff.

Stephen reacted, but not as I had expected. "Oh, I understand. You are a kind of multinational company." He had not reacted at the word whore.

We shall try again.

"What's going on here?“

In Europe, this is a current bait question: it is inevitably followed by the counter-question: "What do you have in mind? Theater, movies or night clubs?"

"Rather some fun."

"Oh I see. You are looking for girls?"

"Yes, but not exclusively. Is there something else?"

"Pardon me if I misunderstand: you don't mean boys?“

"No, I don't know anything about that, but I might be curious, just to see."

"There are enough boys around, and on occasion, I am a boy myself." The affair is in the sack, a done deal.

Now Stephen reacted as expected. "Beside the hotels, there is not much nightlife in Fajara and Bakau. If you want fun, if you want to meet a decent girl, I can fix you up with a clean, decent girl."

"No. I am not so much interested in girls." Come, come, come!

"I understand. I see the wedding ring on your hand." Oh no, the cruel lad turns me down in all decency. I'll have to find another approach.

He gave me, however, a new chance: "Do you see the green building up there on the Cape? This is Alligator Bar, a night club, but African style. If you allow me, I'll show you the way after supper. I'll wait from 9 o'clock on there under the calao tree which marks the limit of the hotel strand, and I'll bring you back safely. By night, the beach is dangerous for a single European. And now, you'll allow me to leave for home. See you then, Mr. Paul Oeuf, if I understood correctly."

I laughed. "It is Paul. No Mister and no oeuf."

As convened, I met him at night, sitting on the strand. He was wearing a silvery bomber jacket in synthetic fabric on his naked breast. We walked through the night to that Alligator Bar on the cape.

A night club for African patrons is just a large, sparely lighted bar. Often, the floor is made from smoothed red cement, which they clean with lamp kerosene; so you know by the odour that people dance here. The music comes from cassette decks with the biggest loudspeakers that are on the market. The sixties were dominated by sun-filled Congolese music in Lingala with Rocherau and Docteur Nico; in the seventies it was James Brown and Nigerian "High Life" in Pidgin language with Sunny Ade, Prince Nico Mbarga and Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey; and from the eighties on the Wolof marvel, Youssou Ndour singing in Wolof in his better years.

Black people have good reasons to love cold, white or green neon lights making a European look like a dead fish but which produce graphic reflexes on the dark skins; they look then like over-contrasted bitmap pictures. Special dark violet tubes produce strange luminous effects on the white shirts and the teeth of the boys dancing in nearly complete darkness.

Our Swedish friends were also sitting in clusters, had obviously floats of drinks as always when they are far from their virtuous fatherland, and the loud expression of their lust of life began to cover the roaring music. We sat down as far as possible from them. I wanted to talk my guide into my sinful plans, because his open look and his polite manners began to operate their charm on me. Inevitably that made me wish to pull his underwear down for a more intimate acquaintance. I came back on my approach.

Stephen however was so far from that, so pure and innocent, that his enthusiasm carried him in quite another direction.

"We are aware that Gambia is small, the smallest country of Africa, but very rich in tourism treasures. The batik cloth dyed by our mothers is renowned in the world, you certainly will buy a robe for your wife. As to our handicrafts, the Swedish tourists only stop buying when the weight of their suitcases approaches 22 kilos. The markets are colourful; our people are friendly and admit to be photographed even if they do not understand the mania of the tourists who take pictures of persons they do not know. We have our colonial monuments around Marina Parade; we have stone age menhirs upstream, and much much more."

Stephen went on. "There are also excursions on the River, mostly for American tourists, black people like us but they don't speak correct English as we do, rather a strange dialect. Well, we were the first colony of the British crown in Africa since seventeen…help me, seventeen… seventeen-sixty-five. The ancestors of these Americans had been kidnapped here during centuries by the white people, deported to America and sold there on the market as labour animals.

"One of them has written a big book about his roots in Gambia where he spotted his direct ancestor, the grandfather of his grandfather, in Juffure, on the other bank of the River, upstream. Now all his brothers come to visit the place. They look into people's faces or ask politely to see the old family photos. Among them, there are pure Mandingoes like us, but they are all very rich, they all have cars which are bigger than the official car of Sir Dawda, our President, and there are even black generals who command white officers, imagine! Their women wear carnival hats, spectacles with diamonds and bird feathers, and sometimes short pants that make me turn off my head. They are strange looking, but respectful of our people, not like the White who most time do not even see us. The next excursion by River Travel Agency will be on Sunday morning. It might be a bit expensive for two persons, no?"

