Thanksgiving in the Gambia – Letter # 4 December 20, 2006
We all left Tendaba on Sun. Nov. 12 after the boat ride through the bolong. We had lunch before taking off, and, knowing that it would be my last good meal in 10 days, I ate well. Actually, the whole time we were n Tendaba, I stuffed myself at every meal, knowing that as soon as I got back to village I would lose weight again. I’m managing to keep most of my weight on (I’ve only lost a couple of pounds so far) but I think all the meals at Tendaba, and the lunch that Peace Corps provides in village is the only thing keeping me from losing more. Its funny, when we first arrived at Tendaba, I turned my nose up at the bland soups they served before lunch and dinner. We call the “cream of white” and “cream of red.” The second time around however, they may as well have been beef stew and chicken tortilla soup, they tasted so good.
I rode my sorry excuse for a bike back to Bambako , stopping in Kwilla to pick up a few supplies. As is customary in the Gambia, I bought my family a “silfando”- translates as a gift from the road more or less. Ataya and sugar is pretty customary, but I bought some bananas and sardines as well. I also did some asking around and found out who made peanut butter in town. It turned out that an old woman in a small compound owned a peanut grinder and sold a cup of peanut butter for 5 dalasis, which is about 20 cents. So I bought myself 4 cups of freshly-ground home-made peanut butter for less than a dollar- the kind of stuff people pay $5 for a cup at Wild Oats in America.
Being back in Bambako was really nice in a strange way. It kinda felt like I was home again. I was very warmly welcomed by my family and by my friends Bakary, Seecu, and Jakaria. I also had some new inhabitants in my house. A family of rather large praying mantis had found their way inside. I discovered them the night I arrived during my bath. There I am, out in the backyard, squatting naked, thoroughly enjoying the cool weather that had seemingly arrived that very day when something rather large came flying into my groin area and caused me to jump about 5 feet and simultaneously knocked over my candle in the process. So not only was there something flying around my exposed genitals but now I couldn’t see what the hell it was. I swatted it away rather spasmodically and managed to get my candle lit again. Turns out that it was attracted by the light, so it came back again, but this time I could see it was a praying mantis- about 4 inches long. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about praying mantis, other that the fact that females use their rather large scary looking forelegs, which are essentially lined with teeth to cut off the heads of male praying mantis’ after mating. My mind kept coming back to this thought, and made me more that just a little uncomfortable having this creature near my groin. I made every effort to the damn thing out of my backyard without killing it, but by the time it was over the fence, I think it may have been a little banged up. The next night its child paid me a visit.
The cold weather I experienced my first night in Bambako wasn’t just a fluke. It turned out that the strong, dry wind I had felt the day before while biking from Tendaba was the first of the Harmatan winds that originate in the Sahara and mark the beginning of the cold season, bringing cool, dry air from North Africa. My first morning back in Bambako was unforgettable. I woke up at 7:00 AM to a beautiful quiet sunrise that lit up the patches of fog still lingering in the trees and set the sky ablaze. The temperature was a very pleasant 50 degrees F and since I had left my bucket out overnight, the water was equally as cool. I poured the refreshing water over my head and just stood looking at the sky, overjoyed by the cool weather and marveling at the fact that there was actually STEAM coming off my body. It was a beautiful thing. Here’s the corker: the night before, I actually woke up in the middle of the night because I was COLD, and glad to get a sheet to cover up with. To say that the arrival of the cold season was a relief after the hellishly hot month of October wouldn’t do it justice. I spend the whole day in high spirits. Unfortunately, the cool winds are no match for the Equatorial sunshine, and while the sun is high in the sky, it’s still too hot in the direct sun, but the shade is very pleasant. The real benefits came when the sun crept low in the sky, as the crystal clear blue skies cooled off very quickly when not heated by the sun, and it made sleeping at night wonderful. That first night in Bambako marked the first time I didn’t lay in bed sweating, trying to fall asleep. Waking up in the morning reminded my of fall back in the U.S., the cool crisp air, the falling leaves, and the smell of work fires burning.
That feeling of contentedness I finally felt being back in Bambako was truncated rather quickly on the morning of November 14th when I got the news that Ben, probably my best friend in the Gambia, had been medically separated from the Peace Corps and was being sent back to the U.S. Ben and I had grown very close during our stays in Bambako and Tendaba, and it was hard to believe that he was being taken out of my life so quickly and abruptly. The whole thing was made even harder when I had to help pack up his things. I remember thinking how quickly and impassively Sarjo and John packed up his bags and took them to the Land Cruised. The whole process didn’t take more than 10 minutes, and at the end, it was like Ben had never been there. It made me realize how fleeting our presence here can be, and how little impact we will have if we aren’t careful and forget about that often misused word: sustainability. I’m not trying to discredit Ben’s presence here in the Gambia, he certainly impacted my life. It just seemed too quick, too easy to send someone home.
