It was the middle of the dry season. The sun was hot, life was slow, and thrilling rumors were circulating in the Gambia about a new cellphone company. These rumors were made up of hushed, fragmentary words whispered in back rooms all over the country - words like: "brothers", and "blood feud", and "fight to the death". As the weeks progressed, the rumors started to get a little less amorphous, and even began to resemble certain facts in the real world: a certain building, made largely of glass, on Kairaba Avenue (situated about two minutes down from the Africell building); large truck-fuls of boxed equipment delivered to this building in broad daylight; page after page of job ads in the papers. The job ads gave a name to the company: Comium. The rumors gave a backstory: the founder of Africell - the rumors ran - had a brother with whom he had originally begun the venture. Once, they had been friends.
