The Gambia or Bust!

Salaam Malikoom! That is how we greet each other in The Gambia. It means ‘Peace be with you’ and you say it about fifty thousand times a day (on average). The person you are talking to responds with a ‘Malikoom Salaam’ which essentially means ‘And upon you too’. This is followed by a series of questions about one’s ‘home people’, work and general well being. By the time you are finished with your greeting you have often walked several feet past the person! That is kind of The Gambia in a nutshell, extremely hospitable and not in any big rush. I’ve seen plenty of good things and a few not so good things but in the end if your taxi gets a flat on the road the next taxi will stop to help them fix it without question.
I’ve been here for almost two months and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to post which tells you a little about the electricity/internet situation; there is very little of either. What they do have is somewhat unpredictable so there are a lot of brown-outs and surges. Oh infrastructure, how I took you for granted. Actually it’s been fine in terms of personally adapting to it but I do hope that progress can be made because reliable power would give the people living here a lot more opportunity, something they have very little of at the present time. Solar seems like a good possibility because if there is one thing Africa has plenty of it’s sunshine; which brings me to the title of my inevitable Peace Corps memoir, ‘It’s Raining and I’m Sweating in the Shade’. No, literally. It can be pouring (which it often does, it being the rainy season and all) and I will be sitting under a tree sweating. It’s sort of confusing because you think you’re damp from the rain, but no, it’s sweat. Those are the times when you understand why Gambians aren’t in any big rush.
The last two months have been filled with a lot of firsts. I moved into my first mud hut. (It sort of looks like a regular house, the mud is plastered over.) I’ve eaten out of my first ‘food bowl’. (More on that in a minute) I’ve worn my first wrap skirt, ridden in my first bush taxi, pumped water for the first time and seen my first troupe of baboons in the wild (10 feet away!). I’ve watched West African villagers play pretty impressive football (soccer for us Americans) and then seen them set up an equally impressive ‘disco’ (gigantic speakers connected to a borrowed generator) under a mango tree where they danced until four in the morning. I now know that I love Wonjo juice (a red leaf that is pressed) and am not terribly fond of ‘noos’ (rice porridge that is served for breakfast every day, no seriously, EVERY DAY). I’ve become aware of the fact that refined white sugar is at the top of Gambian food pyramid and by ‘on the top’ I mean that they love it beyond all other consumable items. It goes in their tea, in their porridge, in their drinks and just about anywhere else they can sneak it in. These aren’t dainty teaspoons either, a cup here, a cup there, the bags that they buy are gone before you know it. I’m pretty sure that The Gambia is keeping Hawaii in business (I’m just kidding, I’m sure that sugar is big business in Africa). I’ve turned down a fair number of marriage proposals and I’m on the lookout for a good ‘husband’ (preferably a little boy or a very old man) to keep new ones at bay; Americans = Visas (The immigration document, not the credit card) in The Gambia. I’ve taught in a Gambian high school and I’ve learned that I need to speak a lot more slowly if I ever plan on doing that again.
I’ve seen a lot of really beautiful things (African children playing at the pump), a few pretty disturbing things (the butchering of goats) and plenty of things that I will never see anywhere else (my ‘sister’ walking down the road balancing a platter of fish on her head while ushering a donkey along the way). I have loved my time here so far and I’m really excited about moving to my permanent site (I’m in a training village at the moment) and getting to work. I’ll update as much as I can and I’d love to hear from you guys so make sure to comment (in English please, my Mandinka –the local language that I’m learning- is really bad).

Fon notoo! (That’s Manidinka for ‘Until later’)

Teaching in a Gambian Classroom!