I was a little anxious to leave. I kept thinking about all the food we would be eating for Thanksgiving at Tendaba, and I was really looking forward to finally seeing my sight and putting into practice some of the things we have learned. All the same, I have made good friends in Bambako, and I was starting to feel like I belonged in the community. I spent many nights sitting out under the stars, thoroughly enjoying the cool air, drinking ataya, and chatting with Bakary, my family, Seecu, and others. We continued to have language lessons in the morning, but by this time I had completed foregone studying in favor of simply spending time in the community, being immersed in the language. I reasoned that this would be most beneficial to my language acquisition and based on my language test results, I’d say it worked quite well. Gambia has an extremely community-oriented culture, and people begin to look down upon someone if they are spending too much time in their house. Therefore, this pretty much takes studying out of the equation anyway.
That brings us to one of the toughest challenges I ‘vet been facing in the Gambia: and that is adjusting to a culture where personal space, privacy, and “alone-time” aren’t part of people’s vocabulary. In the US, most people have the luxury where everyone has his or her room and we are also an extremely individualistic culture. In the Gambia, people often sleep 4-5 to a room, or more, especially the children, and a person is judged not by his/her accomplishments but by how his/her family and the community in general view the person. Unfortunately in my experience, it doesn’t take much to tarnish one’s reputation or standing among the villagers. For example, if, say you are really tired and want to go to bed early, or make a habit of going to bed early, people will say you sleep too much, and that you don’t like the people. This is precisely what the villagers would say to me about a couple of the other trainees in my village, and I would do my best to stand up for them, but it was for naught, the people had already made up their minds.
I made a few mistakes in Bambako that didn’t help my lack of privacy – namely letting people walk in my house whenever they wanted. This turned out not to be such a good idea, because literally the minute I would go in my house to read, study, write someone would be coming in to see what was up to. I vowed that I would change things when I got to Jali. I also felt a bit like an OCD germaphobe whenever people would come in my house and touch things. I hated the fact that I felt the urge to wash something simply because someone touched it. Granted, the Gambians do wash themselves when they take a poo, and I’m pretty sure they don’t use soap, so maybe I am justified. It’s amazing how much our culture emphasizes cleanliness and sanitation. I am slowly weaning myself off my old standards of what is considered clean, and as my body adjusts to the new germs steadily lowering those standards. It’s more practical that way.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day came rather quickly and despite the fact that my body was desperately craving all the good food that was to come, it was rather sad saying goodbye to my family and friends in Bambako. In truth, I hadn’t spent that much time there but I already felt a part of the community. Thanksgiving was to be at Tendaba, and we had prepared a list of the ingredients we needed to make our dishes and submitted that list to Rodney, our Associate Peace Corps Country Director For Environment. (Since the Peace Corps is part of the government they have a nice 4-letter acronym for that too- APCD.) I departed for Tendaba very early Thanksgiving morning giving into my bodies urgent call for real nourishment. I didn’t want to wait for PC transport so I hopped on my bicycle for the last time and pedaled to Tendaba. Those of us who had arrived early wanted to get a jump on the cooking because we had not yet seen our food nor the facilities that would be available to us.]
It turned out to be a wise move as our turkeys were still in the freezer when we arrived!!! Luckily, they were very small turkeys (by FAT American standards) so we chucked them in a hot water bath to defrost, all 6 of them!! I’m not usually one to complain about an overabundance of food- especially turkey, but the fact that we had 6 turkeys and only 2 ovens did present us with a little problem. Since the turkeys were far from being ready to cook, we turned our attention to the other food. Apparently, some “budgetary limitations” prevented us from receiving a number of items on our list- particularly the case of wind we had asked for. As an example, someone had volunteered to make a green bean casserole, but instead of green beans, we got baked beans. Needless to say, we had to get a little creative
As you know, I volunteered to make Key Lime pie for dessert. However, the complete lack of limes (which were probably the easiest thing on our list to get since they grow all over here) and whipping cream present a pretty insurmountable obstacle, being that it is a Key Lime pie- half of which is whipped cream. We put a call through to Kanimung, our training director, to see if he could rustle up some limes, and he said he would pick some for us on his way to Tendaba, but the whipping cream was a lost cause. I decided to cut my losses and make the pie anyway- an experiment of sorts. Being that there were so many of us, I wanted to double the recipe but the problem was I had only one slightly largish casserole dish to use. I made a crust using digestive biscuits in place of graham crackers (which actually turned out really well). The filling took a bit more work since we didn’t have a proper zester to work with. It’s amazing how well that little thing works. We tried all manner of utensils finally settling for a serrated blade on 2 of our Leatherman’s. It took a long time to get enough zest, but we managed eventually. While we were making the filling, I baked the crust and set it in the fridge to cool. So far so good. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to make the topping out of thin air, so I put it all in the fridge and moved on to other foods.