"Why? Is there no guide who explains everything?" I asked.

"For sure,“ Stephen replied. "There is always a guide, but he only says what everybody can see; if they cross a fisherboat, he says this is a fisherboat. But he does not explain that the man had left before dawn, what he is catching and so on. The guides are joking on our people to make the white tourists laugh. I know the white people better than the agents of the Ministry. The older ones are only interested in shadow and cool drinks; but the younger tourists want to understand what really goes on behind the surface. I am a real guide."

"So you have a diploma?"

"I have more than a diploma – I love my country and I know what happens behind the scenes."

"And what is behind you…?" Shame on me.

He thought about my question for some seconds. "Behind me, it is always me." Again he turned me down, but my approach will continue as long as I stay here or until the ripe fruit falls.

When we headed later across the dark strand towards the lights of the hotel campus, I made a last try: "They were loud, these Swedish or Danish people?" "They get loud when they are drunk."

"Do you accompany them sometimes?"

"No, not when they are many, because they talk about things and make jokes I do not understand; my Swedish is very limited. I was there twice, with a Swedish and with a Dutch lady. But my place is not in their groups."

"Have you seen the two blond boys sitting apart from the others?" I asked. "At one point, the one kissed his friend."

"I have seen them, but not that they kissed. Why should they?"

"Because they are in love," I observed. "You have never been in love with a man?"

He stopped, and as far as I could see in the moonless night, his face and his open mouth showed violent indignation. "Do you mean they do things together?"

"Yes, they undoubtedly have sex with each other. That's not so extraordinary."

"That's disgusting what you say. And it is absolutely impossible. I cannot imagine how they do, and I do not want to hear more about that. In our country this does not exist. I never never have heard about that. What I have heard is that in Dakar, some French and Libanese men give money to local boys to play with them, but, no, that makes me puke."

Oh Sancta Innocentia! It was time to stop, and we also had arrived at the strand entry of the hotel where the watchman, dressed in a British tropical uniform with knee-length khaki shorts, silver buttons and a black police cap without emblem waited for me, the stick of the Fulani herdsmen on his shoulder, a light but dangerous weapon with a thick knob on one end. Stephen disappeared fast in the night. "Noï on inde ma? What is your name?"

"Diallo, Massa."

"Ah Diallo, jam na?"

"Jam kodume, Massa. A nani Pular, boddum." I am very well. You speak Fulani, that's good.

"Ah, gido-am, a woowri sukka-do?" Say, my friend, do you know that young man?

Diallo answered in Fulani, certainly to compliment me for my akward efforts in that beautiful international language: "Yes, Massa, I know him for a while. He is a serious boy, he will not steal you or make trouble. Sometimes, in the afternoon, some white girls invite him to the bar. But at night, he must not enter the compound," he said, waving his stick. I gave my new friend a generous tip that opened wide his eyes when he palpated it. I went to my bungalow.

On Sunday morning, we got to the River Port of Banjul and took the launch upstream, for Juffure and James Island. On the way, Stephen told me many things and, as promised, many interesting things behind the things. He explained that already in colonial times when the British organized education and when the diplomas like GCE were delivered in London and Oxford, the children in the colonies like Sierra Leone and Nigeria had to study first their national history.

On the shore, close to the waterfront, appeared a large two-storey building. Fort Albreda, a French trading post in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Stephen told me it was unoccupied today and in bad condition. Sometimes French people come and say they will try to get funds at home to restore that historic monument. And on he babbled – he was really worth the generous fee I intended to give him on our return for his guidance.

We crossed "MS Lady Wright,” a large ship from the regular passsenger line upstream. The stern wave caused a swaying movement that threw me over the gentleman sitting on the bench on my left. "Excuse me, Sir!" Immediately, I regretted my words, because he was obviously a Serer or a Mandingo, an elder gentleman wearing the usual dress of Senegalese businessmen or administration agents, a short sleeved jacket with open collar and the trousers in the same grey suit cloth which the local tailors sew for some 9 dollars. So I repeated, "Excusez-moi, Monsieur, un mouvement du bateau."

