I bought 6 mangos today. When I got back to my hotel I sat on the stoop in front of my room and ate half of one of them. It was really, really good. Surprisingly, unexpectedly good; excellent texture, pleasantly tart, and perfectly ripe. What was my first thought, upon consuming this delicious half mango? Was it, “Fantastic, I have 5 ½ more of these delicious fruits to enjoy. Lucky me!”? No, nothing of the sort. Instead, I immediately started kicking myself for not having bought more. What is wrong with me?

Today was a wonderful and productive day. I spent basically all day yesterday kicking around the hotel, eating bananas and writing. Went on a short walk, but didn’t really see any of Labé, and didn’t do any of the errands I needed to do. Even though I’d intentionally set the day aside as such, I went to bed last night with that feeling of not having been productive. I won’t have that feeling tonight. I rolled out of bed a bit after 7, unable to sleep any more because of the sound of the hotel generator and made some Nescafé in my room with my little gas stove. I slept decently. Not the best ever, but much better than the night before. I write for a bit and make another coffee. Then I realize I am out of water and have nothing to eat besides a single banana. So, I get up and walk to the cluster of businesses and shops down the road from my hotel.

There is one bean sandwich lady at this intersection, a few cafés, and some assorted boutiques, and shops. I got a bean sandwich from the lady yesterday, and unfortunately the beans were pretty undercooked. The sandwich still tasted good, but the beans were crunchier than they should be, and gave me a bit of gas through the day. This morning I ask to taste her beans before buying a sandwich. They have the same consistency. At this point I wanted to tell her, as kindly as possible, that her beans are a bit undercooked. I consider if this is worth it. I really didn’t want to offend her, or come off as mean. She’s literally a woman with a 2nd grade education selling sandwiches on the street for $0.50. Also, I wonder if I the only one who cares about this? I’m one customer buying a single sandwich. But in the end I find a translator, a middle aged man walking by who speaks French, and just go ahead and tell her. She’s gracious. If the beans are better cooked I’ll definitely get a sandwich here tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there are no other bean ladies in the area. I’m not very hungry though, so I have a Guinean coffee at a little café and read the news on my phone. On the way back home there is a lady selling “boulet poisson,” balls of fish in broth. Not the most obvious breakfast food, but I get one large boulet for 1000 GNF, or $0.11. Back in my room I sit down to write and get into a decent flow. However, the whole time I am feeling like I need to leave and do the things I have to do today, and kind of put off yesterday. 9 am becomes 10 am, and before I know it 11 am is bearing down on me. Sometimes you just have to walk away, and this is what I do, leaving the hotel at 11:15 with my backpack on, and my rear tire in hand.

Today there are 4 items on my agenda:

- Get to a bike shop and find a replacement 700cc tire for my rear wheel

- Find a tailor and get measurements for a suit. I have a family member who is getting married soon and I need to send the measurements to the suit maker. I also want to fix a tear in my non-riding shirt.

- Get my beard and the sides of my head trimmed

- Find and meet up with Bintu Minté, my host dad’s 2nd wife, who is, I am told, in Labé.

Labé is a bustling city. It is sprawling, but the central core is relatively compact. I ask a moto to take me to a shop selling bike parts. He knows where to go, and it is right in the middle of the central business district. I walk into the shop and declare that I need a tire for a 29-inch wheel. The shopkeeper shakes his head ruefully. “You’re not going to find that here,” he says definitely, “biggest is 28 inch.” “Not even on bikes from Europe?” I ask, “Aren’t there people bringing in bikes from Europe?” “Maybe,” he says, and waves his hand in the general direction of further up the street. Which is where I walk next.

