Top 5 Gambian Moments: September 2014

5) Swearing in Shenanigans

Babucaar, my Pulaar teacher.

September 5^th marked a very important milestone in my Peace Corps career.  All 18 of the people I boarded that plane with in New York were able to swear in with me as official PC Volunteers.  We sang a song in Mandinka, swore an oath on national television (although there are a strikingly low number of viewers in this country of scarce electricity) and we ran, fully clothed, into the ocean.  It was a week of enjoying the feeling of accomplishment in finishing training, a week of swimming in the ocean every day (and night) and of eating unreasonable quantities of everything we had been dreaming about in the 10 weeks previous. 

                                                             

4) The Battle of the Babies

Last spring, my host family took on a new member due to the untimely passing of a young girl’s birth parents.  Her name is Ramatoulie, pronounced Too- Lie for short, and she is absolutely adorable.  The problem is, however, that she-along with nearly every Gambian child aged 5 months to 8 years-is completely terrified of me.  I read a Toni Morrison book in which the young black narrator speaks of “the man with no skin” in reference to white people, and I often wonder if this is the reason for their fear or if I am, in fact, just generally terrifying.  Either way, if I so much as walked past her, Toulie’s eyes would well up and she'd teeter away just as fast as her little legs would allow.  I felt awful.  Scaring babies is not an enjoyable past time, which contrasts greatly to my opinion on scaring older children, which I enjoy very much.  {One day, while running, I spotted two boys about 7 or 8, watching me from the bushes.  They yelled “Toubab ko” (It’s foreigner!) but I chose to ignore them and keep on.  As I neared, I saw their expressions change from wonder to fear and shamefully, I picked up my pace just to see what they would do; they immediately turned and ran giggling and screaming the field.  Toubab: 1 Kids: 0}

Anyway, throughout the last couple of weeks, my family and I have tried tirelessly to get Toulie to let me near her.  Then, last week while I sat in a chair and read a book, she waddled up to me and said “one, ooo, tee”.  Now she is barely two and has limited vocabulary even in Pulaar, so I have no idea how she managed to practice counting in English, but I took it as a sign.  For me, it was an acceptance of my otherness-my lack of skin-and I freaking loved it. 

3) Someone’s in the Kitchen With Hawa

Throughout my time here, I've made several observations regarding the skills perfected and carried out daily by the women in Gambia.  Carrying 20 pounds of water on one’s head, even giving birth-as Tim’s mom said, “..is no big worry, just we must do”.  All of these chores take muscle, sweat, and above all else—time. At no other point was this so clear as it became two weeks ago upon my simple request to help my host mom, Hawa, make dinner. 

NeNe Hawa

      I love to cook, I thought.  This will be fun.  Cut to four hours later and I stood bathing in my backyard, taking inventory of my injuries.  I had two burns, a few cuts on my hands, I had rubbed all of the skin off of both ring fingers from pounding grains and my back felt crippled from hunching over…not to mention my body temperature was hovering over 100 from being posted up over a fire.  All of this from cooking one meal, one day.  Allow me to the share the recipe:

Cous (Bulgar) with Bean Sauce 

     1)  Harvest grains.  Pound aggressively into a fine powder using a 30 pound wooden bat.  Sift out all large particles and pound again until you actually or very nearly hurt yourself. Allow to dry in the sun.

     2)   Place powdered grains in large bowl.  Gather firewood and water while feeding at least one infant and build a fire.  Bring water to boil and set bowl containing powder on top to steam using a sand-like sludge to seal the two containers together. 

     3) Using bare hands, lift off scorching hot metal lid to gently stir powdered grains.  (Works best if spoon is also metal and nearly on fire.)  Remember to do this slowly and with care.

     4) Once grains are steamed, proceed to 1^st step again.  Sift multiple times until powder is cooked, fluffy, and separated.  You may often think you are almost done.  You are not.

     5) Boil water, beans, onions and garlic and several cubes of pure MSG until fragrant.  Continue to stir for minimum of one hour while simultaneously fanning the fire with your other arm.  Try not to drip sweat into the pot. 

**Note: Steps 3-5 must be completed while holding a flashlight under chin as there are no lights.

     Serve and Enjoy!

Pounding that grain.

2) Midnight Rider

One of the things I've looked forward to most upon settling in to my new home has been the prospect of having visitors.  Who doesn't love a sleepover?  Also, it’s so much more fun to cook western food when you can share it with someone rather than freakishly hoarding it in your house and praying the furry creatures don’t sniff out the leftovers. 

So, last weekend marked my first visitor Scout, a fellow PC Volunteer posted to a village about two hours away, came up late Saturday morning.  I biked and met her at Tim’s house, as it’s on the road, and allowed us to holler and wave her off the bus.  From there, we all headed towards Janjangburreh, a nearby island-city where we met another friend for lunch.  It was a great afternoon.  We ate, drank, listened to music, and played Scrabble Flash. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) Around 4 p.m, the rains rolled in, but we were happy to wait them out before heading back. Two hours later, the rain was still heavy and we found ourselves at a crossroads.  Do we chance it and try to find a car in the rain or do we just sleep on the floor of our friend’s house?  With clean sheets and chicken pasta calling our names, we chased down a gelle and headed home.  We sat in the front seat, watching as the driver leaned his head out of the window to see the road.  The wipers were broken and the cracks across the glass were so thick, it seemed a more viable option to get smacked in the face by rain than attempt to see through the windshield itself.

