Written on December 29th, 2011

Last week, on Friday December 23rd, I got into a Peace Corps car and left Kerr Jarga Jobe for the last time. I left behind my family, friends and the happy life I had built there over the past two years and now I'm here, facing the future and (of course) reflecting.

Goodbyes are always difficult. Goodbyes in The Gambia (for me) are made much more difficult by the fact that people very very rarely cry here. I on the other hand have crying as my default setting in most emotionally overwhelming situations so I knew that this fact alone would make the goodbyes here even more challenging. But really, in the weeks leading up to my departure I had very little idea of what to expect and this made the whole time very challenging and overwhelming.

Peace Corps talked to us a lot about planning our goodbyes. So I of course had a list of people to call, a list of people to visit, a list of compounds where I wanted to go and drink attaya one last time and a list of final lunch spots in Kerr Jarga to visit. But of course, when the time came my lists were only nominally helpful, because I found for me that the best course of action was to wake up every morning and ask myself, "What can I do today to find closure?" So I walked around a lot, spent hours lying on my toma's bed, played with the kids, and helped my host moms cook lunch. Some days I didn't feel like I wasn't doing anything or I would worry that I wasn't doing enough to say goodbye and have closure, that I would have regrets about the way I left Kerr Jarga; but I realized that I couldn't let doubts and "what ifs" paralyze my last days in village so I needed to just live in the moment and focus on the present.

My perfectly planned and orchestrated goodbye was completely destroyed (in an amazing way) on the morning of Friday, December 16th. It was like any other morning really, I was puttering around my house, making my bed, drinking tea, listening to the BBC, when suddenly my host fathers face appears in my window.

Baay Waly: "Ramatoulie, Ramatoulie, Ramatoulie" (urgently)

Me: "What?!!? What's going on?"

BW: "Yaay Sarjo (my second host mom who I have known is pregnant since August) had a baby."

Me: "WHAT?!?!? When?"

BW: "Just now."

Me: "BOY OR GIRL, BOY OR GIRL???"

BW: "Girl."

Me: "AHHHHH HOLD ON I'M COMING OUT."

BW: "Ok, may Allah grant her long life."

I busted out of my house only to be met by my first host mom, Yaay Amie, with a mischievous grin on her face. "Ramatoulie, Yaay Sarjo had a baby....its a boy." To which I replied, "Yaay Amie do you not know the difference between men and women?"

To explain my level of excitement and my families level of teasing when I found out Yaay Sarjo was pregnant I really wanted her to have a girl so I could finally have a toma (namesake). I joked with her about eating good food and staying healthy for my toma and in my last weeks in village had been telling her to hurry up and have the baby before I left village. So she had done it, right down to the wire, but she gave birth to my toma exactly a week before I was to leave Kerr Jarga. This was incredibly convenient timing because here the tradition is to wait a week after the child's birth before you give them a name. Meaning that my toma, Ramatoulie, would be given her name on the day that I left Kerr Jarga for good.

I couldn't think of a more beautiful way to end things here, by leaving behind a Ramatoulie Joof to continue to be a part of the family and community. What perfect symmetry, to leave behind the ultimate reminder of my love for this family and village; I hope as Ramatoulie grows up she feels the same love and support that I have felt in my compound and community. Of course the coming of my toma made saying goodbye all the more difficult. What an honor that my host father and mothers love and respect me enough to give one of their children my name. And, as I made the joke often, now the compound will never be missing Ramatoulie because even when I'm gone my toma will always be there.

My last few days in village were a whirlwind. Many programs and meetings held in my honor to thank me. Many gifts given, many of which will not make it back to America because of their sheer ugliness. Many tears (on my part), prayers and thank yous. On my last night I spent one final time lying out on a mat under the stars, looking up at the sky and contemplating the beauty of a world where I can be Lindsey Green and Ramatoulie Joof at the same time and feel completely comfortable, loved and accepted as both people. I couldn't bear the thought of being away from my family for even a minute so my two teenage host sisters, Menghe and Mberry, slept over in my house on the final night. We slept in a sweaty pile of sisterly love.

Friday morning brought the naming ceremony. The men of the village came to sit in our compound and pray while one man shaved the hair off the babies head, prayed for the baby and gave it a name. Her name, of course, was Ramatoulie. The whole compound had the same mood, equally ecstatic and sad because as we celebrated my toma's entrance into the world we all kept listening for the sound of the Peace Corps car pulling up. I did pretty well as far as crying in front of everyone was concerned but there were many quick trips to my back yard pit latrine to shed a few tears in private. Yet, when the car finally came, it was like a whirlwind, people stormed into my house, grabbed all my stuff, and within five minutes the car was packed and I was standing, staring at the dirt wondering how I got to this place and how I could possibly get in the car. Of course, the Lindsey reaction to this moment of decision was to start balling. My host father looked at me, looked at my host moms and siblings who at this point were all crying and yelled, "STOP CRYING." Which just made me and everyone else cry more. But it was time to just take that leap and leave, so I did the very un-Gambian thing of hugging my moms. Squeezing my little buddy Alieu. And then I remembered my cultural sensitivity so I said goodbye to Mam Goor, my two year old who I've known basically since he was born, by picking him up, licking his right palm and blowing in his right eye. (All strategies told to me by old ladies to prevent his grief over my leaving from making him sick). So even at my most intense and emotional there is always some weird cultural experience to be had.

And that was it, I was in the car and I was gone. It was incredibly strange but I felt liberated and ready to move on to the next thing. I feel sad when I remember saying goodbye but ultimately I feel complete satisfaction with my time in Kerr Jarga and I know I will take those people and memories with me no matter where my next steps take me. Hopefully my time spent in Kerr Jarga has made me more honest, compassionate, thoughtful and connected to the world and my place in it and I only hope I can make all of them proud. Especially my namesake, "small" Ramatoulie.

