Keeping cool as costs hit the roof

ONCE again my life is full of bags of cement, sheets of plywood and

hardboard, palm rods, steel rods, nails, and corrugated iron. With one

hand, I write menus (vegetarian curry . . . prawns in barbecue sauce . .

. fish soup . . .). With the other, I write my construction accounts.

We are overseeing the building of a small bungalow for a Scottish

friend, and I feel honour-bound to write down every item in meticulous

detail. Thus my debit column reads: ''To loading cement D25. To

unloading cement D24. Trips of sand (20) at D350 per trip. Palm rods as

rafters (200) at D30, and so on . . .''

Nothing is simple. People (including myself) have agitated against the

rampant despoliation of the beach by the sand trucks removing thousands

of tons every month for building contractors. ''Shocking,'' we say.

''Destroying the environment,'' we whine. But now we need sand; so we

too have become environmental vandals.

Such also was the desecration of forest cover that the government,

very sensibly, forbade the indiscriminate felling of trees. And palm

trees in particular are in many areas a protected species. Thus the palm

rods which are used almost universally for roof supports have to be

brought in from some other West African country. Two years ago, when we

last did some building, they cost D16 (just over #1 a piece). Now they

are D30 each.

Most irritating of all is the number of tourists who come along and

say: ''Oh, we'd like to build a house here; it must be very cheap.''

Why? Almost everything -- electrical and plumbing fittings, most timber,

tiles, glass, door handles, nails, you name it -- has to be imported;

and, therefore, costs are as much as or more than in Europe. All that is

cheaper is the labour.

Land also is soaring in price because so many foreigners are buying it

up that it's hard to find a Gambian with a good plot of ground near the

beach. Accusations of land-grabbing (for re-sale at a profit) have been

made against various prominent people.

It is, nevertheless, rewarding to watch our little project taking

shape. I see the white sparkling paint being applied, the toilet being

installed, the tin roof painted rich deep red, and I purr with pleasure.

It doesn't look at its best just now because it is surrounded by an

odd trail of rubbish -- single rubber boots and lonely battered

sandshoes (are all our workmen one-legged?), cigarette packets, milk

tins, bent nails, bits of wire and plastic pipe, old rags, tacky paint

tins. But by the end of the rainy season it will be fringed, we hope,

with bougainvillaea and eucalyptus (which grows extraordinarily

swiftly). And it will be a pretty, efficient, little haven for

self-catering holidaymakers and, in due course, for our Scottish

friend's retirement.

In the midst of all this, the odd guest has turned up. C arrived

without her husband, who had accompanied her on her last holiday. This

time she was with an old (male) family friend, and they slept demurely

in separate huts. We watched them a mite suspiciously, but all was

respectable and platonic.

Then, shock, horror, we realised that the young Gambian boy who was

the protege of C -- and her husband during all their previous visits to

the Gambia --was sitting during one of our barbecues fondling C in the

most intimate places. The old family friend was embarrassed and angry.

Words were exchanged. We suggested to the Gambian boy that he go home,

now, please. ''No, I want to spend the night here,'' he demanded.

''Certainly not!'' Ray snapped.

The boy wandered off and lurked outside the compound all night. The

watchman whispered that they had seen him and C canoodling in the bush.

We wondered what the family friend would tell the husband when he went

home. Meanwhile, long after the salacious revelations in the Sun

newspaper about women leaving their husbands for Gambian men, a

Norwegian paper suddenly splashed a story about the Gambia being ''a sex

paradise'' for old, fat, ugly Scandinavian ladies who couldn't find a

man at home.

It's all very upsetting. Those of us with solid commitments, like

Jenny and Abdoul, Joe and Andrea, Louise and Lamin, and a host of other

respectably married interracial couples, find the tabloid stories

demeaning to our own relationships. We wish the young husky purveyors of

nookie-in-the-sun would go and find work in the peanut plantations or

the fishing centres.

Sierra Leonean Joe and Idaho Andrea live in a little house just along

the path from us now, in calm, creative near-isolation. Their

furnishings are almost Japanese in character, straw mats and low stools

and no fripperies. We meet them of an evening, setting out for their

evening stroll as we return from ours. The sun sets sweetly rosy on our

monogamous peregrinations.

Costs are as much as,

or more than,

in Europe.

All that is cheaper is

the labour