An Affair in Africa

The first time I went to sub-Saharan Africa, I attended a drum camp during the first month. It took place on the island of Roum, an hour’s ride from Conakry in a canoe-like boat with an outboard motor.
Roum is a small island with only one village and two beaches, one on each side of the island. It is like a little tropical paradise. When we arrived, there emerged, out of the waves next to the boat, an Apollonian apparition, an almost naked, shining bronze-god with a harpoon in his hand. This, I thought, must be what God had in mind when he created this world.

The first day in camp we had an orientation meeting with Abdoulaye Camara, the one dance teacher who spoke English. I was the only man in the group of nine American students, and Abdoulaye warned the girls that the young African drummers were very fast to become intimate and the girls should be ready to say no if they were not into it.
“Any questions?”
I asked: “What is the attitude to homosexuality in Africa?”
“That doesn’t exist,” said Abdoulaye with proud finality.
That, of course, gave some indication of the attitude.

The beach that turned towards the lagoon was very long and, at low tide, very wide and seemed to be always empty. I went there one of the first days with the two girls from the group that I had connected with, and their escorts, two young drummers. There was nobody else so I went skinny-dipping. A boy that I hadn’t noticed came swimming up to me and was obviously in a playful mood, and so was I. He was 15, I guess, and he was lean and muscular, as most people are in a country where you have to work hard to survive.
I love playing in the water and we lustily splashed each other; we were out where the water was chest-deep and he started coming up close, swimming around me and under me, sliding between my legs. I grew an instant, involuntary response and it was then demonstrated that African men are very fast! It lasted for a while, this surprising and enchanting encounter with a merman. When I had ‘enjoyed’, as the French say, he disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared.
My friends joked just enough to let me know that they had seen something go on, but not enough to embarrass me. Later I found out that the boy worked on one of the boats from Conakry; so his visits to Roum were irregular and infrequent. I met him one day on the path to the beach and I told him that I had a gift for him, a t-shirt, and we arranged how I could give it to him secretly.
I met him on and off and we managed also another tryst in the sea, hidden behind an anchored boat, and I left him some money by a mark on the empty beach and saw him pick it up without my friends noticing.
On two later visits to Guinea I met him again but it began to loose its charm. He was growing, and the romantic merman transformed into a young professional hustler.

We were living in tents, and I, being the only man, had a tent for myself. It stood under some trees next to the plaza in front of the school. This plaza was the place for parties and performances and New Years Eve there was blaring music and a dance in the schoolroom. There were couples and to one side mostly single men dancing. A young fisher, Ben, who was from Sierra Leone and spoke English, and who lived in the neighborhood of my tent, started dancing with me. The next dance another guy asked me to dance with him and I didn’t have the guts to say no, but when that was over I found my friend Ben again. He was a sexy dancer and he acted like a magnet on me.
Suddenly the music stopped, the lights went out and everybody went home – except me. I sat with Ben on a log in the dark. He asked me if I wanted a woman but I said: “I want you!” He took my hand and placed it in his crotch and I felt that he was hard. It went on for a while about a woman, one even turned up and was offered to me. We went into Ben’s house and his mate was there, but I repeated that it was him I wanted and finally he came with me to my tent. First he lay down on his stomach ready to be taken, but that was not what I wanted. I was amorous and I wanted to kiss him and revel in his beauty and he didn’t seem to mind. We had negotiated a price, a ridiculous low price, but handling money and talking about money is a normal thing in Africa.

From left: me, Ben's roommate and Ben
To keep an affair secret in Africa is a challenge. Your friends are your protectors and they like at all times to have check on where you are and with whom. I was not sure how they would react if they knew, and there was also a measure of excitement in keeping it secret. Of course a few village people knew but they were cool; I met Ben’s roommate on the path one day and as he passed me he winked and smiled knowingly. The tent was definitely not the place to make love, but Ben knew a hidden place in the jungle close by the village and here we met a couple of times before I left Roum.
Every time I was in Guinea I returned to Roum and the last year my visit fell on a full moon night. I met Ben and we managed to make a plan for the evening. I gave him a sign and left the village and he followed and met me on the path and took me down to the rocks by the sea. There we spread all our clothes on a warm flat rock and everything was so perfect, the lonely place by the moonlit ocean and my beautiful lover. Most often it had been pitch dark when we were together, so it was a treat to enjoy the sight of his flawless beauty.
That was our last meeting for I have not been back to Guinea, but it is still vivid in my mind.