Written on November 7th, 2011

Another year and another Tobaski in the Gambia. Since it's the last I ultimately find myself thinking back to the first Tobaski in Sare Samba (my training village). Then I wasn't even one month in the Gambia and I'm fairly certain I had absolutely no idea what to expect from my time here, I didn't even know the name "Kerr Jarga" and it certainly wasn't a part of me as it is now.

I recently reread a letter my dad sent me on the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I was struck by how he described all of the energy put into Islamaphobia and fear since 9/11 as a "horrible waste." This is made crystal clear to me on a day like today. Just as we gather to feast and count our blessings on Thanksgiving, my Muslim friends and family pause today to give thanks, ask for forgiveness and pray that the coming year will bring as many blessings as the last--if not more. How selfish of us as Americans, how heartless for us to demonize a religion that holds so many of the same values as us. How self-centered and self righteous are we to believe that an entire group of people devote their lives to hating us and wishing for our destruction when it really couldn't be any farther from the truth. The people I have met--not just met--the people I know here in my heart and soul spend their days just like everyone else; thinking about their families, putting food on the table (actually, in the food bowl) and working hard to find a little security. Just as we are reluctant to generalize Christians we should check ourselves and be reluctant to generalize Muslims. My Gambian friends and family only share one similarity with those we deem to be Muslim fundamentalists--they pray to the same God, Allah--but I think we all know that's where the similarity ends.

On this last Tobaski I am reminded of how much is lost when we generalize about anything, Islam, Africa, Peace Corps, Kerr Jarga Jobe. Every thing, person, day and moment is different and unique. If we can appreciate this and revel in it then we are able to find not only peace but much greater understanding. I still struggle with this but in my time here I've realized that when I start to generalize I close off not just my options but myself.

Written on November 3rd, 2011

I haven't written a blog in a very long time, more accurately I haven't written at all--few journals, no letters and only one poem--I would attribute it to a spectacular and unique case of writer's block. It's not that nothing has happened--in fact--everything has happened and as I go through it all I haven't felt the urge to sit down and write about it. Just as you don't blog about every successful meeting at work or funny Friday night out with friends, my level of comfort here is such that I don't necessarily feel like my daily activities are triumphs worthy of a written record. I feel in fact that my sense of normalcy in my life and work is a great sign of my success here as a Peace Corps volunteer. If you're going to be a great volunteer at some point you need to get so caught up in it all that nothing and everything is remarkable at the same time.

Our Country Director, Cornish, recently sent us this poem which is think is a very accurate reflection of this evolution.

It is a progression of connection…

at first, you are in your head and it’s

American, meets other.

Then you get more grounded, and

volunteer, meets villager or teacher, meets student.

And then, if you are lucky, the simplicity settles in, and it’s

human meets human,

heart to heart.

--Meleia Egger, RPCV Malawi 2008-2010

So though I've been floating around in my Gambian bubble I have in fact been busy.

Vacation in Guinea-Conakry

I escaped the end of a steamy Ramadan and found myself in the Fouta Djalon region of Guinea-Conakry breathing the mountain air and taking in the breathtaking views, blue mountain sky and swimming in crystal waterfalls. I went with six other volunteers, including my good friends Brian and Erica. We hiked for six days, squeezed into tiny cars, ate new and different street food, swung in hammocks, played charades, told life stories, discovered markets, met a missionary, went on a picnic with her, danced at a night club with middle schoolers and bumped along the worst road ever. It was a joyous adventure in a place I probably would never have seen otherwise. It got me ready to go home to the Gambia but also got me excited for travelling after Peace Corps.

Camp GAGA

A group of female PCVs worked together to organize and run a week long environmental awareness and leadership camp for 30 middle school girls and five teachers. I chaperoned two girls from my school, Hawa and Saffie, and co-taught a couple great lessons. Most notable was a lesson to explain population growth where we counted popcorn kernels into a jar to represent the worlds population growth over time to today's figure of 7 billion. It was inspiring to see the girls making the connection between the global community and the implications of population growth for themselves and their families in the Gambia.

The week was long and tiring but it was very special to be able to give the girls an opportunity to sing, dance, laugh, play and be kids without all the adult responsibilities they usually have at home.

The Fatou Show

This year is the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps globally and the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps in The Gambia. PCTG has decided to bombard the Gambian population with media to remind them of our presence here and what the heck we are doing here. The first part of this media campaign was for Peace Corps to appear on the "Fatou Show," a Gambian version of Oprah. At the end of September many PCVs and staff went over to the studio for the live taping where we spoke in local language, danced and some PCVs admitted to having Gambian significant others. Of course the Gambian-ness of the show was not lost on us as the power went out halfway through the show and we waited in the dark for a few minutes until the generator was turned on.

COS Conference

We all know that the end is near so in the beginning of October my group had our COS conference which is a chance for PC to give us information about what we need to do to wrap things up before we leave and we get a chance to work on our resumes and start a job search. Eek!!I think though we came out of COS conference with good information and advice the economy and job market in America is just plain scary right now and it is going to be difficult. Aside from all the scary future planning stuff we organized many different fun social events, the finale of which was the Gambian Prom. We rented out a nice restaurant in Senegambia for the night--had a delicious Mexican buffet. Each person in our group toasted a different person in the group and it was very touching how everyone had such nice and genuine things to say about each other. The night ended with a group slow dance--really cheesy and beautiful! It is rare to be part of a group of people who show such mutual love and respect to each other and it has been such a treat to spend the last two years working with this group of people. It is so wonderful to say that not only have I come to love and respect my Gambian community members but I feel the same way about my PC colleagues. Coming back to America is going to be hard (don't even ask about my very poor grasp of how to speak proper English) but I feel very lucky knowing that I'm rejoining life in America with such a great support system of fellow returning volunteers.