Tendaba wasn’t going to be serving us lunch that day and with only 2 ovens we knew it would be quite a while before dinner was ready so we prepared a lunch for everyone. We contacted the local baker and ordered 20 loaves of bread (essentially long baguette rolls which are actually quite good). Lunch was a hodge podge of dishes that were put together from the incorrectly purchased and extra food that wouldn’t go with Thanksgiving dinner. We made garlic bread, cream of mushroom soup, pasta salad, and served a cheese and cracker plate with olives and tomatoes. (Oh man, just writing about it is making my stomach ache with longing). Lunch was delicious, especially because it was complimented by a couple of ice cold Julbrews.
After lunch, we turned our attention to the turkeys and the rest of the dinner food. By this time 2 turkeys had thawed, so we gave one to Cam and Matt to deep dry and put one in the oven with an onion and garlic baste. Since there wasn’t enough room in the kitchen for them, Cam and Matt came up with an ingenious method of frying their turkeys, using an open fire outside. They rigged up a sort of frying basket out of a couple of clothes hangers, and stuck a metal pot full of oil over the flames. The pot was too small to fit the whole bird, so they cooked the turkey in quarters. It was my first time eating fried turkey, and it was delicious! I spent a good part of the afternoon hanging around the fire with about half our crew, waiting like starved vultures to pounce on each piece of meat as they came out of the fryer. I think we all burned our gingers trying to tear the turkeys apart, but no one cared.
I’m not going to go into all the details about the rest of the cooking but in the kitchen we were making: 2 huge pots of mashed potatoes, sweet and spicy yams, a sweet potato casserole with candied peanuts on top, a salad, baked beans, fruit salad, 4 turkeys, and a host of other goodies I’m forgetting. Dessert was to be apple pie, apple crisp, and Key Lime pie. I had decided to make a meringue topping on the Key Lime pie to replace the whipped cream, but none of us could really decide how to make it. I know that it needed egg whites and sugar and a lot of whipping, but that’s where my knowledge stopped. Jen and I decided to make a go of it, feeling pretty confident we knew what to do. We put 10 egg whites in a bowl and started the beating, assuming it would take about 20 minutes for the 2 of us to get it adequately whipped. It was tough work, especially in the sweltering kitchen. We both worked up serious sweats and would go outside to cool off while the other was whipping. After about 20 minutes of serious whipping efforts, the eggs were STARTING to look like meringue so we added the sugar and continued whipping. Another 10 minutes later the mixture hadn’t progressed a bit; we were starting to get frustrated and our forearms were screaming in agony. Suddenly Jen let out a small yell and moaned, “SHIT, we forgot the vinegar!” Sure enough we added a bit of vinegar and after another 5 minutes of beating the mixture was ready. However, by this time dinner was ready and we had to put the pie on hold. Not knowing what to do with the meringue, we put in the fridge to sit. About this same times, we realized there was a gravy crisis, and Matt and I hurried over to see if we could fix it. The “gravy” was basically brown water with chunks of flour floating in it. Someone had forgotten to combine the butter and flour before adding it to the gravy. Despite Matt’s expertise (his father is a chef) there was no saving the gravy, and we had to leave it so we could join the feast. It tasted like watered down butter and flour. We realized later that the cooks at Tendaba had run off with our turkey necks which is why the gravy tasted so bland.
Despite the lack of gravy, the spread was impressive, and delicious. Garlic mashed potatoes, a garlic and onion basted turkey, regular mashed potatoes, a huge salad, orange-glazed turkey, fried turkey, sweet and spicy mashed yams, roasted turkey, sweet potato casserole with candied peanuts, a massive fruit salad, baked beans and more garlic bread. After I finished my second place I ran back into the kitchen to take the Key Lime pie out of the over. Unfortunately, due to the lack of pie pans, the overly thick pie filling hadn’t solidified, despite being in the oven for an extra 60 minutes. I put it back in the fridge, hoping the cold would solidify it and then went back to eat 2 more plates of food. I was all for holding off on the desserts, partly because I was so full, and partly because I wanted to let the pie solidify a little longer, but I was out-voted. Jen and I went back in to prepare the meringue topping, but when we took the cover off the bowl, our hearts sank and I had to hold in a very angry yell. The liquid had totally separated from the “foam.”- it was ruined. Despite our furious efforts to revive it, there as no hope. So not only was the pie still soupy, it now has not topping. I brought it out, feeling a little embarrassed (I had been talking up this Key Lime pie all day). Luckily, my embarrassment was for naught: Everyone LOVED the soupy, sticky goodness, and I have to admit that it was pretty damn good.
