The Guide (original) (raw)
The New Yorker, April 26, 1993 P. 84
Darren, a Peace Corps worker in Senegal, checked into the Grand Hotel de Mali that was a brothel but served as an inn for the rare tourist in Oulaba. A group of Malians sat on mats in the courtyard of the inn watching a French-dubbed version of ODallasO on a fuzzy black-and-white TV. At the bar she checked in and met Jaraffe, the innkeeperOs son. He said he would be her guide to the cliffs and brought her an ice-cold Heineken. Darren adapted an expression of jaded awareness when dealing with Africans. Jaraffe sat down at her table and the game began. Three days ago she left her station in Senegal on an odyssey to Timbuktu, and since then she had not had a moment's respite from African men who considered any young, white woman travelling alone to be public property. She lied and said she was married. A gendarme stomped into the room with a drunk who hit Jaraffe. His mother knocked him out. He was Jaraffe's father. Darren had stumbled into Oulaba because in Mopti the police had discovered that she wasn't carrying a license for her camera. She jumped on the first jitney which landed her there. In the morning she headed into the cliffs by herself, stopping in the market for fruit. A crowd of boys begged to be her guide. She went alone into the desert toward the cliffs and much to her dismay, ran into Jaraffe when she got there. He showed her a Dogan cave full of skeletons for a high price. They had to spend the night in a cave, because of the hyenas. Jaraffe hit on Darren many times. When Darren awoke, she discovered Jaraffe had robbed her. She hiked back to Oulava, where, after eating, she got her camera and money back after threatening Jaraffe.