Bike Trek

In my first year of service the HIV Bike Trek stands out as one of the best projects I did and the point at which I really hit my stride as a PCV. In July we all started talking about doing it all again, using our experience from 2010 to hopefully make the project more successful. So we expanded the Bike Trek from a one day to two day curriculum. Myself and Kelsey, another health volunteer, were selected to write a curriculum for Day 2 focusing on life skills and speaking out. We worked together for a few months drawing from our experiences teaching life skills here to write a lesson that we hoped would empower students to speak up and share what they've learned about HIV. If I do say so myself its a really strong lesson and we were very excited to see it taught on the bike trek. For the 2011 Bike Trek we had chosen to bike from Bansang to Basse and Suduwol to Basse in the CRR and URR, teaching at two schools on each leg of the trek for a total of four schools and about 700 students. But.....as always here.....the best laid plans are often not to be, and this was just another example because a week before the trek was supposed to start the President of the Gambia invited us to dinner smack in the middle of the Bike Trek (more on dinner with Jammeh later). So after a lot of shuffling we reworked the Bike Trek and taught four schools in two days. I was on team Badari in the URR and we spent four days and three nights sleeping in a classroom at Badari basic cycle school--fighting off bats and locking our door with pliers at night and working as a team during the day to educate about 120 students about HIV making sure to define sex, do a condom demonstration in front of thirteen year olds and generally being over the top. Due to the scheduling changes the Bike Trek didn't actually involve a lot of biking but it was still very powerful thinking about how many students we reached in two days and gave them information that they probably had never heard before. Just like the first time we did it, the Bike Trek for me serves as a great example of the power of PCVs working together, being creative and having a profound impact.

H.E.

Because this year is the 50th Anniversary for Peace Corps many PC countries have been having celebrations to mark the anniversary. For PCTG our celebration was marked by a very special invitation by the President of the Gambia; His Excellency (H.E.) Chiekh Professor Dr. Alhagie Yaya AJJ Jammeh, to a celebration of Peace Corps held at his rural residence in the village of Kanilai. On Thursday October 27th we all piled into buses at the Peace Corps Office in Kombo and health by police escort the one and a half hour drive to Kanilai. There we were served a feast for lunch after which we went to the parade grounds where we sat in the bandstand under ceiling fans and awaited the arrival of H.E. He roared in driving his Range Rover and then enjoyed a three hour program highlighting PCVs and their work in the Gambia. He was very kind, greeting each of us personally and even giving all of us a gift of clothing. The program ended at around 11:30 pm and we then went off to enjoy a delicious buffet meal. It was a great honor to be invited to Kanilai and now I can check meeting the president of a country off of my bucket list.

So there you have it. The remarkable and subsequently ordinary life of Ramatoulie.

A fellow volunteer posted some pictures of my Baby Mama's closing ceremony.

Check.It.Out

http://sandjwalkingamile.blogspot.com/2011/08/baby-mamas.html

Written on August 11th, 2011

Two weeks ago, on July 29th, I held the closing ceremony for my Yow Yaay Yaay (You are the Mother) health competition, fondly referred to by me as Baby Mamas. Since then a perpetual feature of my To Do list has been writing a blog entry about it but for some reason I have met this task with reluctance. The end of this project met me with a mix of emotions--joy, pride, elation, sadness, completion, achievement and finality. It seems to me that since the beginning of my service I had been thinking about this project--this health competition--I really wanted to do it but I wasn't quite sure how to do it or if I would be able to pull it off. It took many months of thinking, planning, chatting in village and personal reflection for me to come up with a plan and project proposal. From there I had to hope that the money would come and that all my planning would pay off. I had constant moments of frustration and doubt, when things didn't go as expected or counterparts didn't do what we had agreed they were going to do I definitely wondered why I was doing all of this. Luckily though in those times of doubt I was able to remind myself that this was a project I really wanted to do, a project that I was capable of doing and that the hiccups encountered along the way were to be expected when trying to do a project like this in The Gambia.

Somehow though it all came together. On May 13th we had the opening ceremony and the ball started rolling from there. Over the next three months myself and my counterpart, Papa Sam, were able to teach six health lessons--each lesson taught twice--for a total of twelve sessions. The turnout was amazing, 120 women enrolled and an average of 85 women attending each class. I often felt I needed to pinch myself to remind myself that it was actually happening and the pieces were really falling into place. We finished our last lesson in the nick of time at the beginning of July as the first rains started to come (making it so the women spend every spare moment in the fields).

After that I engaged in a flurry of activity in order to get everything set for the closing ceremony which needed to be held before Ramadan started at the beginning of August. Preparations included going to Banjul and dropping over D 7,000 (a fortune here--about $300) on prizes and then figuring out how to get them all back across the river and up to Kerr Jarga, a definite exercise in Gambia skillz, good thing I had a strong Gambian women along for the ride. Another day found me buying 25 kgs of flour, 30 eggs and 11 kgs of sugar in Barra. Set rental and invitation letters, I felt like I was preparing for a very large Gambian wedding. The night before the big day I was so excited I had trouble going to sleep. I woke up in the morning and had so effectively delegated all the program tasks that I didn't really have much to do. I was given the task of bagging chapati (doughnut holes) which meant I basically ate myself into a chapati stomachache.

By the time 3:30 rolled around (the program was supposed to start at 4 pm) myself and the 8 PCVs that had come to support me/witness the festivities made our way to the skills center to find all of the women already assembled (THEY WERE EARLY!!!!!!!!) in their fanciest clothes. That's when I knew this was a big deal. Of course even though the women were early the set was 2 hours late so we didn't start until closer to 6. Despite the late start the program really was everything I had hoped for and imagined. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it was a celebration of the women's achievements and what they had learned in the lessons. Unlike many Gambian programs it stayed focused on the women and not on the guests who had come for the free food. 15 women presented some amazing dramas about the lesson topics and after the dramas they all received certificates and prizes (soap, attaya, OMO, mosquito coils, fabric, bowls, kettles, buckets and pans). They all accepted their prizes graciously and the fear I had that people would complain about not all getting big prizes was unfounded. And then all of a sudden it was dark and all the women went home to cook dinner and Baby Mamas was over.

The next day I woke up happy and relieved and proud of the effective and successful project I had done. I'm not usually one to heap praise upon myself but in this case I pretty much kicked ass. I set this project as a goal for myself in my service and I actually achieved it which is not something all volunteers can say they have done. I achieved this by involving the community and I empowered a lot of women in my village to make better decisions about their health and the health of their families.