After dessert I was so full I could barely move, but I managed to waddle of to the Med Office so I could step on the scale. I couldn’t believe my eyes: 169 pounds. Earlier in the day, after eating lunch, I had a pre-Thanksgiving meal weigh-in of 162 pounds. 7 Pounds in one meal! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. I went to bed very happy, very full and very excited to see my site the following day.
Moving to our sites
The next morning, Nick, Jessica, and I loaded ourselves and our belonging into the PC Land Cruiser along with our driver, Alugi, and our LCH (Language and Culture Helper). Our three bikes were strapped precariously to the roof rack on top of the rest of our gear and then we set out for Kiang West. After 2 months of training we were finally visiting the villages were we would spend the next 2 years of our lives. Well, at least Nick and I were, Jessie, along with a number of other trainees had already seen their villages on site visits, but since there was no one to visit in either Jali or Janneh Kunda, this would be our first time. We dropped Jessie off in Dumbutu, then drove another 8 KM down the main South Bank road before turning off on the sandy track that would take us to Jali and Janneh Kunda. It was a pretty, but long drive. The forest was still in relatively good condition here, and we passed many huge African Mahogany, Bush Mango, Tallow and Baobab trees. We also drove through 3 smaller villages along the way, before coming to Jali.
I remember thinking that Jali was rather large compared to Bambako, and feeling a little nervous about how may names I would have to remember. Those thoughts were immediately flushed out of my brain when we arrived at my family’s compound and I got my first glimpse of my “house.” It was a disaster. Just looking at the outside alone, I knew it was going to be bad. I could see holes in the roof from the street and the fence around the backyard was a joke. However, this was NOTHING compared to what the inside looked like. I pushed open the front door, which swung wildly off it hinges, and just started laughing. It was so bad, that I couldn’t think of anything else to do. (There are pictures posted on my site but I’ll describe it here too.) First of all, the house was FILTHY – everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, mud and grass, including my belongings that PC had dropped off a week ago. The paint was peeling off the walls and where it was still intact there were long, brownish red stains that eerily reminded me of dried blood. There were termite holes all over the interior and exterior walls and both doors were cracked, the screens torn, and were hanging off their hinges. There was a big hole in the roof in the corner of the front room and it looked as if a bird had built its nest on the side of the holed. The back room was even worse. The entire back roof and back wall of the house were eaten away in a twisted, organic evil looking way, the bits of straw that hung down reminded me of goblin fingers and the whole room had a very scary feel to it. This was accented by more blood stains on the wall and what looked like a medieval torture device taking up half the room, that I assume was supposed to be a bed. The whole house looked like something out of a sick, twisted, psycho ward in a horror movie. The backyard was overgrown with weeds and the “fence” was basically non-existent.
Bakary, the PC teacher, was none to happy about the condition of my house, and said a few angry words to my host mother, Bintou (my host father wasn’t there) about me not staying in the house and that I should sleep in their home until mine was fixed. Meanwhile, Nick and I were getting a good chuckle out of the whole thing. He was thoroughly entertained by my “house of horrors.” After the rest of my belongings were unloaded Nick and Bakary hopped back in the Landcruiser to head to Janneh Kunda. Bakary would be coming back the nest day to help me sort things out after he helped Nick settle his rent and arrange his house.
So there I was, alone again in a new and totally strange environment, only this time I didn’t have a house to retreat to. I did, however, have a much better grasp of the language, and was able to sit and talk with my host mother, Binou, while she shelled peanuts. After a while, word got out that there was a Toubab in town, and soon kids were wandering over from nearby compounds. I tried getting all their names, but as I would find out later, remembering everyone’s name and face is one of the toughest challenges for me. It has become somewhat of an issue lately, despite the fact that I remind people that it’s very easy to remember the ONE Toubab’s name and very difficult for me to remember all the new names I’ve never heard before. Plus, Gambians all look somewhat alike, they aren’t as distinguishable as say, Americans, where we have blondes, brunettes, Mexicans, blue eyes, brown eyes, etc. Anyway, I digress.
My father, Lamin Dramin, arrived from the peanut fields after an hour or so, and we talked for a while, about the house, his work etc, and it turned out he spoke some decent English, which make my life immensely easier. I soon ran out of things to talk about, which, I find, happens rather quickly here, and so, not knowing what else to do, I entered the house of horrors to see what work I could do. I spent most of the day cleaning my backyard of brush and weeks, and trimming the moringa trees that had overgrown the place. I also cut and transplanted a papaya plant, which was growing, diagonally across my footpath – not having a clue whether papayas can be vegetative propagated like that or not. (Turns out they can, and mine is currently thriving.) That night, I set up shop in my house, under my mosquito net, which I had rigged onto the far corners of the torture dev…bed. I bent down the metal fragments that were poking up, and arranged the rebar crosspieces so that they might support me weight. Then, very gingerly, and very slowly, lay down on the mattress I had shoved on top, flinching every time the thing squeaked or groaned. After 5 minutes, I was finally lying down, but I was too scared to move, so I just stayed on my stomach. I slept pretty poorly that night, most likely because I kept having visions of the bed collapsing and impaling me with a piece of rebar. Luckily, that didn’t happen and I surveyed the night, somehow.
