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March 28, 2005

Tamboura Boubakar

Tamboura Boubakar is a retired gendarme. He is also something of a legend in Djibo.

'He was the nastiest gendarme in the whole province,' Hama Belko told me the other day. 'Everyone was terrified of him. He was recruited in the early days of French colonialism, when men were made gendarmes purely on the basis of their height and build. Tamboura Boubakar was a big man, and strong. He would beat thieves until their ears stood straight out from their heads like this (comic gesture), and then he would throw them into prison.

'Inevitably there were some thieves who had visited a marabout prior to committing their crime, and procured magic for releasing handcuffs and unlocking locked doors. If a thief escaped from prison like this, Tamboura Boubakar would be the one to track them down. He would not take a weapon with him - just his fists. He went as far as Bouaké to the west and Aribinda to the east. Distance was no object - a thief who had used magic to escape from prison must just hope that Tamboura Boubakar would not find him. Sticks and knives did not hurt Tamboura Boubakar - even bullets from a rifle would just glance off him. He had his own magic, and the thieves were powerless against it. If he found a thief who had escaped from prison, that thief would never be seen again.'

'Now Tamboura Boubakar is more than seventy years old, but he is still greatly feared around here. He only has to clear his throat and people run for cover. But like most old men, he has turned his back on magic - he knows that his magic was not of God.'

Hama is not the only person who tells these stories about Tamboura Boubakar. Other visitors to my house have said similar things. When they do so, they usually lower their voices, glancing over occasionally at the west wall of my yard.

Tamboura Boubakar is a pleasant old man with a white beard and shaky fingers, and he is my next-door neighbour. Sometimes we chat over the wall about the heat and his health and the price of cows. On market day this week I sent round a bowl of chobbal for him and his wives. He visited the following day and we looked at photos of my family, him ooo-ing and aaa-ing politely. I asked him when he had retired and he said 1980. Gendarmes retire at 45, he said, because of the nature of the work. I did not probe any further.

Posted by sahelsteve at March 28, 2005 05:10 PM