Coupled with all this joy and feeling of accomplishment is the realization that this is the beginning of the end. With five months left I realize I still have a way to go but having been at this for 21 months so far 5 months just doesn't seem like a ton. Now that I've finished Baby Mamas I know I'll leave here with the feeling that I accomplished something and was able to help in a small way but that realization goes hand in hand with the fact that I'm leaving and that this experience is coming to a close. Knowing that I'll be leaving a family I love dearly, friends from whom I draw constant inspiration and a country that has taught me so much I can't help but feel a little mournful. But when I feel sad I just think about all those women with their shiny new pans, buckets and knowledge and I can't help but smile.

A Guest Blog by Ndeye Rohey Jassey (Courtney Sherman)

Written July 2011

It has been just over a month since I returned from The Gambia. Some days it feels like I was there just a few moments ago. There is no possible way to fully capture, with words, my experience because Gambia became a part of my soul on June 17th, 2011.

Without a doubt the best moment was seeing my dear friend's face. I will never forget the stir of emotions in the pit of my stomach as I raced through the immigration process, to be able to exit the confines of security, and run to my long lost sister. Despite some very sun bleached hair, slender figure, and tan skin, she was my same old Lindsey; the one that I laughed and cried with. The time we had lost together, since her departure to Africa, seemed to disappear in an instant as she opened her arms to me and the flood gates of our happy tears opened. There are few times in my life that I have felt complete happiness and this moment was one of them. As we embraced each other, I felt that great feeling of being at home, really at home, like the feeling you get when you plop yourself down into a chair that you have sat in your whole life and no other chair seems to feel as good or right.

I had finally made it Africa.....to this day, I still cannot believe that I went to Africa, but I did and now I feel like I can do anything, or at least try anything......once. Something about the smiling coast, as the Gambia is refereed to as, gets under your skin and conjures up a strength, or for me, a confidence, that I never knew I had, but now realize was just waiting for the opportunity to make its appearance.

Of course, Gambia is hot, very hot and when I was there, quite humid, but you realize rather quickly that your body can handle a lot more physical stress then you would have thought. Though my cloths throughout the trip were permanently in a state of moistness, I never felt more comfortable in my own skin. I felt very welcome in the Gambia. Strangers greeted me, and Peace Corps volunteers, especially those close to Lindsey felt like they had been life long friends. As I write this, a wolof phrase keeps coming to mind, Jamma rek, (Peace only.) I found my inner peace in Africa. The gentle and kind nature of the people was refreshing and the pace of the day suited me. There are many people that have absolutely nothing in the Gambia, but remain happy. The Gambian people seem to have an inner happiness that many Americans struggle to find. I think that it comes down to the idea, that they are all happy to be alive, to be given a chance to be a part of something on this planet, and realize that its a gift. The Gambians that I had the pleasure to meet and spend time with, left deep impressions on my heart.

I would not have had the opportunities to experience these relationships had it not been for the unwavering support of Lindsey Green. I have always known that Lindsey, (Ramatoulie) is an amazing woman, but seeing her in action, as a PCV member was incredible. She has become a part of her village, not just a volunteer, but a sister, a daughter, a friend to many. She has, as many said, become a Gambian! Her wolof is amazing to hear and allows her the ability to communicate in a way that I was quite jealous of. The wollof language is beautiful. Throughout my short eight days, I longed to be able to absorb all that was taught to me. I continue to learn new phrases and practice and hope to impress Ms. Green someday with an entire conversation in wollof. We shall see....What I love about this journey is that Lindsey and I will always have Africa; that no matter where we end up or how much time passes, I will never forget this time I have been so graciously been awarded.

When I sat down to write this piece, I contemplated describing the details of our travels, but really I would rather keep those memories close to my heart and with the others that experienced them with me. So, rather then write a synopsis of the events that occurred during my amazing journey, I hope that my love for the Gambia is conveyed and felt from all that have had a chance to read this.

All I can say, at this point, is that going to Gambia is like meeting your soul mate. You are left feeling.....complete. I thought that when I wrote this entry, I would go on for pages, but my heart and mind struggle to express the impact this journey has had on me. I recently learned a new phrase that in this moment, as I write this, seems to be fitting, so I will leave you with it:

Aaduna si dafa rey.....The world is very big.

Peace and love to all of you,

Courtney/Ndeye

Written on June 29th, 2011

Today I went to my first funeral. Up until now I have avoided them because I don't like to go to funerals in America, let alone the Gambia, and Yaay Amie and Yaay Sarjo told me that it was ok that I don't go. Yesterday though when I heard that Bai Jassey(my counterpart and close friend)'s father had died I knew that I needed to overcome my fear/dislike and go to my first Gambian funeral. Usually they bury people here as soon as possible but since Baay Matar died in Kombo yesterday afternoon they had to transport the body back to Kerr Jarga so the funeral wasn't until this morning.

After breakfast Yaay Sarjo and I went over to the Jassey compound. The men were sitting outside the compound under the mango tree and all of the women were sitting inside the compound. Most of the guests from other villages were sitting outside in the middle of the compound while the women from my side of the village were all in one house/behind the house cooking. Like any Gambian program food was necessary so many women had been over in the compound since early in the morning cooking. Usually I am eager to be helpful but today since I really didn't know what to expect I just sat and observed. I spent a lot of time sitting in the house with the older women from my village just reflecting and observing. We were all waiting for the body to arrive so it was definitely a tense space with people making minimal small talk etc. When people did chat it was interesting that the main thing they talked about was who was crying, how they were crying and how much they were crying. Crying is very much frowned upon here especially for adults, when an adult crys in public they are chastised and yelled at/told to stop. In America I am a bit of a crier but here I don't cry at all, I've cried in front of my host dad once and he freaked out, told me to stop and forced me to drink water. He promptly told everyone that I had cried so this public declaration of who was grieving with tears wasn't totally surprising. I was most surprised by how many different ways they had in Wolof to describe crying and how each of the descriptions were so accurate of the type of crying that I knew exactly what they were talking about even though I had never heard the vocabulary before. All this crying talk also sobered me and helped me fight the urge to cry when it arose a couple times.