I awoke the next morning at 7 AM to find Bakary already here. The gele-gele that leaves from JannehKunda leaves @ 4:30 am and arrives in Jali about 5:30. He was too nice to wake me, even though he was obviously freezing in the morning cold – he had only a towel to drape across his shoulders. After a delicious breakfast of monoo, which is sweetened coos porridge mixed with sour mild (I had to ask too). We got started on fixing up the house, which I might add, I didn’t think necessary because I was secretly hoping that they would do considerable more e than just fix-it- up. We put some patches of corrugated metal over the holes to stop the birds from getting in, then went through and did a half-assed cleaning – there really was no point, and finally walked around and made a list of all the problems so that PC would know how bad it was.
We spent the rest of the day walking around greeting people, ordering a bed and a straw mattress from the local carpenter, and negotiating rent with me host father. He had come to me the day before, asking to go inside the house so we could talk, and then looking very nervous, and shady, asked for D800 a month for rent. Even without knowing how much rent was supposed to be, I knew from his body language that he was asking too much, and told him that I was supposed to wait for Bakary to come and negotiate. To put that figure, D800 into perspective 800 dalasis (sp?) is about $30.00, and that was for housing, 3 meals a day and laundry! Now, it’s not that I wanted to rip my host family off, and it might seem to the outsider that I was being cheap by refusing to accept his offer; but from the moment we set foot on Gambian soil, we’ve been treated differently because of out skin color, especially with regards to money, and frankly, I was tired of being ripped off. After some serious negotiating between Bakary and my host father, Lamin, the rent was set at D600 for housing, 2 meals a day, and laundry, which is the going rate in my area, according to Bakary.
Bakary also helped me explain that I wanted to really be a part of their family, meaning that I work and help in the fields during harvest and planting times, and bring back food from the market when I went. I seasoned that if I brought actual food back, it would better contribute to me family’s overall health; rather than giving me host father an extra hundred dalasi or so to buy ataya and sugar.
Bakary left around 1PM, and I spent the rest of the day helping Lamin collect grass for the new roof. He explained to me that he’d been too busy with the peanut harvest to work on the house, which I completely understood. Peanuts are the main crop grown by Gambian men, and basically their only form of income generation – so it was very important that he get the peanuts harvested before the brush fires started. Was amazed at how much work was involved in the construction of a grass roof, and I was only helping Lamin to collect the grass at this point. He borrowed a donkey and a donkey cart from a nearby compound and after hitching the donkey to the cart, we set out for the bush. We rode on the cart most of the way, jumping off occasionally to help the donkey through the deep sandy patches. Lamin and I chatted sporadically along the way, with me quizzing him about Mandinka names for various trees and bushes we passed. At one point, Lamin pointed to a small rocky rise of about 10 vertical feet that lay on the path ahead, and, I kid you not, said “mountain”. I barely managed to stifle my laughter, and explained to him about the mountains around Utah, he was amazed, and I think a little disbelieving, having never seen anything remotely that high. We traveled a considerable distance into the bush, about 6 km. All the way to the bolong (which is a small, tributary-esque body of water connected to the River Gambia). Along the way, we passed innumerable stands of, what looked like to me, perfectly good tall grass. When we finally got to Lamin’s harvesting site, the grass there looked exactly like all the other grass we had passed, but I decided to keep this to myself.
Harvesting the grass turned out to be a very itchy, sweaty, and sometimes, painful process. The day before, Lamin had gone out and cut all the grass, today we had to bundle it and transport it to the cart, which was waiting on the path. The grass is cut at about ankle high and is akin to walking through field of razor grass. During our first trip to fetch grass my ankles felt like they were getting clawed, but it wasn’t until we reached the grass pile and I looked at my bloody ankles that I realized how mean that grass was.
The task was simple; Lamin would bind up the grass piles with “rope” made form Fara bushes, and I would carry the piles back to the donkey cart. It was a lot harder than it looked. For one, the” rope” wasn’t very strong and the piles – which weighed about 75 lbs –had to be lifted very carefully onto one’s head or the rope would break, sending waves of itchy grass all down your back. I managed to break only one pile before getting the technique down. With the grass balance on my head I carefully made my was back to the cart, this time avoiding the cut grass like a rabid dog avoids water. After 10 or 12 trips the cart was full and out supple of grass exhausted. My ankles were shredded, and the top of my head, arms, shoulders, and back were itching like crazy and turning bright red. To make matters worse, the grass seeds, which are as sharp as a razor blade, were firmly embedded into my shirt, and I spent most of the trip back picking them off my clothes. The donkey was now pulling about 750 lbs. Of grass as well, and we had to push the cart through the deep sand so we didn’t kill the poor animal.