I find another, similar shop. It looks like it has all the same stuff. I ask the same question, and I get the same answer. But then it occurs to me, that bike tire sizes are actually a complete fucking mystery. Is 29 inches the same thing as 700 cc? Here, in this shop, there are tires with 28x 1 ½ written on the side wall, then next to this it says 700cc. Meanwhile the tire on my bike that is ripped says 29x 1.8, and next to this it also says 700cc. What is going on here? The shop keeper, who has spent time in Sierra Leon, and speaks just enough english to be mildly irritating keeps repeating that my wheel is 29, and the tire is 28, as if I fail to notice the difference between these numbers.

I decide to try the tire that says 28 x 1 ½. So I take the old tire off my bike, honoring the many miles of abuse it put up with as I do so, and start to line up the 28 x 1 ½. It is, bafflingly, too large for my wheel. Significantly too large, I don’t even have to start seating the threads to notice this.

So that is strange. Now I am curious. There is another tire there, with 28 x 1 3/8, and 700cc written on its side wall. I decide to give this one a try. And it fits. None of this makes sense to me, but it doesn’t really matter because, I have, somehow, found a tire that will work. It is a bit of a mismatch, since the tubes available here are 28 x 1 ½, which means that the tube has a larger capacity than the tire, but this isn’t really an issue. Plus if there is anything I’ve learned it's that the measurements on bike tubes and tires are really just rough estimates.

Fresh tire on my wheel, wheel in my hand, I continue on with my morning. One thing that is terrific about Labé is that it is not hot, at least by West African standards. I checked the weather and in Kédougou the high temperature today is 105 F, while here in Labé, perched as it is at an elevation of 3440 ft, it did not get hotter than 85 F. Moreover, there is thick gray cloud cover, giving one the impression of a fall day in Northern California, and a consistent breeze. It even drizzled yesterday. It’s really quite pleasant weather.

My next stop is a tailor. At first it feels like the universe is playing a bit of a joke on me. Normally tailors are ubiquitous in West African cities, and it can feel like they occupy every other storefront. But today, as I wander out of the bike shop and up an adjacent street, all I come across are shops selling sewing machines. And there are like ten of these shops, with stacks of sewing machines wrapped in plastic sitting behind glass and in front of the buildings. I’ve never seen so many sewing machines. Yet nowhere is there to be found an actual, functioning tailor.

However, after 5 more minutes and a couple blocks, order returns to the universe, and I come across exactly what I am looking for, a young guy, who speaks good French, behind the foot paddle powered wheel of a sewing machine, with a smile on his face offering me a seat on the bench next to him. He’s a really nice guy, and focused, and we get straight to it. I take my shirt off, and he fixes it right there and then. Does a good job too and reinforces the section that tore previously, and I had repaired in Boké. I like getting shirts repaired, instead of replacing them. But there is also a practical reason for me to do this. Though thrift store like clothing is cheap and plentiful in a big city like Labé, I could probably spend all day and not find a shirt that fits me as well, or that I like the style as much, as this trusty old quicksilver Hawaiian shirt I bought at Ross Dress for Less in Alemeda in 2016. Buying clothes at the huge used clothes markets in West Africa can be fantastic. I’ve found many gems in my day. But I am on a bike trip, and carrying additional items is a non-starter. So, I will save quite a lot of time by just getting my shirt repaired.

Then I pull out a template for suit measurements, and we go through them, one by one, recording in centimeters my chest, shoulders, arm length, etc, all the way to the diameter of my calf (43 centimeters). Tonight, I will convert these to inches and send the measurements in to get my suit made. I hope they are of reasonable fidelity.

I walk out of the tailor and give my toxoma a call. I spoke to him on the phone last week when I was in Doungee, and he’d mentioned that Bintou, his second wife, is in Labé. I would love to see her, but I don’t have her Guinean phone number, only her Senegalese, which is not working. So, I need to call Ousmane to get her new number. But he doesn’t answer, which is a bummer. Out of my toxoma’s three wives, Bintou is easily the one I feel I have the closest relationship with. She is sensitive, perceptive, and patient in a way that I really appreciated when I was learning jaxanké, and she continues to be, from my perspective, a more attentive and careful listener than most people I interact with. This skill, of active l listening, can be frustratingly rare in this part of the world. It is common for people— especially when I was first learning Jaxanké— to lose patience with my imperfect language skills, and more or less give up on the conversation. But Bintou seems to understand what it’s like to grapple with a new language, and when we converse she actively tries to understand what I am saying, and help me find the words to express myself, which allows us discuss more interesting things.