When the food was ready we all ate very soberly and not with any great relish. Just as we were starting on our bowl we heard a wave of screaming, crying and wailing so we knew that the body had arrived. We promptly all lost the urge to eat. As the group accompanying the body came into the compound many women were overcome with emotion and everyone withdrew into themselves (into different corners of the hut, sunk lower into their chairs) and wept silently. It was a very jarring experience for me to see all of the strong, older women in my village, who usually are very stoic, unless they are joking or mad, so sad and clearly contemplating so many things. If they were born in this village they probably have known this man since they were born and even if they came here through marriage he was a village elder, a prominent man in village so everyone knew him and had some connection to him. It was for me just another affirmation of how connected everyone is here. After everyone had settled down the men outside, led by the imam (religious leader for the village), started to pray and eulogize Baay Matar. I have never seen the women of my village so quiet before. Every so often someone would greet or say something to their neighbor but other than that there was no joking, no laughing, no nothing. I have never seen my village so stoic.

After about thirty to forty minutes of prayer the men formed a procession to take the coffin to the cemetary to be buried. They started wailing, "Laay laay e laay laay," and walked the coffin around the compound. Everyone stood up and the women/men who had previously been so stoic lost it--sobbing and wailing. My counterpart and friend Bai ran through the house and "cried like a woman" (quote from a nearby woman) in the backyard. Another friend was beside herself sobbing while two women yelled at her to stop crying because it was Gods will and God doesn't like it if you cry. Those two images brought me very close to tears because I felt like any comfort I would give either of them would not be able to bridge the cultural gap between us. Talk about feeling completly helpless. After the men had gone all of the women went outside to sit. We all sat in utter silence until the men came back. At that point all of the women gave a charity of 5 dalasi or more to the three widows and dispersed.

Strangely enough after all of the sadness the dispersement outside of the compound was like a social hour. Greeting people who I had not seen in months from other villages and really marveling at the sense of connectedness and community I feel for this small village, even in this moment of grief; I marveled at the sense of comfort I got from experiencing mourning with them.

Written for Peace Corps The Gambias June Health Newsletter

Long ago when I was fresh out of training, new to my village and still trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do for two years other than sweat, eat rice and try to set the record for most consecutive boils, I read Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman, a former PCV in Cote d'Ivoire. I remember thinking a) this is a lot like being a PCV in The Gambia, b) she is much more funny and eloquent when it comes to describing her experiences than I am and c) the health competition that she does in her village sounds really f-ing cool.

So what was I to do but steal her idea and try to recreate it in Kerr Jarga, hence "Baby Mamas" or "Yow Yaay Yaay" (You are the Mother) was born. I decided that though I liked the model of the Hearth program, positive deviance and mothers learning from each other, that in my community where everyone is in each others business all the time it would be hard to run a program with such obvious benefits to the participants and limit it to ten or twelve women; a larger scale competition, incorporating the Hearth model, with incentives for participation seemed like a better fit for my village. But before I started I felt like I needed to gather more information about how community members perceived their personal health and the health for their children/family. So I invited potential counterparts and key village people (the VDC chairman, CHN, VHW, TBAs, alkali, district chief, literacy instructors and women involved in the skills center) to a village health assessment meeting. From this I was able to gain a better understanding of the health challenges faced by the community and realized that for most mothers of children under five there is a lack of basic knowledge about personal health. Not that the women are stupid--far from it--but they don't understand why things like exclusive breastfeeding or hand washing are important; additionally very rarely do people take the time to explain it to them in a way they can understand.

So from this starting point I developed a project proposal and budget, applied for a Peace Corps Partnership, begged my friends and family for money, received the money and realized, "Shit, now I guess I am actually doing this Baby Mamas thing."

The heart of Baby Mamas is six health lessons, each lesson to be taught twice, dealing with issues identified in the village health assessment, such as RCH and exclusive breastfeeding, nutrition, personal hygiene, environmental sanitation, malaria, and female reproduction and anatomy. For every lesson women attend they get two points if they are on time and one point if they are late. They also can earn points for attending RCH. Due to the women's lack of literacy I included lost of visual aids and games in the lesson plans to encourage better understanding and participation. In writing the lessons I wanted the information to focus on preventative health care and also on the women's personal health. So often they hear about how to properly care for their children but what about themselves? How are they supposed to care for themselves if they get a cut while cooking? Why should women make sure they are eating a balanced diet? And what in the world does the vagina actually look like? I wanted to give them the knowledge to make informed decisions about their health as well as the health of their children.

Once all of the lessons were written it was time to get the women actually excited to come to them. What better way to do that in the Gambia than have a program? After a few, mostly unsuccessful, village sensitization meetings we called everyone in the village for an "opening ceremony" and myself, my two host moms and a bunch of my neighbors kneaded, balled and fried twenty-five kilos of flour into panketo party favors. At the opening ceremony I gave every women who was interested and eligible a green scorecard for the duration of the competition and inshallah if they don't lost them or destroy them I'll collect them at the end to see who has accumulated the most points.

Since the opening ceremony in mid-May we've held three health lessons and we're on track to get the bulk of the lessons done by the end of June. I have been blown away by class attendance, usually around ninety women each day. My counterpart, Papa Sam, a Public Health Officer at the health center near me has been teaching the lessons and he has really embraced using games and visual aides in the health lessons. The other day at the end of the nutrition game he actually said, "That was fun." The women have learned that if they're on time they get more points so they have started actually showing up on time. Of course having ninety loud Wolof women in one room can be a bit difficult to control but slowly they are starting to embrace the four class rules, 1) listen 2) raise your hand 3) one person talks at a time and 4) work together.