The man smiled. "Oh, I don't mind. Glad to meet another American." He had not paid attention to my dress, which was from the same tailors as his, but only to my slight American pronounciation. "Thank you Sir, but if you listen better, you'll hear my German accent below my English. You know, the liberation of my country and the occupation, the many contacts with the GIs, the Voice of America, AFN, the America Houses."

"You are going to visit Juffure, too?"

"Yes, but I would have liked a longer stop at French Fort Albreda, and I'm eager to land on James Island, which was built as an armed trading post and slave buying agency by the men of a German prince, Duke Jacob of Courland, in 1654. A fascinating place for a German, an exalting and a shameful souvenir, too.

"My fascinating and painful origins are here in this area," he said, "perhaps in Juffure. Anyhow, the people used to greet me in the street. Go figure: I am from Detroit!" He broke out in laughter. l shared my attention between Stephen, the Mandingo from Bakau sitting on my right, and the other Mandingo from Detroit. Stephen heard us talking and he greeted the man with civility, but they did not exchange one word during the entire excursion.

We landed at the small jetty of Juffure. It was touching to see the inhabitants of the village shaking hands with the American visitors, and more than one of both parties had tears in their eyes. Some hours later, the guide and shipleader had the greatest difficulties in separating them at last in order to complete his program before sunset. As for me, I had my own emotions on the ruins of Fort Jacob on James Island. Stephen completed the knowledge of the place I had gathered from books by information on the present life and status of the island, and the gentleman from Detroit listened attentively. Stephen also related that for a time, James Island had been the capital of the Crown colony and later on a naval base for the fight against the slave traders when this shameful trade had been banned by law in 1806. They learned good things in their schools!

According to the old maps I had studied in the National Archives, the island had been much larger then, and the day was in sight when the relentless waves of the rising River will have swallowed the rest of the small island and the historic monument that looked so incredibly small.

On the return, I was sitting again between my two Mandingoes. When we were already in sight of the River Port, the gentleman from Detroit bent over to me and said with an ambiguous smile, "You have a lovely companion here with you. You caught him on the beach, or was it him who caught you? I am staying at the Banjul Atlantic and had not the same luck."

"Sir, what do you dare to insinuate?"

"Come on, we are from the same faculty…Even heavily controlled body language reveals affinities to your likes."

"Your own language however is under perfect control. Well, you embarrass me, but the noise of the engine will cover our voices. Indeed, it might be like that. It might, perhaps." I smiled with happiness as we all do when we leave the thoroughly protected closet for a moment and respire fresh air.

"But you would not be happy with that one: he is furiously hetero, ’stino ’, stinking normal, and he was extremely upset when I approached him this way," I told my new friend. "He must have understood where I was trying to push him. As a beachboy, you were right, he is interested in money. But there is absolutely nothing to obtain."

"I do not think so," the Mandingo said. "I observe him from the moment on when he stepped aboard, and I am sure he has relevant experience. I'd say be direct and proposition him calmly. Or wait for a good occasion to throw your lasso and to drag him between your sheets. Some money will help: isn't the main objective of all these fellows to bring some of it home so that mom can go to the market next morning? You know how poor they are. So, don't get discouraged. And good luck!"

He burst out in a loud laughter, and Stephen cast an astonished look at him. If the poor boy had known the topic of our conversation, I think he would have jumped in panic into the river to flee from the danger!

Time passed. The first part of my mission was completed and I had to discuss the first findings with the Board of Directors and the legal service of the company that had contracted us. I had met Stephen some more times on the strand and he accompanied me once again to Alligator Bar. But I was less interested now and had given up trying to talk him into anything. If I were really in need, I would find other opportunities. I knew some places in Banjul that offered easy contacts with willing boys. For the moment I was too occupied with my mission, and with the visible progress of my suntan at Fajara Bay.

