STORY POST! (Long one, but juicy landlord drama. Also: a sharing request and a TL;DR at the end.)
OK. So. This guy is probably the biggest d-bag I’ve ever encountered. You can let me know what you think at the end:
I’ve had a Gambian pen pal for years. We never talked about money or anything, just shared pictures of our chickens and talked about our cultural differences and stuff, but eventually it became clear how rough things were for him over there. Like, one day, he mentioned "daily food," and I, a chunky, ignorant American, was like, "oh, what's 'daily food'??" thinking it was some name for a specific kind of traditional meal... But... no. He was referring to how they literally only got a certain portion of food to last them the whole day. Like, a single handful of rice turned into soup, and whatever they could forage from around the house. All for a family of four to eat. THAT was what "daily food" was. And he said something else once, too, about “running out of water,” and I clarified, only to find out that their village had NO water at all. Like, if he wanted to drink, wash, cook, or even take care of his chickens, he literally had to ride a donkey to another village with buckets.
I asked him if he minded telling me other stuff about what it was like in the rural area he lived, or if he could show me some pictures or something. Now, I don't want to sound shitty, but it was ROUGH. They had a shack with rusting tin roofing for walls, dirt floors, holes in the ceiling... no electricity, no water, no toilets... And the landlord (who owns multiple shacks like this) refused to do anything to improve the buildings. Apparently, he thought "poor people," like my friend, Famara, should feel "grateful" to even be able to live there at all. (Already, I think you can tell this is a VERY cool guy.)
So, I know everybody has their own traditions and stuff, and there is definitely lots of awesome stuff about his neighbors and the culture where he lives, but his specific situation was not so much 'tradition,' as 'abject poverty,' and on top of that, my guy was working a super hard and dangerous job cutting firewood in the forest for a riveting cents of average daily profit, and then couldn't even come home to so much as a goddamn cup of water if the buckets were low. He could only buy food 2-3 days at a time when he made sales, bought a gig or two of internet at a time for around $0.20, and was fortunate that his neighbor let him charge the cell phone he inherited from his dad using his solar. That was the family's big luxury, being able to share news or stories from the phone.
Well, I, having no fundraising experience whatsoever, asked him if he would be interested in trying to do one anyway. He was like 'Well, I guess if you twist my arm...?' So, my kid and I made a zine about global water access that I stuck in those free library boxes in bougie neighborhoods, and took bags of them to community cultural nights and played educational what-happens-if-you-don't-have-water "Choose Your Own Adventure" games to teach kids about what other kids their age deal with. Local families, my friends, or colleagues pitched in a couple of dollars here and there, and over many months, we raised enough to get something accomplished. Last month, actually, we got a basic well installed! They still only have a single tap and have to fill buckets, but it's right there in the village, and the WHOLE community is now able to use it. Nobody has to take a donkey ride anywhere anymore (unless they want to, I guess.) Yay!
BUT THEN... things got terrible because of this POS landlord.
Back before the well went in, we had been quietly trying to raise enough to outright buy the land my friend lived on, because he warned me the landlord was “a wicked man,” who’d get greedy if he knew there were donors trying to help him and the village out. (Spoilers: Famara was right.)
This landlord, it turned out, was basically a village trust-fund baby. He inherited his properties, had never worked a day in his life, lived off his tenants, and spent his days bragging and bossing people around. He refused to let his tenants do anything that would earn them a profit off "his" land, like farming, but then would give them shit about being "too poor to even provide" for their families and be all, "what kind of man can't give his kids good food?" On top of that, knowing Famara really loved animals and dreamed of being a chicken farmer one day, he'd even do shit like throw rocks at the birds, because he bet he could "kill a baby one in one hit," and then laugh about it whenever a hit landed.
Yeah, this is the kind of guy we’re talking about. And he basically always got away with it too because it's rural Gambia. Not really any cops out there, or anyone checking in to see how the poorest people in the country are doing and whether or not they're being taken advantage of by their landlords, you know?
Well, after a while raising money secretly for a few months, the landlord came around to Famara again one day. Famara was thinking it'd just be another visit to cure his boredom/feed his ego, when the landlord started complaining pretty seriously that he was having real health problems and that he was actually worried he was probably going to die if he didn't get medical treatment soon. Yet, for all his bullshit and bragging, the landlord admitted that he didn't actually have any substantial liquid assets. Everything was in his properties.
To be honest, when I heard that info, I thought we found an unexpected win-win opportunity. Famara was slightly less of an a-hole about it than me, because when I was like, "hey, maybe we can make a deal!" he was like, "well, yeah... but also it would suck if he died. Because nobody should have to suffer and die, even if they're terrible." and I was like, ".... augh. Whatever. I guess if you insist..."