So what have I learned so far?First, I've realized that readjusting expectations is healthy and necessary. I initially wanted a high level of participation for men in addition to women, sending the message that health is every ones concern, not just women's. That level of buy-in would be great but is a long way off. I've come to see that they lack of men allows the women to act more freely. They are less shy about raising their hands and speaking up; and men don't have a chance to dominate the conversation. They have taken ownership of their "school" and the lesson space as a place for them to be together and discuss things in a way that gender roles might not otherwise allow.Second, use your toubab power for good. Baby Mamas has worked because its a completely new idea and format for health education in Kerr Jarga and people know that I'm the one who has been organizing it. I used to be concerned because Baby Mamas events were always referred to as "Ramatoulie's" this or that but then I realized that labeling things in this way gave Baby Mamas a higher status than just another village program. People came and participated because it was associated with me. I think many people are still confused about how the competition actually works but they continue to come to the lessons because of the "toubab tipping point." They want to see what ridiculous thing I will do, what strange drawings I will have made on perfectly good rice bags or what Wolof word I will mispronounce. Rather than getting annoyed by the fact that I'm the butt of most jokes I am embracing this as just one of the ways I con the women in my village into learning more about health.Finally, I have learned "it will be what it will be" so just go with it, stressing out does nobody any good. All I can do is try to write good health lessons, explain to counterparts why I think health education is needed in my village, tell the women how important this information is to them, and then let the chips fall where they may. There have been lots of false starts and definitely a few failures because of this approach but for all of those there have equally been great successes. When the women realized that just because something is more expensive, i.e. sugar and bread, it doesn't mean its better for you or when all ninety women chanted "We should exclusively breastfeed for good birth spacing in Kerr Jarga" --well if that's not a Peace Corps fist pump moment I don't know what is.

With three lessons down and nine more to go we've got a lot more ground to cover, and that ground includes the vagina apron, but I'm confident that in the end the women in my village will have increased their knowledge about personal health and will have some rad, shiny new bowls, buckets and pans to show for it.

Written on May 13th, 2011

Today after probably a year of working and thinking and hoping and doubting was the opening ceremony of my Baby Mamas health competition. As I had anticipated it was a busy and at times annoying and stressful day but despite the ups and downs and all the "Gambian-ess" along the way it happened and I do genuinely feel like the village is jazzed for the health competition. So though I don't usually do this I'm going to walk you through my day.

I woke up earlier than I wanted to--around 7 am--because for some inexplicable reason Mam Goor was wailing. I finally rolled out of bed and flowed through a little yoga while listening to Girltalk. After yoga was a quick breakfast of oatmeal with peanut butter and Gambian honey. As I was brushing my teeth at around 9 my Yaay Amie came to the door frantically urging me to hurry before the sun gets hot. So myself and my host aunt and two sisters rushed over to the skill center to pick up all the supplies to make "chapati" (which is basically a less greasy version of a donut hole). 25 kilos of flour were quickly up on my host aunts head and then deposited in our compound along with a HUGE cooking pot, two big buckets and sieve like spoon. While my moms sifted the flour I was off to the bitik for 11 kilos of sugar, a can of sweetened condensed milk and 100 sugar packets of "sucre vanile." By the time I made it back to my compound the flour was sifted and we were all sitting around in the dirt getting ready to make a quantity of "donuts" usually only associated with large bakeries. A side note on cooking here--everyone cooks basically the same ten dishes but despite that fact there is always much debate that goes on about how things should be made. I found out that this debate/argument is increased vastly with baked goods/seldom cooked items. So after much discussion and missteps, and thirty cracked eggs we were all elbow deep (and buy all I mean everyone but me because I "don't know" and "my arms aren't strong") in two large, maybe 2 feet in diameter, buckets full of dough, kneading it into a gooey, sweet blob. From there two big pots full of oil were set up over cooking fires and we set to rolling and frying our buckets of dough into small balls. It sound laborious and tedious, which it is, but it is also a ton of fun. Our compound was the place to hangout so women were coming by all morning to sit and chant and ball/fry some dough which they were at it. Kids run around playing and stealing bites, babies cry, attaya is brewed and we all sweat and chase shade because I don't know if you heard, the sun is hot. By lunch time we've taken 25 kilos of flour, 11 kilos of sugar, 30 eggs, 2 big cans of condensed milk and 10 litre of oil into three pans, two feet in diameter buckets, full of hot, greasy, sugary and delicious chapati. We all break for lunch, I hurriedly take a bath and then we form an assembly line in my house putting 4 to 6 chapatis into little plastic bags because "it is more civilized."

At 4:30 pm I rush over to the skills center. I'm only 30 minutes late for our "4 pm" meeting which means that really I am an hour and thirty minutes early. But god forbid my relatively easy morning of baked goods transition into a calm and easy afternoon meeting. A government agency has decided yesterday to have a meeting at the skills center today at 2 pm which means by 4 pm they had actually started and when people started coming for my meeting at 5 pm they were in the heart of their meeting. After a few tense moments and some needless freak outs over things like making juice and to make or not make attaya the meeting is dispersed and we set up chairs and tables at the back of the skills center. The women gathers around the table expectantly and we all sit in "civilized" silence waiting for the district chief to come. When he does show up he sticks his head out the back door and greets us all before taking his leave, which means finally at 6 pm we start.

Once the meeting had started I knew I was in the home stretch. I gave my preplanned explanation of the competition in Wolof and then our invited guests from the health center and ADWAC spoke. Afterwards everyone was given a chance to speak and the usual cast of characters added in their two sense but the most special thing (for me) was that my host mom Yaay Amie spoke about how grateful my compound is that I am here and helping them and the village. It was a big moment because Gambians are not ones to often or freely give praise, they tend to focus more on things that haven't been done (you didn't buy butter) or comparison (orange is a better flavor of juice than pineapple). So for here to praise me so publicly was really special especially because she never has said anything like that to me before. It was a very special moment for me. The big finale of the opening ceremony was giving the women their competition score cards and handing out the chapati and juice. Not surprisingly the score cards were kind of a shit show. But everyone who needed/wanted one got one. After the business part of the ceremony was finished the women gathered in a big circle and danced. Though brief (about 30 minutes) as they danced, shook their butts and flashed their thighs I could feel so much joy in the circle that it was worth all of the earlier work and frustration. The women kept exclaiming, "Look at Ramatoulie, she cannot stop smiling." and it was true.