But today I can’t seem to reach her. Maybe my toxoma will call back. I’m somewhat resigned that maybe it’s just not going to happen. Little do I know, but I am about to experience my daily dose of Jaxanké magic.

When I leave the tailor I ask the guy who helped me where to find a good place to get a haircut. He steps outside with me and points up a hill. “At the top of that hill, to the left, there is a coiffure right there,” he says, very clearly. Ok, great, so I hoof it up the hill, and find, at the top and to the left… a mosque. With beggars all around. No coiffure to be seen. Might as well keep walking, so I round the corner, and in a couple blocks find myself in the middle of what must be one of Labé’s main street markets. It’s as colorful and vibrant and hectic as you’d like. As always, when I find myself in such a market I take lots of pictures and as always, I feel like none of my pictures get anywhere near the essence of this scene. There are lots of fish sitting on rickety tables completely exposed to the sun. Fish that were caught somewhere off a distant coastal fishing town, painstakingly placed on ice and transported express over hundreds of kilometers of potholed road to get to the economic capital of the Fouta Jallon now sit on sheets and tables without ice in full sun inches from a dusty dirt road.

Motos hurtle through the crowded streets. This is very common in Guinea, and I find it totally inexcusable. Accidents are common. I’ve already witnessed two in Labé, in as many days. But no one seems to mind. I buy a homemade bissap juice, then follow a side artery through a quieter part of the market. I emerge at what was originally some kind of seasonal waterway— a ravine running between the houses market stands— but which is now apparently a garbage disposal site. Then I wander back up onto a main road, and continue, without any particular aim along a road up a gently sloping hill. I love wandering through cities like this, without consulting a map, with no particular aim. It is about 1:30 now, and I am getting hungry, so pretty soon I will have to find something to eat. But for now, I just walk wherever I feel like.

Near the top of the hill I come across a handsome mosque. Labé is a major economic and commercial center in West Africa. It is said to be the 2nd most economically important city in Guinea after the capital Conakary. It is also a religious center, and more conservative versions of Islam are on display here, due to influences from Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Thus, Labé is home to a number of impressive mosques, and this is one of them. I stop to take a picture, and am standing in the shade of a shop on the other side of the street when my ears pique at the sound of someone talking. They are speaking Jaxanké. I haven’t heard Jaxanké all day, or even since getting to Labé. It's an extremely Pulaar city. But here there are two men next to me in front of this shop speaking Jaxanké. I sit in a chair and wait for them to finish, then I turn to one of the men, gesture towards the mosque, and say in Jaxanké, “It’s a beautiful mosque.” At first it doesn’t register. He is obviously not expecting me to speak. He thinks I am saying that I am from Kenya because word for beautiful is “keñaring.” But I keep talking in Jaxanké, and after he picks his jaw up off the floor we get to talking. He is, of course, a Minté. Could it be any other way?

I want to pause to reflect on how unlikely this encounter is. Jaxankés are a tiny minority throughout western West Africa. In Guinea there are a couple dozen Jaxanké villages, set among a sea of thousands of Pulaar villages and towns. (At this point I have probably visited about half of all the Jaxanké villages in the country. Quite possibly even 3/4ths of them.) It is one thing to show up in one of these villages and find family members, but Labé is a city of more than 200,000 people, and it is at least 95% Pulaar. I know that there are some Jaxankés in most of the urban centers in northern Guinea, but I have absolutely no notion of different neighborhoods in Labé, or even where I am, and have been wandering blindly through the city for a couple hours. Yet, as I come to learn, I have stumbled into the sole Jaxanké neighborhood of Labé, and the mosque I’ve just photographed is the main Jaxanké mosque for the city.

