Alfa

When you need a woodworker in Cite Assemble, you call Alfa.

One of my high priorities when I arrived and Lucy was still pregnant was that she have a sturdy, high-backed rocking chair for nursing. I had a fund of 85 euros (around $115) left from the Germany trip that I intended as the seed money for this gift. How you buy a rocking chair in Dakar, I had no idea. The Western furniture stores are fabulously expensive and needlessly stylish ("Lifestyle!") for the intended humble, domestic use. Maybe the alternative was the downtown market where you can find almost anything you want: bras, telephones, expresso makers, floor mats for your car. It's arranged as acres of vendors connected by narrow wooden walkways under make-shift roofing, true warrens of commerce and dens of pickpockets. Exciting, terrifying…How would we find a rocking chair there? How would we get one out? (Lucy's told me since that they don't deal in furniture there. What a relief.)

Yves was gracious about receiving my gift and Lucy was delighted: She could already imagine how good the back support and rocking would be. Shopping for it? They didn't hesitate for a moment: They called Alfa.

Alfa is a man who looks about 17 and lives in the neighborhood. I'm finding that almost every need can be met in the neighborhood. Alfa is the carpenter. He's made the beds in this apartment, to specifications given by Yves and Lucy. Likewise, he's made their armoires and bookcases. After the November infestation of bedbugs when Lucy was alone, 37 weeks pregnant, and Yves in Benin, it was Alfa to the rescue. He tossed the mattresses for her, and likewise some furniture made of porous woods. He treated every other wooden thing with sealant, fumigated the apartment, and had new mattresses cut from thick foam. What a hero.

So, on the day the topic of the chair came up, Alfa appeared. Lucy and Yves had trolled the Internet for  pictures of rocking chairs and had chosen a model that Alfa took notes on. Although it didn't appear until several days after Phillipe's birth, the chair finally arrived unannounced, beautiful and sturdy.

Just one problem with it: Lucy had to use a stool because it was so tall that her feet couldn't touch the floor.

The problematic height was pointed out to Alfa through a telephone call. I wondered, when he didn't come, if they might try him again. I was frustrated, but Lucy assured me, that's the way business gets done: C'est la vie. All in good time; he'd get to it and reminders weren't necessary.

Finally, three days ago (on John's 2-week birthday) Alfa appeared, remeasured, took the chair away and brought it back only a day later. It's perfect, just what I wanted for my girl and new mother. I'm told that the whole project cost $80.

We gave Alfa a new commission when he returned the revised chair. Again, I was thinking we'd need to find some Western frame shop, but it never entered the collective mind of Yves and Lucy,  for whom it was obviously a job for Alfa.

Over the week past I've made a series of alphabet drawings to decorate the baby's room, one sheet for each of his many, many names. Yves showed him the project; they had a very long parlay (out of hearing of Lucy and me) about specifications, including whether he knows a glazier who could cut glass adequately. They bartered for the price for the set of five and reached an agreement. Alfa wanted to take the drawings with him but Yves declined to let them go, assuring him that he trusts that the work will be fine, but keeping to himself his fear that the drawings would come back enhanced with carpenter's glue.

So now we're excited to see the framed drawings. But the one thing on which there's been no agreement—and I know not to expect one—is a completion date.