Written on April 21st, 2011

I am a fan of gossip. For better or worse this is a well known fact about me. When I began gossiping, in Wolof, to Gambians, this is when I knew that I had truly arrived here.

Last Saturday the Pulaar baker who rents the hut next to me came out of his house around 9 am and it was clear something was wrong. He looked up at the sky blankly and when we asked him what was wrong he didn't respond. He promptly left the compound but it didn't take long for word to get back to us that he was wandering around the village, walking around in circles, being followed by a pack of children like the Pied Piper. My host mom turned to me and very frankly said, "He's crazy now now." About an hour later he was finally escorted back to my compound by a group of men from the village. They got him into the house and quickly about fifteen people were crowding around the door, peering over each other heads trying to get a look at him. So--basically--in the span of a few hours my neighbor had gone crazy. I left soon after taht to attend a program in a nearby village but heard when I got back that he wandered about the compound all day and night. By Monday morning his older brother had come to pick him up and take him back to their home village. I haven't been able to come up with a logical/scientific explanation for what happened, maybe he took the wrong combination of traditional medicine and was on a really bad trip. But the explanation that everyone has been giving is that one of his brothers, who lives in Guinea Conakry, wanted him to come and help him farm and since he refused the brother set a voodoo spell on him. Seems just as likely an explanation as anything.

So where has the gossiping come in. I found myself telling my story to anyone who would listen, with my punch line being "Isn't that so strange!" So lets consider me publishing this story on my blog as an act of cross cultural and continental gossip.

xoxo Gossip Girl in The Gambia

Written on April 17th, 2011

Here's a good Peace Corps riddle for you: What's a more motivating force than helping the people in your community???? Having friends and family in the US forking over $$$ for your community.

Not long ago as you all may remember I put out a plea for donations to a community health competition I want to organize in my village. The outpouring of support was amazing (Thank you all!!) and within no time I had the money I needed--at which point I found myself thinking--"Shit, I guess I do actually have to do this now." because so many ideas and projects here often tail to even make it off the ground I find myself often pleasantly surprised when things work out.

I already place a lot of pressure and expectations on myself to succeed. That is just who I am and here it is merely amplified by my sense of purpose and urgency when it comes to helping my village. However great this commitment of mine is the downside is that it leads me to set high expectations for myself and those around me that are most often incredibly difficult or impossible to achieve. Not that the Gambia isn't full of people with a sense of drive and purpose which makes it easy for them to go above and beyond expectations, yet the reality is that a motto I've had to adopt since I have arrived is "lower your expectations."

The process of actually commencing the "Baby Mamas" or "Yow Yaay Yaay" health competition has really necessitated and put to the test this idea. For example, this past week I called a village meeting to introduce the competition. I imagined a picturesque community meeting with 100s of villagers. The village elders would all sit on plastic chairs in their grand boubous with small children at their feet, the women would be animated and engaged and make profound statements about the struggles they face in maintaining their personal health. In reality, an hour and a half after the meeting was supposed to start we had one participant. Finally around 7 pm (the meeting was supposed to happen at 5 pm) we had about 30 old women (not our target group of mothers with children under 5), half of whom couldn't talk because they were so busy praying with their prayer beads. No men were there and in the end I had about 50 "old women" and 20 mothers, so much for all the village diversity.

So by all accounts this village meeting was very far from what I had hoped for and imagined. But it did cause me to check myself and not necessarily lower but readjust my expectations. While developing my health competition I had high hopes for what if would achieve. I wanted to teach the women of my village about health and I imagined packed meetings and lots of participation. I'm realizing though that maybe I need to focus on the fact that if I can get 10 women to come and truly participate, to ask questions and teach others than that is an achievement enough. I'm sure as this project continues I will find myself with many more situations of disappointment when what I imagined isn't what I get. But in the end I will learn just as much in the failures as I do in the successes. So stay tuned to the Baby Mamas saga--next up is the opening ceremony!

Written on April 5th, 2011

I got back to village on Monday morning after a two week jaunt around the Gambia with my mom and dad. I was expecting it to be a big and busy Gambian day but I didn't realize how busy or big it would be until I was walking into village, towards the skills center and my compound and I heard the wailing. A man in the compound next to mine who had been ill for a while had just died. Everyone was ashen and silent they sprung into action bringing chairs over to the compound and stringing up tarps for shade. To make the situation crazier a young women in the compound on the other side of mine was getting married at exactly the same time as all the funeral arrangements were going on. But this was in no way a fun rom-com starring Hugh Grant. I watched curiously as grief and happiness coexisted, as they often do in the Gambia.

The two programs were quickly divided between the young and the old. All the young people from our side of the village, including me, went to the wedding for the morning and the majority of the adults went to help with the funeral and burial. Not surprisingly everyone at the wedding was talking about the death and kept saying "Tey Kerr Jarga, neexoot dara." "Today Kerr Jarga is not nice at all." The wedding dd not feature any of the drums or dancing that traditionally accompany a wedding ceremony but the food was still plentiful and everyone got dressed to the nines. Around 1 pm we all went home and took a break from the wedding, I slept in the heat of the day and woke up at 5 pm as they were preparing to take the body to the village cemetery for burial. Men in traditional complets and women all with big shawls over their heads gathered in the compound and everyone started "wailing"--it sounds kind of like saying "laay laay eee laay laay" over and over again. The men took the body on a procession through the village and the women stayed in the compound and wailed. I watched from a respectful distance and thought about how much I admire Gambians sense of community--no matter how close you were to this person he was someones son, someones husband and his death is worth a little time and wailing to support his family. I also appreciate how no one here questions participating: you just go, give a small charity to the family, because that's the right thing to do.

