The Gambia or Bust!

Interesting things I’ve done since I’ve been here:

1) Traveled in a gely gely (bush taxi). I’m going to chalk this experience up to being a huge success because A) I got an actual seat instead of halfway sitting on someone’s lap, B) there was no unpleasant smell, C) no one groped anyone D) we didn’t tip over and die because the driver was going too fast on a rocky unpaved road. The opposite of all of these things are quite possible (some more likely than others) but I seem to have gotten a pass on my first journey, thank you Gambia. Here’s how it goes: The driver drives and the ‘apparende’ collects money, deals with baggage and alerts the driver when people want to get on and off (he bangs on the roof which I find a lot more satisfying than our little bell system, it’s very definite). The vehicle is almost always packed full (and when I say full I mean FULL) so it is not unusual for the apparende to jump in and out of the vehicle through the back door while it is in full motion (and by ‘full motion’ I mean racing down an unpaved highway that is covered in enormous potholes - often filled with water during rainy season - and covered in rocks) climbing up and down the ladder on the back to either make room in the vehicle or scope out the road. When you come to a stop he usually needs to hustle up there again to retrieve passengers’ bags and/or goats. Yup, they seriously put live sheep, goats and chickens up there. They go up quietly but they come down in a pretty bad mood as you can imagine. The whole experience is hilarious truth be told and it (usually) gets you where you need to go so all in all I’m for it.

2) Eating out of a ‘food bowl’ with my hand.

You know how I said that Gambians share EVERYTHING? Well this nowhere more clearly evidenced than at meal time. Gambians are not big on the idea of the individual plate. Instead they prefer that everyone eat out of one gigantic bowl. Lunch and dinner almost always consist of rice, some sort of sauce (they make this peanut sauce called ‘domoro that makes me want to live here forever), maybe a vegetable or two (onions and potatoes are popular) and if things are getting fancy some kind of meat (usually chicken or goat but never pork, being Muslim and all. On a side note, it’s pretty easy being vegan here and people are really accommodating – they think I’m insane – but they are accommodating nonetheless). The food is placed in a huge bowl (think giant metal salad bowl) on the ground outside and everyone sort of squats around it, scooping up their food with their right hand and eating it like that. It looks easy but it’s actually quite a skill. A lot of rice has ended up in my lap in the process of learning to do it correctly. I know that this probably sounds sort of gross but it’s actually quite civilized. There are a lot of rules about only eating out of your side of the bowl and leaving your ‘area’ tidy. Having said that, they give volunteers their own small bowl to eat out of, at least in the beginning. Right now I’m a lot more comfortable using my own bowl but get back to me in a year or so, I might have a designated space at the family dinner bowl. Stranger things have happened and I’m sure you’ll hear all about them at some point or another.

3) Coming to the conclusion that a pit latrine is actually preferable to some of the vile restroom facilities you will encounter in life (which totally includes those in America by the way).

Okay if you know me at all you know that this is not a topic I find acceptable for public discussion but…I’m in Africa now and all bets are off apparently. So the deal is that 98% of the ‘restrooms’ (such a ridiculous name under these circumstances) in this country are pit latrines. Yup, holes in the ground. Literally. The crazy part is that it only takes a couple of days of thinking ‘Really? This is really how it’s going to be?’ before it’s no big deal and you’re not even thinking about it (much). On the other hand - you’ll appreciate my pun in a moment :) - one thing that is kind of a big deal is that Gambians do not use toilet paper, they use water, and well yeah, their hand (left only and as a result if you ever extend your left hand to a Gambian –or any Muslim for that matter- they will be thoroughly grossed out. It’s right hand only around here. Same goes for the food bowl obviously.) So anyway, yeah, their hand. The only stores that sell toilet paper are ‘toubob’ shops (stores for white tourists) which means it’s extremely limited and really expensive. Hence I spent about thirty bucks in postage on sending moist towelettes to myself from America, I’m good for at least a year. Oh well, some things are worth it (thank you U.S. Postal Service).

Hope you are all well. Fon Naatoo (until later)!