I was already seated in the airport shuttle, in the midst of an excited gang of yelling Swedish girls, when the watchman appeared on the steps of the bus door. He waved me to come and said, "Excuse me Ssa, dea be someone who want to see you befo' you leave, and it be impo'tant." I followed the man, and stumbled over Stephen, breathless. "Sir, so happy I did not miss you. Can I ask you a beeeg favour? Would you please post this letter on your arrival in Germany? It is urgent, please Sir!" "No problem; tomorrow morning it will be in the box at the airport." I looked at the letter, adressed to somebody in Hamburg, with a mention in thick letters, "Confidential."

"But who is the sender? Abdullaye Sefing?"

"That's me. My official name is Abdullaye, but I prefer Stephen and even my mother calls me like that."

"No problem. I told you I have to be back in about two weeks, and I can confirm you the letter was posted. See you then."

Arriving in my hotel garni (boarding house) in Frankfort, I unpacked my luggage, and in the side pocket, among the travel documents, there was still Stephen's letter which I had forgotten on my arrival at Frankfort International. I would hand it over to the receptionist tonight, one day more or less would not matter.

But then I became thoughtful. What was so important and confidential that the boy had not dared to post the letter in Bakau or Serrekunda? I once had avoided a very dangerous situation by acting on a similar situation. In Cameroon, which had been part of the German Empire until 1919, an "old German" as we called the former soldiers, post and customs agents who spoke still fluent German and missed their old masters, a former schoolmaster gave me a sealed letter and asked me to post it in Germany. I told him his wish would be my pleasure. Before leaving for the airport, I took it out of my bag. It was addressed to the Head of Government, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in person. I opened it. It was a flaming accusation of the wicked French and of the present President Ahidjo. The writer implored the German Goverment to send troops to Cameroon and to re-establish the old colonial rule. The man could be understood to a certain degree: the German time had been a period of massive investment in infrastucture, urbanization and export plantations that keep their impact up to present days. But the only beneficiaries had been the some hundreds of persons who worked with the German administration and industry. The mania of persecution by the French resided in the personal experience of an unadapted man, and somewhere I seized a hint of unconscious masochistic ecstasy in the racist brutality of the imperial administrators whom the black subjects transfigured as "severe but just and impartial.”

I did not want to waste the time of the Chancellor's secretaries who would just laugh at a stupid Negro, but in particular, what would have happened to me if the police and in particular CEDOC, the omnipresent State Security of Chief Commissioner Fochivé, would discover that proof of high felony; nobody had ever accused them of intelligence. If they had submitted me to torture, I would have disclosed at once the identity of the author of that letter. I tore the letter into pieces, posted it into the toilet and flushed it down to oblivion.

Now I had a similar case, even if obviously not so criminal. Nevertheless, I have no problems with my acts. In the kitchenette of the garni here in Frankfort, there was a small kettle to boil water. The steam opened the letter at once. I began to read, but I fell back on the sofa, I was so horrified. The letter read:

"My dear love Heinz!

"I am pleased to write you this letter just to inform you that I am in health and that everybody is in health at home, alhamdulillah. My uncle who had broken his leg in the shipyard is still lying at home for a longer time. He cannot work, and we begin to have difficulties at the kitchen. Except this catastrophe everything is ok here, and Usman greets you, too, and the watchman Diallo, too. And my Mama, too, and my little sister Aïssatu to whom you gave that doll, too.

"Dearest Heinz, I'll never forget the nights I spent with you and I am still aroused by the things you showed me and how you kissed me and how you swore I was your baby for ever.

"Please, dearest Heinz, send me an airplane ticket to Hamburg and the money for a passport, and I will serve you from morning to morning, I'll work as a houseboy during the day and at night, I'll do anything to make you feel good. You told me that I made you feel good as you never had felt before in your life. And it will be even better because I will learn other ways of making you feel good.

"I think of you day and night. Here is another German or Frenchman, I do not know exactly, who is very friendly to me and I understood at once he wants to play sex with me. And he gives me money too, but only for accompanying him to the markets, to Alligeytor [sic] bar where we have been together, and to Juffure, and that money helps us. But he will leave in some hours and he will post this letter so you have it after-tomorrow. He will come back to Banjul and he will try again on me, but I swear he'll never get me, because you are my only love and I have sworn it, wal'lahi!. Now I must close this letter and I seal it with thousand kisses –

"Your loving Stephen for ever."

