Top 5 Gambian Moments: Warm Fuzzies Edition

With another month in-country down, it is time for another Top 5....

5)  A Tree Named Fatoumata

 As we are winding down our time at our training villages, we're not only saying our goodbyes, but are attempting to leave a mark, however small, on the community.  Peace Corps suggested we give a short talk on something health related, so we held a town meeting and discussed the importance of hand-washing as a means of preventing disease.  This seems like such common sense for us, but here, where it's considered "common sense" to wipe your child's butt while cooking, (multi-tasking!) it's a much needed wake-up call for many.
      
Afterwards, a few community leaders thanked us and then, as a surprise, announced that they wanted to plant trees in our honor.  We all marched over to the mosque in the center of town and helped place our "own" tree into the soil and pack the earth in around it.

As most of my time here thus far has been learning a new language and therefore needing a lot of help from others, it was nice to feel that I had contributed something.  So now, in a tiny town called Sare Musa, there stands a small tree named "Fatoumata", just for me.

4)  Moonshadow, Moonshadow

For those of you familiar with Islam, you know the moon plays an immensely important role in life, as the lunar calendar is used to mark important religious holidays throughout the year.  As we arrived in village at the beginning of July, we came just in time to witness the grueling month of Ramadan.  Simply put, Ramadan is a month-long fast from food and water during daylight hours.  Any pleasurable pastimes like smoking, sex, or listening to music are also forbidden.  This creates a roughly 30-day period of time where people on the whole are exhausted, cranky, and unbelievably f*king thirsty.  So, on the last day of Ramadan, just before sundown, everyone in the village gathered outside to see if they could see the shadow of the moon. If so, the fast is over; if not, it continues for another day. I waited in the crowd with baited breath, staring up at the sky, unsure of what exactly a moonshadow was, but looking for it all the same.  Suddenly, a voice called out, and people were smiling and praying. Children grabbed my hand and had me crawl up on steps to see this tiny crescent that caused such pure joy.  It was truly magical.
   
Within the next couple of weeks, the "Supermoon" shone full and bright here in The Gambia.  I don't know how it looked in the States, but there were two days where I swear it looked like I could reach up and touch it. Those nights I walked home and "showered" without a flashlight, and used only the fullness of the moon to illuminate the night.

3)   Down on the Farm

 On the rare occasion we have a day off from classes, we trainees usually take the opportunity to ride our bikes to the nearby "city", charge electronics, visit the internet cafe, and stuff our faces with all conceivable combinations of market snacks.  A few Sundays ago, however, I just wasn't feeling it, and I decided to stay back and help my family work on the farm.  Never before have I so keenly understood the phrase, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."

As you might assume, I am not a very good farmer.  For one, I have no idea what I'm doing, and two, I'm a pansy.  Walking around barefoot in the dirt, minding not to step on any poisonous what-have-yous while heaving medieval-looking tools into the ground is not fun.  Every time I would complete a row, I'd look up, panting...proud..only to see my 75 year-old grandmother with a toddler on her back three rows ahead of me. Sigh.

That said, the time was also really special.  A few times I looked up (singing "one of these things is not like the other") and realized how awesome it was just to be where I was--standing, in the middle of a field, as a member of a family in Africa.  I probably definitely won't ever fit in here, but that day, my host mom said to me in Pulaar, "Fatou, today you make me very happy" and right then, that was enough.


2) "Please to Meet you, I am Your Landlord-Father"

 Last week, all of us trainees dispersed throughout the country for four days to catch the first glimpses of what will be our permanent site, the village we will call home for the next two years.  I had so many questions...What will my family be like?  Will my house be cool?  As nervous as I was, I'm happy to report it all went smoothly.  The surrounding area was gorgeous.  Lush, knee-high grasses encircle the whole village, my school is small and close, and my house is pretty adorable..a traditional African hut with a thatched roof.  My family is small with two wives and six kids (two of whom are grown) and I felt welcome and comfortable.

My friend, Tim, who I've gotten to know throughout training, is placed only three kilometers from me, so we were able to hang out, meet each others' families, and even plot a jogging route between the two houses.  I also used those days to do a little remodeling...With the help of a family friend, I was able to buy cement and cover a portion of my enclosed backyard to convert into my outdoor bedroom for use after the rainy season.  My 1st mom, Nene Hawa, taught me how to make folaray, a sauce made from sorrel leaves, and I fertilized the peanut farm with my self-proclaimed "landlord-father".  All in all, it proved a success and allowed me to breath a sigh of relief at the knowledge that my new home will be peaceful, welcoming, and full of new experiences.

1)  Post-Dinner Fam Jam

 Now that Ramadan is over, the entire family eats dinner together.  We sit on mats outside and eat (with right hands only!) out of the same huge metal bowl.  After dinner, everyone sits around in the moonlight chatting.  As my ability to "chat" is fairly lacking, I've had to come up with alternative after-dinner scenarios.  Some days I've brought out books to read to the children-which often rouse more interest from the adults.  One in particular about sea creatures was a real crowd-pleaser as no one could believe that dolphins could have their babies underwater.  I was commanded to mime giving birth...as a dolphin...for several people that evening, one of whom was my grandfather, who nodded in awe and disbelief.
   
On some occasions, I've done make-shift yoga classes, which also serve as good language practice for me as I have to recite "squeeze your legs, touch your toes," etc. in broken Pulaar.  A few nights we've indulged in a bit of dirty dancing; the kids chant and teach me how to dance like a Fula woman.  (low to the ground and with as much booty as possible)  Still other nights we sit in a circle and play hand games like Down By the Banks of the Hanki Panki or just tell stories.