Twenty minutes and one near death experience later, we got to Tim’s house.  He wheeled out our bikes, loaned us a headlamp and we raced off to beat the last rays of light for the ride home.  By the time we crossed the street and started down the road, it was clear the sun was going to win.  With Scout ahead of me, we proceeded to bike in the pitch black, pedaling through the muddy path the rain had left for us.  It was not exactly the greatest-hatched plan, but it was a memory I’ll never forget.

1) A Tree the Monkey Cannot Climb

I wrote a while back about the magical time after dinner when everyone sits together as a family, talking, listening to music, talk radio, or sometimes nothing at all.  This time has become so special to me as I appreciate more how unusual it is to experience the night as it was born to be.  I suppose it’s akin to that connectedness with the Earth you get when camping.  No sirens, no honking horns or flashing lights…Only the breeze, a trillion stars, and the chirping of crickets keep the night alive.

One evening, in the pitch of night, a man came by to chat with my father.  He saw me sitting there contented and I told him in Pulaar how beautiful the sky looked.  He responded by sharing a proverb about how the sky stretches out like a tree, big and round, and how the stars fall like branches.  He called it “the only tree which the monkey cannot climb".  Stumped for a proper response, I just smiled, but as I lay, the stars drippws down like the arms of a weeping willow that night.

Every night, Nene Hawa puts a pillow and thin blanket out onto a wicker bed frame they keep outside; we all pile on and stare up at the enormous expanse of the sky.  One by one, the children fall asleep and are taken to bed.  Hours later, I'm nudged awake by either wind or whisper and slowly make my way inside my hut, to sleep peacefully under the only tree which the monkey cannot climb.

A Word on Transportation

    Anyone who has traveled knows that part of the joys (and pains) of the experience lies in the logistics of getting from one place to another.  This sort of thing can be complicated enough in one’s own country—I still get frustrated when taking the subway and don’t even get me started on those outdoor airport trolleys that take 25 minutes to load and then drive the 12 feet to a new gate.  So, add to this a different currency,  a new language, small changes in social graces, and a whole lot of B.O., and you've got yourself one hell of an adventure.  To this end, I've come to expect a certain degree of the purely bizarre when travelling, and I’m happy to report that The Gambia has proved itself no exception and has, in fact, exceeded my expectations with unique flair. 

It was a lovely 900 degree Saturday afternoon.  My mothers needed to visit the large lumo, or market, in a nearby town called Brikamaba.  They sell everything from dishes and vegetables to fabric and fruit.  Did I want to join?  Absolutely!  With this, the journey began: A 3 kilometer walk up the dirt path to the main road where we’d catch a gelle-gelle, (van-ish hoopty mobile) to the city.  We walked, we sat, we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Forty minutes, a few false alarms, and a couple of “sorry, all full”s later, and we were on our way.  We fought ourselves into this clown car containing about 16 others--my friend Tim and his host mother included as they joined us in our waiting.  Squeezed together like sardines, sharing sweat, stench, and shopping strategy alike, we all rode into Brikamaba without much trouble.  We even figured out how to pay the “apparente”, who literally hangs off the back of the vehicle, swinging freely in and out of the moving car collecting money.  I am still unclear on whether this is done in order to free up more space or purely for sport.

Sufficed to say, the market proved itself enjoyable, albeit fairly uneventful.  Tim was able to bargain for a few home wares, and I managed to find some of the last mangoes of the season, over which I later shed tears as I ate every square inch of juicy flesh and realized how sorely they will be missed.  Ready to head home, we waited with our bags--sun-kissed, soaked, exhausted-- until we found a gele heading back towards our villages.  Successful, we boarded and began claiming our space, both continuously trying to take more than our share, but getting called out on our bluffs every time.

The driver loaded up the bus and looked for more people to fill it.  Why drive only 17 passengers in a 10-seater when you could clearly fit 23?  Women and young children came to the windows, selling icy-cold bags of “juice” from the metal bowls balanced on their heads.  I promptly purchased one and stuffed it down my shirt.  Fellow travelers questioned Tim and I about our day’s purchases and we struggled to give comprehensible answers in Pulaar.  My first mother then asked the driver what was taking so long and, as if right on cue, a very massive, very alive ram was hoisted up atop the van and secured down with the rest of the baggage. Already hanging out of the window for fresh air, I came face to face with this beast and was the lucky recipient of his wet, hot breath as his mouth wailed open in angry protest and mine in amused disbelief.  I was unsure what to think.  Part of me was appalled at the rough treatment of this animal, but mostly I was relieved that this meant we could finally get on the road. 

I looked across the isle, catching Tim’s eye, and immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter.  The other passengers laughed with us, not finding the situation particularly humorous, but finding pleasure in the fact that we, the foreigners, the “toubabs” appreciated this moment.  This purely bizarre, purely Gambian, moment.