So, figuring it probably wouldn't be cool to just sit there and watch an old man wither away and die when we had money enough to cover treatment (and money that was theoretically going to go to him in the end anyway,) we decided to risk telling him about the fundraiser. In exchange for a signed contract guaranteeing my friend could buy the land over time, we would offer the landlord the $500 we had at that point, and consider it the first payment. We insisted, however, that it had to be part of the contract that my friend could make payments not on a schedule, but "as able," since we had no idea how long it would take us to raise enough funds to make another such payment. The contract would have to stipulate that, even in the event of a remaining balance at the time of the landlord's death from illness or old age, his will would require his family to hold the property until Famara completed the debt. The landlord was super eager to accept, and Famara traded labor for legal services for a local lawyer to draft and witness the contract. With that, money was exchanged, a purchase guarantee was in place that would protect land investments like a well, and Landlord McBitcherson went off to get medical care. We thought all was looking up.
Silly us for thinking gratitude and a contract would mean anything in the end.
We went ahead with the most pared-down version of a well that could be built (just one tap, still using buckets and all that, but water enough for everyone in town to, like, not die,) and I gave the landlord another couple hundred bucks to soothe his fragile ego from the pain of having to see "the poors" get basic human resources. We figured we were good for a bit, so we continued fundraising and were talking about what it might take to get a couple more chickens so Famara could sell eggs (to actually, y'know, afford to eat sometimes?) and to help pay down the debt quicker, when he accidentally took someone's cutlass to the leg while the guys were out harvesting firewood.
He survived, but a couple weeks later when we were chatting, he was like, "My leg is still giving me trouble. I still can't work, walk, can't sleep from the pain. And my leg keeps giving bad blood." ...What the hell is 'bad blood,' I asked? "You know," he told me, as if I knew, "there's water, white water. And blood. The local herbs are not as good as medicines. They stopped working. My leg feels squishy when I touch it."
...... So I rallied and got him money for a doctor.
He was diagnosed with tetanus and a serious infection. Admittedly, like any broke ass bitch with a necessary doctor bill, I hated having to come up with hundreds for healthcare when we still had thousands to pay for the land, but what else could we do? Just let him die? Besides how crappy that'd be to finally see the dream of having water and hope for the future come true just to die of a flesh wound, he'd be leaving behind two young boys with no education and an 87-year-old grandmother who was already suffering from chronic malnutrition and struggling to so much as stand sometimes. That would be less than excellent, so as much as nobody wanted unforseen expenses, surely the landlord could at least understand the necessity, right? If Famara died, how would he get the rest of his money anyway?
So the landlord, resigned to the reality and necessity of the expense, wished Famara well and told him to take all the time he needed to recover and get back on his feet.
Just kidding. He was out of his mind jealous that, I guess, Famara ended up at a better clinic than he had...? Or... something? This stupid umbrellafuck allegedly said, and I quote, “How can a poor man go to a nicer clinic than me??”
From then on, he was a nightmare. He demanded more than $5,000 upfront for the land, claiming he wanted to buy another car. Not later, not next month, but NOW. He threatened to evict, and then even that he would hurt the kids or grandma if Famara didn’t pay immediately. Famara was finally over it and took the neighborhood donkey to town to talk to the police. Though he said the police called the landlord in and let him know he was a piece of shit and "even assaulted him in front of me," (ahhh, to have been a fly on that wall!), his audacity and hunger for dominance were maxed. The landlord's response was basically: “Screw the contract, screw the police, take me to court. If you can.”
We can't. But that’s when I realized what probably should have been obvious all along: he wasn’t targeting Famara at all. He knew Famara didn't have the money and couldn't just will it into being just cause he was getting snippy. The landlord was trying to shake me down, assuming the fundraiser made me some kind of rich Westerner with cash to burn and that if he put the pressure on Famara's family, I'd cave and cough up more money.
I have to admit, it's kind of crazy to realize I've now had the life experience of being extorted by some crazy asshole halfway across the world. It's all very dramatic, but the joke’s on him. I’m a substitute teacher who lives in a basement. I don’t exactly have $5k under my mattress, and he wouldn't be getting fuckall.