When we finally arrived back at the compound we unloaded all the grass and stacked it next to the other bundles – about 30 in all, and considering each one weighs about 75 lbs. that’s 2250 lb. of grass just for one roof! Rather impressive, I’d say.
On the way back, Lamin had also collected a few stacks of young palm fronds to use for weaving the grass. After unloading the grass, I tied the palm fronds together in sets of two. While I was tying them, Lamin pounded two stakes into the ground and began spreading out a pile of grass between them, so it was about 2 inches thick. He then brought out a bucket full of water that had balls of “: rope” soaking in it. The “rope” was made by stripping the back from a Baobab tree, tying it together into one long strand, and then shaping it into a ball which is then soaked in water to make it flexible. It works amazingly well, and is remarkable strong. I am constantly amazed at the resourcefulness of the Gambians. It seems they have a use for every single plant in the bush, and even the most experienced woodsman here in the US would be hard-pressed to match their knowledge and skill.
Lamin tied the rope taut between the two stakes so it was lying on top of the grass and then proceeded to weave the palm fronds around the rope and the grass, forming a thick mat of grass. I took him about 40 minutes to do one mat, and once the first one was completed he wove another separate mat on top of first, and so on, until the stakes could hold no more. Then, for storage, we rolled the mats up into themselves and piled the complete ones in the garden next to my house. We then called it a day, as darkness was quickly approaching. (Page 19 of letter)
My bucket bath that evening was both particularly painful and very refreshing. Painful in the fact that I had to scrub the dirt out of my shredded ankles, but refreshing because I was finally able to wash the grass residue and seeds off my still-red skin. After a dinner or rice with dufango (a spicy-ish sauce made from ground peanuts) and half a fish, I chatted with Lamin, Bintan, and Fatamata while sitting around the fire. Jali, it seemed to me, was consistently colder than Bambako, my family here built a fire every night to stay warm, and I actually had to wear a light fleece at night and while sleeping since I only had sheets for warmth. Whether this was function of geographic location or simply that we were further into the cold season, I didn’t know, but I loved it. The days were still plenty hot – that African sun is might powerful, but it made sleeping extremely pleasant. I retired early, once again praying that I wouldn’t be impaled by rebar in my sleep.
The next morning I woke up expecting to have at least one life-threatening injury from the bed but after a quick sweep for blood, I was surprised to find that I had escaped a puncture wound once again. Nick, who was staying in Janneh Kinda,
25km further up the road, arrived around 7:00. The plan was for the two of us to spend the day in Jali, then the next morning, take a gele-gele to Sankandi, Where we would walk the remaining 8km to Dumbunto to meet up with Jessie and Bakary.
Travel to Banjul
We went to bed very early that night, after packing, in preparation for our ass-crack of dawn, departure time. I set the alarm for 4:30am, and we were out the door by 5:00am. We walked to the village square, navigating by the light of our headlamps. The reports from locals on what time the gele-gele arrived here in Jali ranged from 4:00am to 7:30am, so just to play it safe, we got out there plenty early. It turned out to be a little too early, and while we sat and waited in to cold morning air, we were subjected to the full blast of the mosque’s loudspeaker, announcing the dawn call to prayer. Not long after, villagers, all men, began silently filing their way into the mosque. The first gele-gele came around 6:45am, and didn’t so much stop, as simply slow down. There was a mad rush of people pushing, shoving, and pulling their way into the still-morning vehicle. When the madness was over, Nick and I found ourselves chasing after the gele as it sped away. WE could see that there were still open spots on the gele, but the driver didn’t seem to care. The rest of the crowd that was left didn’t seem nearly as upset as we were., We discovered that another gele would be coming soon, lessening our anger somewhat. For all their friendliness, hospitality, and “it’s nice to be nice “ talk, when it comes to getting on a gele Gambians do not mess around. They will literally throw you off the gele so they can get on. But the first vehicle had taught is well, and we prepped ourselves for the arrival off the final gele, packs on our backs, ready. This one came flying in just as the first one had, but it actually stopped. Nick and I elbowed our way to the back door and after much pushing, fought for a seat for ourselves in the back, only to be kicked out by the Operante a minute later, We had unwittingly made the mistake of telling the Operate (the driver’s assistant) that we were only going to Sankandi, and it turned out the driver didn’t want to take people who were only going to Sankani, as we found out when we were kicked off. I had already thrown my bad on the large luggage rack on top of the gele, so I hurried up the ladder to grab it before the gele took off. In a strange twist of fate, the Operante saw me on the ladder and said, “Oh you can climb?” I yelled down that of course I could climb a ladder, so he told Nick to join me up top, and said we could ride to Sankandi on the luggage rack. My first thought was “Hell yeah!! This is going to be awesome! Fresh air, plenty of space, and a killer view of the impending sunrise.” Then my mind started replaying images of all the geles I had seen careening down the roads, leaning over at impossible angles as they negotiated all the bumps ,gullies, and potholes. I decided I had better find a good solid perch. Nick and I were soon joined by 3 Gambians in their 20’s whom I had met a few days prior. They were originally from Jali, were staying in Combo, and had come for a funeral, their father’s. We hastily rearranged the multitude of itemsp that had been thrown on top, including charcoal, firewood, bags of rice a goat, buckets of milk, and a pile of suitcases, so that we al had a somewhat secure place to sit. We had all just found our spots when the Operante banged his hand on the van’s side tow time, to signal the driver to go.