I keep talking with the man in front of the shop, and it gets even wilder. This guy, the first Jaxanké I come across in this vast city, is not a random Minté, of convoluted distant, relation to the part of the clan I know. He’s my toxoma’s first cousin. Then comes the kicker: Bintou is staying at his house.

The magic I experience through my connections to and with the Jaxanké community never ends. This is truly a fortuitous encounter, and I could not be happier. I continue to chat with my new Minté acquaintance/ host cousin, who goes by “Xoro Mamadou,” (big brother Mamadou), and we are joined by several other Jaxanké men, who are all flabbergasted by the sounds coming out of my mouth. One of these men happens to be the grand imam for the mosque across the street, and is also a Minté, though not someone I can immediately find a chain of familial relation with. Everyone is excited to keep chatting, but it is 2:00, and time for the afternoon prayer. Ok, I say, I’ll be right here, and I keep sitting in the shade as my new friends cross the street to the mosque, along with dozens of other people. Then I notice a hair salon just up the street with American flags painted on the side. I decide I might as well the trim I need while everyone else performs the afternoon prayer.

The shop is the largest and cleanest hairdresser I’ve been to in Guinea or Senegal. Big mirror, well lit, decked out with FC Barcelona posters. Looks like a good set up. I describe what I want: cleaned up around the sides and trim the beard back. The barber, a young man of no older than about 20 starts cutting my hair with confidence. This is refreshing. Most of the time I go for a haircut, the barber is tentative— they have never cut non-African hair before, and proceed with almost comic slowness, as they suss out how my hair works. This fellow, on the other hand, goes for it without hesitation, and does a good job rearticulating the fade along the sides and back of my head. With the beard he lets me use the sheers myself, and I trim it down to an even stubble. So far so good. Now all I need to do is trim my mustache and I’ll be on my way. Does he have scissors? He produces a pair of scissors that bring to mind 3rd grade art class. They are made to cut construction paper, not human hair. But it’s fine, I have used scissors like these before. However, these scissors are in terrible condition, and they do not cut at all. A second pair is produced, but they are in the same condition, and produce the same effect. It’s fine, he says, I can do it with the sheers. Ok, I say tentatively, you know what I’m trying to do? Of course he knows what I am trying to do, and he proceeds to carefully jab at my upper lip with the sheers. The technique works in concept, but when the dust settles and I get a look at his work, all I can do is chuckle, He’s cut my mustache way to high, to halfway between my nose and upper lip. It looks ridiculous. Well shit. I’ll just have to sheer the mustache back to the same stubble as the rest of my beard. Which is what we end up doing. And it looks fine. But I’ve lost my mustache. So it goes.

After this haircut, which takes a bit longer than expected, I go back to the shop, but there is no one around. I wander over to the mosque, and step inside. The interior is beautiful, and it is empty except for the imam and one lingering supplicant. The imam sees me, and greets me with a broad smile. I ask if he knows where Xoro Mamadou went. He does not. I ask if he can tell me where Mintécounda is. He says he’ll take me there, then asks if I’d prayed yet. I tell him no, because I am not Muslim. He scowls. I ask if he’d prefer that I lie to him. He says no. I say ok, lets go to Mintécounda, I am looking for my toxoma’s wife.

And we walk up yet another hill, getting aquainted. His name is Mamadou Lamine Minté.