The most memorable night so far, though, has been singing Queen Bee by one Ms. Barbara Streisand.  <Pause for laughter>  The kids were begging me to sing, and since I figured the desperate can't be picky, it seemed perfect.  Children here can stomp and clap a rhythm from birth, so I utilized this skill and had about 15 kids making a solid beat for me.  In no time, we had ourselfves quite the party.  This song is near to my heart, as the entire soundtrack to A Star is Born  also served as the soundtrack to My Childhood (thanks, Mom).  As silly and bizarre as it was, that moment felt like I was fusing my life in America with my life here, and I had the feeling that I was precisely where I was supposed to be. 

Feast Your Ears on This: The Sounds of A Country Alive

While we all know the old adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, we know too that this proves easier said than done.  Our senses are trained to collect information, process it, and judge according to our previous life experiences.  When taking in a place for the first time, our sense of sight seems the most useful, as things you see are more simple to sort through and categorize.  We effortlessly recognize the familiar sites: a mother and her child, a person buying groceries, or a load of people travelling on a bus, and we achieve a degree of understanding about what’s happening, of where we are.

It’s the other senses, however, that color the picture and are much more difficult to grasp and interpret.  A new taste can be many things- good, bad, strange, familiar-all at the same time.  A smell can be both comforting and disagreeable, and a touch, a texture of a new place can be similarly bipolar.  The dryness of the soil is not the soil I know from home; the way people embrace and engage socially is not natural to me. Each element of the puzzle is just a piece and takes time and effort to put together.  But of all the senses, for me at least, it is the sense of sound that has shown itself to be the most complex. 

Unfamiliar sounds can do incredible things to your imagination.  A language unknown gives us almost no insight, aside from intonation, which isn't necessarily a tell-tale sign of the message.  (I've learned this here as I am often certain that two women are mere moments from clawing one another’s eyes out in anger only to begin laughing heartily and part ways seconds later.) #instinctfail.

A bump in the night in unfamiliar surroundings has the rare ability to excite an intense and immediate fear in a person-young and old alike.  (I learn and re-learn this almost nightly as I am wakened by a thump and lay still, heart pounding, awaiting certain death by any number of carnivorous bush mammals.)  Still other sounds leave too much room for imagination as they are so foreign, so unfamiliar, that we don’t know how to feel about them.  These are the sounds I want to share with you now.  {Dramatic Soap Opera Voice}

                                             

                                                 These are the Sounds of My Life

Living in a Muslim country, I've slowly gotten used to the chant, known as the “call to prayer” which happens five times daily.  A man's voice booms from the mosque, of which every single village has at least one, starting at 5 am and lasts a few minutes each “round”.  Now, factor in my not being much of a morning person with the proximity of my house to the speakers of the mosque, and you might imagine this is not my favorite sound.  You are correct.  However, it infuriates “startles” me less and less as time goes on, and I have actually come to enjoy the evening calls-to-prayer quite a bit.  It’s kind of magical taking a bucket bath under the stars, hearing the loud rhythmic chant, and listening as the villagers begin making their way to the mosque to pray. 

The next sound is a little less romantical.  It’s a sound I thought for sure I was imagining my first few weeks here; I thought it perhaps an auditory hallucination-a side effect of my Malaria prophylaxis..? Negative. It’s the superbly obnoxious “waaka waaka” of a clown horn.  Yes, the horn usually-if not exclusively-heard during a circus intermission.  This sounds comes through my windows, weather permitting, around 6 am.  You might imagine this is not particularly enjoyable.  You are correct.  But, it has been in my learning what this noise signifies that brings me joy.  It is the calling card of none other than...the fish delivery man!  A young teen boy rides his bike throughout the village while sounding his ridiculous horn, signaling the women to come out and buy their fish for the day.  Now, while I have continued to fantasize about stripping the horn from the bicycle and beating him with it violently, the vision is fleeting, as I am quickly overtaken with anticipatory elation at the prospect of having fish for dinner.    

Another sound of my new home is harder to describe.  Imagine holding a very heavy wooden ball and then dropping it into a deep wooden bowl.  It’s a rich, hollow, echo-y sound.  This noise fills every corner of the village at nearly every hour of the day. It’s the sound of countless women pounding grains into powders with a massive mortar and pestle.  Gambian food necessitates a lot of these powders for use in various sauces and porridges, so the women never cease to have things which require a good smash.  By the way-Gambian women, who do most of the heavy-lifting for their families, are total beasts.  They carry 15 pound buckets of water on their heads while lugging a 10 pound baby on their back, and they can pound the SHIT out of these grains.  In order to break up the monotony of the pounding, a variety of choreography has been created, which is done at random times or whenever the mood strikes.  This includes but is not limited to:

 1)   Pair Pounding:  Women work in tandem to create a see-saw motion of pounding.  This speeds things up  and adds the potential for socializing. Low degree of difficulty.

 2) Group Pounding: Similar to above, but with three or more women.  Higher degree of difficulty as timing can prove quite tricky. 

 3) Clap Pounding:  The exciting variation where one must drop the wooden club

down with such a force as to  cause it to bounce up and stay air-borne for enough time to clap their hands together before catching the  club on its way back down.  Highest degree of difficulty. 

You might imagine this all takes a great deal of practice and coordination, and that a cocky foreigner such as myself should be well advised against participating in such spectacles for fear of hurting themselves and others.  You are correct. 

All of these sounds have made up my world the last 7 weeks.  Together with the animals, the language, and the truly spectacular rainstorms, I have been surrounded with a cacophony of new noise.  While I do look forward to this noise becoming more familiar, I also revel in its oddness, because for me, oddness is one of the very best things.