Lamin and the Wake-Up Call
In January 2020, during what would turn out to be my final visit to The Gambia before Covid took hold of the world, something very unusual happened.
One morning, close to the end of the week, I woke up before Lamin Barrow.
This does not happen.
Lamin is normally awake long before me.
By the time I open my eyes, he has usually swept something, moved something, washed something, fetched something, spoken to three people, restored the electricity, fixed the hot water, solved a minor domestic crisis and possibly driven halfway across the country.
I, meanwhile, have probably increased the speed of the ceiling fan in my room.
And then gone back to sleep.
During this particular visit, I was staying in the holiday apartment belonging to Lamin Barrow’s brother, Lamin Darboe.
It is available to rent, incidentally.
Let me know if you are interested and I will give you the contact details for both Lamins.
Anyway, as I was saying, as per usual, it had been a busy week.
Even by Gambian standards.
There had been travelling.
There had been visiting.
There had been talking.
There had almost certainly been waiting.
There is always waiting.
And, on this particular morning, Lamin was tired.
So tired, in fact, that he was still in bed.
I suspect he had granted himself a much-deserved lie-in.
I woke up.
It was probably the unnatural silence which did it.
I lay in my bed and listened.
Nothing.
No sweeping.
No doors opening.
No phone calls.
No emergency diplomatic meetings.
No Lamin.
This presented me with an opportunity.
A childish opportunity.
But an opportunity nonetheless.
I climbed out of bed, opened my door and quietly stepped onto the cold, pale grey tiles of the landing.
Lamin’s room was directly opposite mine, so as soon as I stepped outside, I could see straight into it.
And there he was, lying on his bed.
Or rather, there he wasn’t.
As I have described before, on the occasion when Lamin and I shared a hotel room—and, more importantly, an air-conditioning unit—he sleeps on his back, completely shrouded beneath a blanket, like a corpse awaiting an autopsy.
I have since discovered that this is not uncommon in The Gambia and is probably done for very good and practical reasons.
Mosquitoes, most likely.
And so there he was, beneath his blanket.
Lamin Barrow.
At least, I assumed it was Lamin.
There was no visible head.
No arm.
No foot.
Nothing to suggest that one of The Gambia’s busiest men was hidden somewhere beneath it.
There was simply a large, sleeping mound.
Nevertheless, all the contextual evidence available to me suggested that it was probably Lamin.
His sandals lay by the side of his bed where he had deposited them the night before.
So…
What to do?
The answer was obvious.
I silently hurried back into my room and picked up one of my large bottles of drinking water.
It was full.
This was important.
A half-empty bottle would not have had quite the same authority.
I grabbed my phone and started to record video then I walked quietly back towards Lamin’s bedroom.
I tiptoed through the doorway.
I crept closer to the now audibly snoring heap of Lamin. His snores sounded like an angry bee trapped inside a biscuit tin.
I carefully unscrewed the lid from the water bottle.
I held it above the blanket.
Directly over the place where I believed Lamin’s head to be.
And I paused for a few seconds.
Because there is no point carrying out a childish prank if you cannot first take a moment to appreciate it.
After first meeting Lamin, I soon discovered that he is extremely difficult to tease.
Or torment.
Or insult.
This is because, when faced with mockery, he does exactly what a victim is supposed to do.
He smiles.
He remains calm.
And he says:
“Thank you.”
He says it so positively—and with such apparent sincerity—that he leaves you with absolutely nowhere to go.
I have tried many times to provoke a more satisfying response.
A frown.
A protest.
A flicker of irritation.
Anything to suggest that he is even slightly bothered by what I have said.
But his response is always calm, polite and completely conversation-ending.
I present to you some real life examples.
“Lamin.”
“Yes, bro?”
“You smell like dead fish.”
“Thank you.”
And that is it.
There is no comeback.
No argument.
No opportunity to develop the theme.
Just gratitude.
“Lamin.”
“Yes, bro?”
“You are a donkey driver.”
“Thank you.”
A ‘donkey driver’, incidentally, is a Gambian expression for a very bad driver.
I have never been entirely sure what donkeys have done to deserve the comparison.
“Lamin.”
“Yes, bro?”
“You are very weak. You could not even wrestle a chicken.”
“Thank you.”
You see?
Stone dead.
The insult has nowhere to go.
To be fair, Lamin is doing exactly what I used to advise children to do during my teaching days when they were confronted by a bully.
Smile.
Say thank you.
Show them that you are not bothered.
I have even used Lamin as an example when leading school assemblies about how to deal with bullying.
“Thank you.”
It is the perfect response.
Which is precisely why it is so annoying.
I have even tried insulting him in Mandinka.
During one recent conversation, I sent him the message:
“I be warariŋ ko faloo.”
This means:
“You are as fat as a donkey.”
And Lamin took it right on the chin.
Or possibly the second chin.
Still nothing.
Over the years, I have tried several different approaches in my attempts to get a rise out of him.
For the first few years that I knew Lamin, I regularly called him ‘The Sleeping Driver’.
This was because, during those early visits, he would spend his days driving groups of increasingly sunburnt British teachers around The Gambia.
From one school to another.
Then to the Peanut Factory.
Then to the Aluminium Factory.
Then to another school.
Then somewhere else which was apparently only ten minutes away but took an hour and a half to reach.
Whenever the opportunity presented itself, Lamin would stop and have a nap.
Sometimes quite a long one.
And, whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would, of course, take a photograph.
Evidence!
Soon, he learned to hide before grabbing forty winks.
To be honest, though, the whole idea was based on a rather shaky premise.
During those first visits, Lamin was not only driving us around all day.