So the gentleman from Detroit had been right, but nobody would have guessed such an outburst of sentimental frenzy. Anyhow, I know that Africans who have not been to school in Europe, mostly adolescents, have a very exuberant, excessive style which does not at all reflect their equilibrated and manly temper. A policeman I met once when I was hunting in a remote bush in Gaboon had invited me to lunch, in presence of his young wife, and as everywhere in the world, a policeman is an equilibrated personality. I had given him my entire stock of cartridges, cal. 12, and some months later, he wrote me the usual New Years letter. My wife found it and was very uncomfortable: "Why does he sign 'With hot kisses, your MDL Albert forever?' What has been between both of you?" I could only reply, "Again one of these African letters."

Anyhow, I understood that Stephen had had an extended homosexual experience, and why he had refused my advances. "In our country this does not exist, I never never have heard about that." As if I’d believe that!

I went down to the reception and made a photocopy of the letter which is quoted here. Then I closed it, the glue was still active and I enjoyed the idea to lick Stephen's saliva. I placed the letter under the two heavy volumes of the Frankfort phonebook. In the morning, the envelope was perfectly smooth when I threw it into the box.

The following days were fully occupied by the discussing of my preliminary report. On the weekend, I gratified my family with the felicity of my presence. When the project was ready to be finalized and I had to prepare the arrival of my directors in Banjul for the signature with the competent authorities, I called British Caledonian for the reservations to Yundum. I was happy in advance to meet Stephen (and to lasso him for sure this time). I had noted the address in Hamburg, and as in Germany, all the 30 million phone addresses are listed on one cd-rom weighing just 20 grams, it was easy to find that one. In the evening, when people used to be at home but under no condition at 20:00 hs, the time of the evening the news is on TV, I called.

A very cool voice answered. "Yes, that's here. What do you want?"

"You do not know me. My name is Paul Moran. I am a financial consultant and I am working on a contract in Gambia. I was sitting in the shuttle bus to the airport, when a man asked me to post a letter to your address on my arrival in Frankfort; he said it was urgent. Question: did you receive that letter from that man Abdullaye?"

"Who are you, and what do you want from me?"

"I told you who I am and asked if you got that letter from Gambia posted in Frankfort? I'll be back to Banjul on Wednesday afternoon, and the first person I'll see will certainly be that man Abdullaye. He will ask me if his letter arrived and if there is an answer, while waiting for your letter."

"I do not understand what you want from me and what is your intention."

"I explained to you everything. I can give you my full address and my social contacts here in Frankfort where you can enquire on me. You see, I work on a very complex investment project and I have my head full of things. A black kid's letter is the last of my preoccupations, and I am perhaps wrong wasting my time and my phone units here, but that Abdullaye is very decent and polite, so I would not like to disappoint him. But if there is no answer, I'll just inform him that there is no answer. May I hang up?"

"Moment, moment, I got indeed this fucking letter. Did you know the content, or did he dictate it to you?"

"Please, Sir, let's remain serious. The letter was closed when I got it, and you should be able to distinguish the handwriting of an African college student from that of a German engineer, and with all my duties I am positively not interested in a black kid's affairs. I work for over twenty years now in West Africa, and I know their silly style and impossible requests, mostly the letters say, we were good friends, please send me some money. Which amount, on which account, never. Touching and ridiculous."

"It sounds as if you had read that stupid letter, it is always the same naive fuss. Well, tell him I got the letter, but I had problems here: my house has burnt down to the foundations or something of that kind. I will not come this year to Gambia as planned, the world is so big. I may come back in some years. I do not know the extent of your relationship, but make him understand politely that there is nothing to expect from me and that he should let me in peace. But please do not hurt him too much, he is nevertheless a nice little fellow."

"If I meet him," I assured the man, "I'll make him understand discreetly. Indeed, as I know the situation, these kids think we are all wealthy, almighty and never subject to any contingencies. Be careful next time before you make promises to a black youngster in the enthusiasm of your good heart." (Rotten kid molestor, I added mentally.)

"This I promise. But will I hear from you again?"

"No, never. I just threw your address in the bin under my desk. Adieu."

On Wednesday morning, at 5 A.M. the taxi was waiting in front of the hotel entrance to bring me to the Airport, on the way to Gambia.

(Continued in Part 2)

(C) Author and Freya Communications Inc.