The Adventure began before we even reached the edge of town, as a low-hanging mango tree made us hit the deck at the last second, to avoid getting our head knocked off. From that point on, all 5 of us kept one eye looking ahead for low branches. The ride was superb! Despite a few knocks on the head, and a thrashed leg from a passing thorn bush, the ride was incredible. Our view of the sun rising over the African Savannah, with the Baobabs silhouetted by the sun’s rays was something I’ll never forget. There were a few times when we forced to grab onto the rack to avoid getting thrown off, but most of the time the ride was pretty smooth, and surprisingly cold. I found myself wishing I had brought a jacket, and praying that the sun would rise faster so it would warm me up.
Our company, if the form of the 3 Gambians, was almost as entertaining as the ride itself. The talk, as it tends to do in a group of young guys, turned quickly to sex. Seriff, the more talkative of the three had proclaimed himself an expert on the subject, but he took both of us by surprise when he stated loudly, “African pussy, it’s so sweet!” Nick and I almost fell off we were laughing so hard. He then proceeded to tell us tha this friend, another her self-proclaimed expert, had determined , through a number of “experiments” (he was apparently a scientific expert) that, “African pussy was sweeter than white pussy”. The conversation went on, but you get the basic idea. While we were stopped at one of the small villages in route to Sandandi, Seriff asked me for my mobile number so he could bring me a “sweet African woman, so sweet”, while I was staying in Kombo..I told him that unfortunately, I didn’t have a mobile yet, but thanked him for his kind offer.
When we arrived in Sankandi, the 5 of us climbed down, Nick and I paid our 20 Dalasi, and Seriff and Company found seats inside to go to Kombo. We said our goodbyes and started the 8km walk to Dumbuto, where we could meet up with Jessie and Bakary. It was hard leaving that gele-gele, knowing that if we had stayed on board, we would have been in Kombo, swimming in the ocean and drinking cold beer, in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, it was not to be –we trainees weren’t supposed to arrive in Kombo until the next day, so we walked the WRONG way to Dumbuto. Upon our arrival in Dumbuto, we found Jessie in his house, complaining about its condition, which having come from my hellhole of a house was rather hard to fathom. Nick and I explained to him the condition my house was in, and when he saw the pictures on my camera, he quickly stopped complaining. While we waited for Bakary to arrive, Nick and I borrowed Jessie’s’ two mats, unrolled them on the floor and promptly passed out.
Jessie woke us at 1pm saying that we were supposed to meet Bakery in Wurokang (where he lived) and that we would spend the night at his home and catch a ride to Kombo the next morning from one of the gele-gele drivers he knew in town. The 7km walk to Wurokang went by quickly, the road was pleasantly shaded (Unusual here in Gambia) and we had the pleasure of running into a troop of patas monkeys foraging on the roadside.
That night, Bakary put us up in a spare room of his family’s compound. The three of us were to share 2 foam pads they had kindly let us borrow for the night. I made the mistake of arriving for bed last and got stuck in the middle, foam canyon and all. Nonetheless, it was comfortable enough, and the night would have gone well, had Nick not stared snoring at and inhumane volume 4 minutes after I laid down. Now, I usually don’t have a problem falling asleep, except if people are snoring, and this was no ordinary snore. It sounded like a Harley-Davidson was starting up about 2 feet from my head. After about 20 minutes, I got pissed off and punched Nick, hard, to get him to stop, but it was no use, he was out. I tried to lessen the racket by moving so my head was at his feet, but it didn’t matter. I ended up reading till about 3am, getting more and more angry as time went by. I finally fell into a fitful sleep, that lasted maybe 2 hours until I woke up freezing- I had already slipped my pants over my shorts for warmth, and had a long-sleeved shirt on, but I neglected to bring any other warm cloths, so I tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 6:00am. We got dressed and packed in a hurry to sit outside while we waited for the gele-gele to come. It was a good thing we were outside so early, because the gele showed up around 10:30am. The waiting was made all the more painful knowing that Nick and I could have been in Kombo by the time yesterday.