This is not the first Mamadou Lamine I have met on this trip. He’s very friendly, though he does not know Bintou. I tell him that Xoro Mamadou knows her, can we find him? Sure, but first you must come to my house to eat. It’s nearly 3 o’clock and all I’ve eaten today is a fish ball and a banana, so I can not say no to this. It’s not a short walk, and its mostly uphill, but before long we arrive at his house, which he proudly proclaims is the main Mintécounda in Labé. It’s a nice, though not elaborate or decedent compound, and is right next to yet another handsome, though smaller, mosque. We sit in a room lined with overstuffed couches, and his wife, in full veil only with an eye slit brings rice and sauce. It is disorienting to hear the voice of a young woman from behind the black cloth. I assume, for some reason, that fully veiled women are going to be old, but her voice sounds like someone younger than me. The food is excellent. It is far better than anything I would have found in any restaurant in this city. Rice with a fish sauce with nice cuts of fish and cabbage.

I learn that Mamadou Lamine is something of a big deal. He lived in Mauritania for 4 years, and then moved to Mecca, where he lived for 11 years. Halfway through his time in Mecca he brought one of his wives, a Jaxanké woman there, where she lives still, despite his having returned to Guinea in 2019. What was he doing in Mecca? Well, he paid the bills by working at a bakery, but his main focus was religious studies, and he now has something like the equivalent of a PhD in Islam.

Afrer lunch Xoro Mamadou shows up, and I ask where Bintou is. In fact, I’ve been asking all afternoon where Bintou is. Mamadou Lamine is a nice guy, and he’s been generous inviting me to lunch, but I am much more interested in seeing Bintu. She is on her way, Xoro Mamadou tells me, and sure enough, within a couple minutes I hear her voice in the hallway of the house. It’s really a joy to see her. Through my entire time in Peace Corps and beyond there is really no one who has supported me more. I’ve watched her kids grow, and I’ve worked with her on gardening projects for years. If hugging were a socially acceptable thing to do to a middle-aged Jaxanké woman in I would have hugged her here, but it's not, so we shake hands and chirp excited greetings and sit on the couches in Mamadou Lamine’s salon. Bintou is accompanied by her younger brother, and an aunt from her hometown of Toubacouta, Senegal (not to be confused with Toubacouta, Guinea, where I visited last week). I visited Toubacouta, Senegal in January, and met her younger brother Yeremaxa there at the time. Somehow I remember his named, which is met with squeals of delight by everyone in the room. It’s all about demonstrating your knowledge of the familial network.

We chat and take pictures and it’s really fun. It occurs to me that I actually feel more comfortable and at home here than I do amongst the guests at my hotel. There are a handful of French tourists at the hotel, and they are stiff, timid, and always seem a bit dour. I’ve greeted several of them, but no one has engaged in a conversation. I realize I am somewhat lonely in the setting of this hotel, especially after multiple weeks of almost non-stop social interaction in the villages I’ve been visiting. It’s quite a revelation to realize that I have developed enough of a cultural affinity that I am, in a very real way, now more at home among Jaxanké people than French people. This is surely context specific, but I do notice my mirror neurons alighting as I catch up with Bintou and her brother, and play with her youngest child, Fanta, who she has brought with her to Labé.

After a little while Mamadou Lamine has to go back to the mosque, so Bintou, her aunt, brother, and I head to the smaller Mintécounda where she is staying. We get there and I meet Bintou’s sister, and I am offered a bowl of fonio. Even though I just ate a wonderful meal, it is clear that I will not be permitted to turn this down. Then Bintu tells me to bring my dirty clothes tomorrow so she can wash them, but I washed them last night. Everyone is showering me with generosity and support. I am humbled, as always by how fully the Mintés, and wider Jaxanké community has embraced me, and gratified by how much they appreciate the traveling I have been doing. It is really amazing. I feel motivated to stay involved, in some way, with this community for the rest of my life.

An hour or so later, it is time for me to head back to my hotel. I will be back tomorrow for lunch. I wander down the hill on foot and back through the chaos of the central market area. The evening light is beautiful, and the views are amazing. After today I think I can say that I truly like Labé as a city. I buy some mangos, get a delicious bowl of spicy beef offal stew, and get back to my hotel room, finally delivering my tire back to its rightful home on the rear of my bike.