When he had finally dropped the last teacher back at the hotel, he would often head straight out again and spend the night driving tourists between bars, restaurants, hotels and nightclubs.
Then he would return in the morning and collect us.
It was not unusual for Lamin to work for twenty-four hours without stopping.
As we now know, Lamin Barrow has an extraordinary work ethic.
So those naps were not evidence that he was lazy.
They were evidence that he actually worked really, REALLY hard.
Even now, I occasionally call him ‘The Sleeping Driver’.
Sometimes I send him one of the old photographs.
He usually replies in much the same way he responds to everything else.
“Thank you.”
Which means that The Sleeping Driver is not a particularly satisfying way to take the mickey out of him either.
A much more ambitious attempt to take the mickey out of Lamin involved not only our Lamin Barrow, but every Lamin Barrow in The Gambia.
This requires some explanation.
In The Gambia, the same names appear again and again.
There are many Lamins.
Many Barrows.
And rather more Lamin Barrows than might seem administratively sensible.
I will return to this subject in another chapter.
On this particular occasion, fellow charity trustees Mark Chidler and Damon O’Neill joined me in adapting a familiar football chant.
You will know the tune.
The following should be sung in the manner of several hundred football supporters who have spent the afternoon imbibing and becoming increasingly confident and decreasingly tuneful:
There’s only one Lamin Barrow.
There’s only one Lamin Baaaaarrow.
There’s only one Lamin Baaaaarrow.
This was, of course, factually inaccurate.
There are loads of them.
But accuracy has never been the principal purpose of a football chant.
I even arranged for a T-shirt to be printed containing the words, together with a repeated image of Lamin’s face.
Naturally, he took it all in his stride.
He wore the T-shirt with pride.
He may even have regarded it as evidence of his growing international celebrity.
An avenue I have yet to explore properly is Lamin’s borderline addiction to milkshakes.
I have not yet found the right method of attack.
But I will.
One day, I suspect, I shall begin calling him Mr Milkshake.
And in The Gambia, it does not take long for a comedy name to become legally binding.
The one subject which has occasionally come close to producing genuine annoyance is Lamin’s baseball cap.
For many years, he very wisely wore an Aston Villa cap.
I think I may have bought it for him, although I cannot claim that with complete certainty.
What I can say with certainty is that we repeatedly hid it.
Although ‘hid’ may be too strong a word.
It was often placed somewhere clearly visible but entirely inappropriate.
This campaign was largely led by Damon O’Neill, who regarded it as one of his principal duties in The Gambia to aggravate, annoy or at least mildly inconvenience Lamin Barrow.
Whenever Lamin left the cap unattended, it was vulnerable.
It might find itself perched on top of a Mandinka mask.
Or balanced on the head of a carved statuette.
Or placed in a fridge behind a bar, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the staff.
On one occasion, we even managed to put it on a donkey.
The donkey wore it well.
Best of all, during a ‘lazy day’ fishing trip with charity trustee Mark Chidler, his daughter Helen, and our friend Mark from Birmingham Newman University, we kidnapped the cap, suspended it from a fishing rod and dangled it just behind the head of a completely oblivious Lamin.
There it remained.
Hovering.
Swinging gently in the breeze.
Mocking him from a distance of approximately twelve inches.
Naturally, Lamin was not remotely riled.
He simply enjoyed being the centre of attention.
That is the problem.
Lamin takes everything in his stride.
Every insult.
Every prank.
Every carefully constructed attempt to undermine his dignity.
He meets them all with supreme calm.
But there had to be a weakness.
There had to be a chink in the armour.
Which brings me neatly back to that morning in Lamin Darboe’s apartment.
And to a sleeping Lamin Barrow.
A Sleeping Driver.
Ha!
How could I possibly resist?
So.
Picture the scene.
I am standing beside Lamin’s bed.
I am holding a full bottle of water above his head.
Or, at least, above the section of blanket beneath which I believe his head to be.
The lid is off.
I tip the bottle.
Water falls onto the blanket.
The blanket moves.
Then it moves rather more urgently.
Lamin emerges from underneath it, sits bolt upright and looks around the room with the confused expression of a man who has gone to sleep in The Gambia and woken up during a plumbing emergency.
For a moment, he has no idea what is happening.
Then he sees me.
And the bottle.
And the phone camera.
His expression changes.
There is surprise.
There is accusation.
There are the beginnings of outrage.
Oh, I am close.
So close.
For one glorious moment, I think I may finally have achieved it.
A genuine reaction.
Instead, his face settles into the unmistakable expression of a man who knows—even while still half asleep—that this is exactly the sort of thing I would do.
I begin retreating towards the door, sniggering like a naughty schoolboy who has just tied together the shoelaces of an unfortunate classmate.
It is a retreat.
But it is not cowardice.
It is sensible forward planning.
Just before commencing my full strategic withdrawal—and before Lamin has completely regained his senses—I tip a little more water over his head.
Lamin begins to protest from the middle of a pile of damp blankets.
He is awake now.
Completely awake.
The wake-up call has worked.
“Morning!!” I call.
And then I retreat to safety.
I have not been able to repeat the prank since that fateful morning.
Lamin now locks his bedroom door at night.
And he always wakes up before I do.
And, just in case you should ever doubt the truth of these stories…
Here’s a video to prove it.
Read the Introduction to ‘Travels With Lamin’ here:
👉Travels With Lamin – An Introduction | Building Futures in the Gambia
Find all the other chapters here:
👉Travels With Lamin: Stories from The Gambia and West Africa | Building Futures in the Gambia
Book Lamin and his taxi here:
👉Lamin Barrow Taxis – The Gambia’s Number One Taxi Driver
And find out more about Lamin’s work with BFiG Busumbala Nursery School here:
