Mr. Bax And The Five-Cow Wife

There is a certain taxi driver who frequents the Atlantic coast
resorts in Gambia who answers to the title of "Johnny Boy" and, for two
weeks, I in turn became "Manchester Man" to distinguish me from the
hordes of Cockney Charlies and Essex Girls flying out from Gatwick for
their slice of winter sun. Johnny Boy's taxi was deficient in several
areas which would have been of critical concern to British inspectors,
but was nonetheless reasonably roadworthy by West African standards,
and he drove carefully enough for me to employ him on a regular basis.
I visited craft markets, bird reserves and monkey sanctuaries, and
towards the end of my holiday he invited me to his village to meet his
parents and the rest of his family. Johnny Boy also explained that he
was still single because, in Gambia, getting married is a serious and
costly business on account of the "bride price" which a bridegroom is
expected to pay to the girl's family; being a regular traveller to the
Asian subcontinent, I was familiar with the dowry system which operates
in reverse in that an Asian girl's family are expected to pay to rid
themselves of a burdensome young female, which is perhaps worse in that
female children are not so much gifts from God but a sort of negative
equity undermining the family finances. Whatever the pros and cons of
either system, I was glad that in most Western families the onus is on
helping the young couple to start married life as well as possible and
not an opportunity for resentful horse-trading!

As we entered Johnny Boy's home village, it was painfully obvious how
many Gambians were living in poverty, their homes consisting of breeze
block and corrugated iron - if they were lucky - but my attention was
caught by a large compound whose high walls were festooned with
tropical flowers; I could only glimpse the upper floors of the building
beyond, but it looked to be solidly constructed, with gleaming
whitewashed balconies and a modern red tile roof.
Johnny Boy then promised to tell me a story about the occupants of the
grand house over a leisurely cup of tea.

I had been in a bit of a quandary as to what to bring as a gift for
Johnny Boy's family; flowers seemed rather a superfluous frippery out
here whilst basic foodstuffs might imply that I doubted Johnny's
ability to provide for his family. In the end I gave out a selection of
"luxury" items such as bubble bath, good quality shampoo and chocolates
for the children which, as I rather unnecessarily explained, needed to
be eaten almost immediately as they were beginning to melt in the heat.
Plus, of course, a chicken.
In due course the tea arrived and Johnny Boy commenced his story.

A local entrepreneur whom everyone referred to as Mr Bax owned the
large house. He had made his wealth by simply equating supply and
demand - in this case, Gambian demand for decent refrigeration
facilities which could be matched by recycling the vast numbers of
domestic fridges lying dumped in storage across Europe, unable to be
disposed of because of environmental concerns about the release of
CFCs. Many of these fridges were perfectly serviceable and had been
thrown out for minor defects such as broken drawers and specks of rust;
Mr Bax had arranged for a Dutch company to cannibalise and refit
hundreds of such fridges, which were then loaded into a container at
Rotterdam and shipped to Gambia to be resold at a considerable profit
to hotels, beach bars and wealthy individuals. Mr Bax had then bought
the land and had the palatial house built to his own specifications,
and had then decided to buy a wife to install therein. To everyone's
surprise he chose to stick to home soil and began to cast his eye over
the local families whom he knew and trusted, then made his
decision.
"You see, Manchester Man, he know who is trouble and who is good
family," said Johnny Boy in a Jamaican patois which owned more to the
Gambian affinity for reggae music than to his long-suffering former
English teacher.

There then remained the question of the bride price; Johnny Boy
explained that one cow was the norm for a village girl, but that a girl
with education, valuable skills or stunning good looks might fetch two
cows if her father could negotiate it, or a goat thrown in to split the
difference if not. But Mr Bax, with the flair of the born entrepreneur,
had sidestepped convention completely and offered the girl's father the
unheard-of price of five cows, which, of course, had been accepted with
alacrity.

"So what was special about her?" I asked.

"Nothing really," he replied with an amused twinkle in his eye, "she
quiet, well-spoken, not deformed or backward, but pretty
average."

I was intrigued; all the people I knew who'd done well in business had
done so by sharp dealing; they knew the going rate for anything they
wanted and certainly didn't exceed it, quite the opposite, in fact. I
suddenly wanted to meet Mr Bax and his five-cow wife and enquired
tentatively as to whether that would be possible; the high-walled
enclave appeared quite daunting and uninviting.

"No problem, man," reassured Johnny Boy, "you white tourists can go
just about anywhere you like in my country."

So, after a tour of the family home and smallholding at the back of the
house, we bid extended goodbye to the family and Johnny Boy drove me
the short distance to the large house.

"Money can't buy me love, though," I said sententiously, taking my
philosophy from old Lennon and McCartney songs. Now Johnny Boy had
explained that, like most taxi drivers and Gambians who came into
contact with overseas visitors, he would never directly contradict a
tourist, but evidently he was prepared to make an exception in my
case.

"Rubbish, man," was all he said, "you soon see!" He parked the taxi and
knocked with what I took to be exaggerated confidence at the huge
wooden gate. The face of a servant soon appeared, and Johnny Boy spoke
to him in Mandinka, gesticulating towards myself who was standing in
what I hoped was a diffident, non-colonial posture. The gate swung open
and we walked in.

Mr Bax came out to greet us; he was surprisingly young, certainly no
more than thirty, and appraised me with keen eyes. He was the blackest
person I have ever seen; his skin was not the chocolate-brown of
Afro-Caribbeans but held a deep blue tinge which appeared to be a
distillation of everything African into one pure midnight tone.
I realised that this was a kind of reversed racist thought, and smiled
ruefully, for by contrast he was wearing a beautifully-cut lounge suit
which would not have been out of place in London or Milan. He led us
inside the air-conditioned house, where we sat down on huge soft
settees covered with hand-embroidered throws and awaited the arrival of
yet more tea, whilst Mr Bax teased out of me my impressions of his
country.
I felt compelled to be honest; Gambia scored highly on climate, food
and drink, wildlife, personal service and friendliness, yet the
discerning tourist could see plenty of desperate poverty and wide
inequalities, at which point I wondered whether I'd been free to the
point of discourtesy, but my host merely nodded gravely. Emboldened, I
continued to outline the terrible lives endured by many of his
countrywomen through female circumcision, enforced early marriage,
excessive child-bearing, sexual infidelity and the resulting HIV, and
the overall powerlessness and sheer hard grind endured by women
throughout Africa?

I fell off my high horse as Mrs Bax appeared with the tea, for I had
never seen such a striking young woman in my life! I had seen my share
of young Gambian prostitutes lurking round the tourist hotels and the
Senegambia strip, and, yes, they were beautiful in a hard-edged,
flaunting way, and I'm familiar with the faces of Western film stars,
models and pop idols - at least the best-known ones. But none of them
could hold a candle to this woman, who moved with the natural poise and
grace of Africans, and although she was merely serving tea she could
have passed for the princess of an ancient kingdom, such was her
dignity. I scanned her face and, as discreetly as possible, her figure
- nothing special, as Johnny Boy had declared.
She was encased in a flowing lime-green garment which was undeniably
modest yet enhancing; her hair was exquisitely braided but her
composed, contented face was unadorned save for a pair of gold drop
earrings which danced and jangled as she poured the tea. However, I
best recall her eyes, which sparkled with joy and love - the eyes of a
woman who knows her worth in the eyes of her husband, in this case the
princely and precise sum of five cows. I reflected that Mr Bax was a
shrewd customer indeed, with an understanding way beyond the mechanics
of fridges and finance!

To my astonishment, when she had finished pouring the tea she rose and
embraced the slightly shabby figure of Johnny Boy, then regally
extended her hand to me with a smile.

"My sister, she done all right, man," proclaimed Johnny Boy proudly and
I recalled his family's smallholding; in the tiny enclosure of packed
red earth behind the ramshackle house, bunched docilely together, had
stood two new calves and no less than five sleek, well-cared-for
cows.