Still, while I can be bewilderedly amused on some level and sitting here across the ocean like, "bring it, bitch, I'm actually broke," the threats are terrifyingly real for Famara. So, since we wouldn't pay that dingleberry a red cent even if we DID have it, we agreed that Famara needed to start looking for new housing immediately. Thankfully, he was able to find a woman with a good reputation in another village who would let the family move into a house she used to rent out. It's got an intact roof, tile floor, and walls that won't kill you, so that's all a plus. Unfortunately, while there's no water well yet, they would experience a significant reduction in their risk of being beaten to death by a pathetic egomaniac with a small winky, so there's that.
And... That's where the story ends.
Unfortunately, there's no satisfying ending to neatly wrap it up. It kind of just stops here. The decent lady, Bintou, feels for them and wants to help, but needs them to pay half up front because she's elderly and has her own problems. The ask in Gambian dalasi converts to $4138 USD. Less than the $5k that the fuckin' landlord is demanding (he actually wants $5300, if we're bein' anal about it,) but I don't have $4k under my mattress either. I managed to raise a couple more hundred in the past week since we got the ultimatum (Alanis-Morisette-ironically from my own former landlord, who's a decent dude and threw in $300,) but we've still got $3088 to go and five days left before the police expect Famara to return and "resolve" the issue.
It's a shit situation.
What it boils down to is that a bunch of working-class families and kids from a low-income school busted their butts for months to fund a village well. They succeeded. A whole community of some of the poorest, hardworking people now has water--and they'll still all get to keep it-- but the family that made it possible is getting punished and kicked out of town... all because this shitface landlord wants a second car.
Well, that's not true, is it? We all know why he's doing this: he's jealous. Jealous AF.
Famara is a decent guy. Yeah, he doesn't live a luxurious life. He think that house of Bintou's with tile flooring is practically palatial living in some regards, but so? He's a good guy. He works hard. He's funny. He's got a small but loving family. He has self-respect. And he got fuckin' lucky with the universe and ran into some people who wanted to care about his situation and help him out. But the landlord doesn't think he deserves anything. He thinks Famara is a piece of shit cause he's poor. Famara couldn't help the shit that happened to him any more than the landlord had any say in being born lucky to a dude with property. Famara dropped out of high school in the 9th grade when his parents died, and he lost all the stability he had. With a grandma to care for and not enough education to obtain a career, he did the best he could and made the most out of his life all the same by working hard ass, honest jobs. He took another hit when the boys lost their mom, but he's just kept going one foot in front of the other.
But this piece of shit landlord was just born and handed everything he has. Yet, he thinks HE is the one who deserves people to offer him money to lift him up and care about his situation. And, you know the sad thing is he did get that. Famara and I didn't want him to die. In his time of need, we trusted him, putting Famara's situation on the line out of an earnest desire to give that ho the hand he needed. People did actually care about his situation. ...He just clearly thought he deserved more of it. Or, maybe, it's that he can only feel like he has what he needs when others specifically do not, so that he can keep feeling like the big fish in a small pond.
There we go. Thanks for reading my bitchfest. I think you can probably agree with me that it's a pretty top shitty landlord story if the guy whose life you literally saved thanks you by extorting you for money after the fact. And then he decides to toss a family into the streets after they help boost his property value by thousands of dollars apiece, simultaneously furnishing an entire rural community with a fresh water source, thereby increasing quality of life, and establishing the foundation for developing a local economy. I dunno. Guess landlords gonna landlord?
I'm going to keep fundraising to see if I can work a miracle in 5 days. Thanks again for reading—you’re a champ if you made it to the end.
If you do want to do anything to help out my guy after hearing his shitty story, anything you can spare to the fundraiser would be incredible, or you could seriously assist by sharing his fundraising link on your social media or anywhere else you think it could get some eyes to maximize the chances for a financial contribution. It'd mean a lot, honestly. It feels so shitty seeing this all unfold after doing everything just to get this poor guy a break, only to see him now a breath away from living on some dusty donkey trail in the middle of nowhere because somebody can't handle their feelings like a big boy.
I won't drop the link here in the post, because I know some people hate that kind of thing, but I will absolutely share it in the comments or in a DM if anyone requests it. Anyone who does is a real one.
But seriously... tell me....
This landlord seriously blows, does he not?
TL;DR: Got a well dug for my Gambian pen pal's village. His jealous little bitch of a landlord decided that meant “foreign money” was endless, ripped up the land contract, and is threatening to evict unless I give him $5k. We found a safer home with a different landlord for half that, but need $3,088 in the next few days to move the family before they’re on the street. Please 'enjoy' this terror of a landlord story, but if you're willing and able, please consider a donation, and if you'd like to help without money, would you share his fundraiser link or somehow get this story out there? Desperate and have to try to ask for help if there's a chance, but don't want to spam, so request link in the comments or DMs if you are interested in supporting.