The gele also decided to break down about halfway to Kombo turning a 5-hour ride into a 6-hour ride. When we finally got to Kombo, Nick and I threw our bags in a room at GPI and practically ran all the way to the beach. The ocean had cooled off considerably over the previous 2 months, and was incredible refreshing. We swam and body surfed in the waves until after sunset, enjoying the play of the sky’s vibrant colors reflected in the water. The date of our arrival in Kombo was November 29th, and we were to depart on December 11th, giving us 11 full days. I went to the beach every one of those days, usually in the afternoon when the waves tended to be good and we would swim and watch the Sunset over the Atlantic. We usually were in sessions or on field trips in the morning, some of which I felt the need to skip so I could spend more time at the beach. Every day we had a solid crew of guys at the beach, usually body surfing or playing Ultimate Frisbee in the surf; - Matt, Nick, Cam, Peter, Can, and myself. AT night I would usually head over to the PC transit house to hang out with Sharon, who had come down for our Swearing –In. The two of us had a really nice dinner one night at a beachside restaurant on the outskirts of town. We sat outside at a table on the beach and enjoyed cold Julbrew and fresh seafood. It was like being on vacation! After dinner we met up with Nick, Peter, Allison, Cam, and Stephanie at a dance club in the heart of Kombo. The place was rather impressive. It was essentially a huge open-air courtyard with raised seating in the middle and around the edges, and 2 dance floors in between. We danced until about 2am, and then walked back exhausted.
I felt it was necessary to skip the following day’s training field trip, and instead, went out for a big greasy breakfast with Sharon, and then the two of us nursed our hangovers in a hammock on the beach, in the shade of 2 palm trees. It couldn’t have been a better day.
Shopping For Supplies
Unfortunately the 11 days in Kombo weren’t all fun and games, our group also had to do all the shopping for our sites. A number of folks were replacing previous volunteers, so they were handed down all the necessities; gas burner and canister, mattress, trunk, pillows, pots and pans, etc. In my case, however, shopping is not something I particularly enjoy, in fact, loathing is probably the more accurate feeling I have towards it. Shopping is bad enough when everything has a set prize and one is free to simply roam the aisles, looking for what he or she needs. But here, where, where one has to bargain for practically everything, (without, I might add, knowing what the prize is actually supposed to be) it becomes an exercise in frustration management; especially when the sellers like to charge a separate price for Toubabs.
The Serrekunda market is where one can find most of the things that he or she needs, at a relatively good price. Most of the stores lining the main (and only paved) street are priced for tourists and rich folk, and since I fall into neither of those categories, I did most of my shopping at the Serrekunda market. This particular market is the biggest in the Gambia-think huge flea market, but 50 times bigger, louder, crazier, and more crowded, and you’ll begin to understand what it’s like. When shopping in such a market, one has to develop a very quite eye for locating the things you want. Let your eyes linger for a moment too long at a specific stall, and you’ll be assaulted by a barrage of questions, offers, prizes etc. This is mainly because everyone assumes that a Toubab is loaded with cash, and they simply want a piece of the action, but knowing that fact doesn’t make it any less annoying. Some of the venders are pretty aggressive, shopping just short of physically preventing you from leaving their vicinity.
Once one has located an item he or she wants, usually after 10-15 minutes of looking, followed by asking five or six venders where said product is, the really fun part; bargaining, begins. This is made nearly impossible by the simple fact that I had absolutely no idea what any of the items were SUPPOSED to cost. During training we were told to take the initial offer and cut in half, or a quarter, depending on who you talked to, and then work up from there. Despite my loathing for shopping, I found I was actually quite good at getting what I thought, at least, was a good deal. This was usually anywhere from a third to half of the initially quoted prize. My typical strategy, for the more expensive items at least, involved visiting three or more vendors to see what starting prizes were, and listening to how much Gambians paid for the item. After deciding how much I wanted to pay, I would put that exact amount of money in a separate pocket, before approaching a vender to start bargaining. Most people assumed I was a tourist, so I liked to quickly inform them in Mandinka that I would be living here for 2 years. This usually brought the starting price down a third. We would go back and forth for a while, I usually started very low, and worked up to what I wanted to pay. Most of the time, they wouldn’t accept the price I had decided upon, so I would start to walk away, and they would pull me back and offer something a little lower then their previous price. At that point, I would pull out the money I separated earlier, and tell them that was all I had. It hardly failed. That being said I’m sure I still paid more than the average Gambian.