After all the wailing passed I put on a complet and went to watch the bride get made up in all of her wedding finery. Makeup here is definitely what we would describe as over the top. Painted on eyebrows, bright coloured eye shadow last popular in the 80s and fake eyelashes. Somehow though, maybe I've just lived here to long, but they manage to pull it off. Photos of the finished product and then we were off to her new house in her husbands compound. Usually there would be lots of singing and dancing but this was a quiet and respectful affair. She greeted all the assembled guests and they showed off all the gifts she had brought with her to the compound. We ate rice and coos coos and I went home to reflect.

Though every commented about it in passing everyone just accepted that the two programs just had to coexist. Just as grief and happiness can go hand and hand in the Gambia, so too I learned can a wedding and a funeral.

Written on April 1st, 2011 A special guest blog by Mam Lamin Cham aka David Green aka My Dad Most importantly, we made it. Three months and three attempts, but it worked. It did actually snow the morning we left but only flurries and we arrived on schedule to find Lindsey at the airport. We were all too excited for words. Then the fun really started. What does one do in the Gambia--The Smiling Coast of Africa? Settling In PCVs are given a chance to "settle in" so that's what we did. Three nights at Mama's--a typical local hotel run by a expatriate, with lots of walking and talking and meeting friends, and visiting Lindsey's haunts, both professional (the Peace Corps office, the bank) and personal (a local bar called with great irony, The Scottish Embassy). It was great fun to be a PCV again. Within 24 hours we were drinking beer (Julbrew) and talking about Gambian customs, digestion and food. From there we moved up country, local transport, to Lindsey's village--Kerr Jarga Jobe. Language and Culture In KJJ we were at Lindsey's mercy. There, she is Ramatoulie, and she speaks Wolof 24/7. It's amazing. She waggles her finger, shakes her pony tail and her butt , and makes jokes. The kids giggle as she tickles them, the teenagers demand to borrow her lotions and ointments, the old ladies joke about everything, and the moms correct her. Everyone chatters and joke. We spend hours--literally--walking about the dusty village, greeting everyone. Lindsey patiently explains culture, custom, language, good, agriculture and trades, while translating. We are in awe. Its hot, really hot, from 11 to 5 so we sit and chase spots of shade around the compound, drinking "attaya", green tea boiled, reboiled, and poured over and over again so it gets foamy and cool. Everyone welcomes us very warmly and naturally. They are honored to have us but treat us like family, just like they treat Ramatoulie. They take care of her in every way and she reciprocates. The kids are great--handsome and fun--and the Dad, Baay Waly, watches out for her and respects her at the same time. The whole trip is great but the four days in KJJ are really amazing. Culture and Development Being in KJJ with Lindsey we are reminded of so much, including the difficulties of cross-cultural understanding. She tells us of how she works with the skills center on planning, meetings, agendas, and organization. Then she walked in one day to find the staff cutting the meeting tables in half so they could use them for the sewing machines. She went home to read a book. A sensible reaction from all parties. This isn't easy stuff, but we keep trying to understand one another and that's what counts. Moving and Waiting Patience is key--we move, and wait, and wait and move. Everything is late and takes longer than anticipated. We leave KJJ to ride boats up and down the river. We look at birds which are incredible even for non-birders like us. Peggy and Lindsey catch up on girl time, which poor Peggy has surely missed for a year and a half. And we all think about Casey and we're sorry it didn't work out for him to come, but we think about him tearing it up in Peru and we know he'd be happy for us. Then She Ate What??? We spend quite a bit of time talking about, planning for, and eating food. Lindsey is decidedly no longer a vegetarian. She now renounces it completely and totally. She eats great quantities of everything and with great relish. She has dreams about bacon. Day-old goat is not an issue. She claims to have a super amoeba that trumps all the lesser amoebas. Even David blanches at the story about the monitor lizard--we are not making this up. And We Laughed and Laughed Most importantly, we had fun, and we laughed because ultimately that's what its all about. We got a brief but telling glimpse into another world and it was a lot of fun. We are grateful. The Gambians say good things are "nice-nice" and "its nice to be nice." Healthy sentiments. Jerejef--Thank you!

Written on March 19th, 2011 I spent last week at a Peace Corps The Gambia All Volunteer conference. We spent a lot of time talking about being a "high performance post," volunteers needing to have "meaningful work" and Peace Corps 50th Anniversary. All this talk, and an article from the New Yorker, written by Paul Hesser (just sent to me by my Dad) have caused me to pause and consider what the legacy of Peace Corps service is in Peace Corps countries, like the Gambia. I know it is probably a bit self-important to assume that my personal experience at one post can speak for the Peace Corps legacy as a whole. But in the spirit of 50th anniversary generalization I am going to take a risk and try my hand at answering the question--"What is the legacy of Peace Corps?" Since I cam to PC The Gambia I have heard a lot about PCV performance. When you research the Peace Corps you come across a handful of books and articles. These tell the stories of a small proportion of PCVs who, due to a combination of charisma, intelligence, infrastructure, resources and sheer good luck have served their communities in amazing ways and created visible change (they build schools, dig wells, start health centers) that they, or someone else, has been able to document and publicize. These volunteers are 1) amazing and 2) offer a great image of the Peace Corps to the world. But for every one volunteer who publish a book highlighting their amazing service there are hundreds whose service is not marked by measurable work or achievements but whose service and impact is no less important. I think PC has been around for 50 years because of both types of volunteers. One really cannot exist without the other. In my post alone we have volunteers with 9 to 5 jobs and projects to bring clean water to entire villages, we also have volunteers who spend their days socializing, go to sell milk at the local market with friends, play with babies and one volunteer who spent a large part of their service hanging out with one women, becoming such close friends that they were able to come out to the women before they left, in a country where homosexuality is extremely taboo. It is these stories of service that I most relate to and that I more and more am coming to see as Peace Corps 5o year legacy. I recognize the importance of meaningful work and a measurable impact as a way to ensure US taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively and that the talents of PCVs are being used but the reality is, often, we need to focus on the personal relationships we establish and see this as our legacy. I read somewhere recently that PCVs often get disillusioned with tradition notions of development and down play their impact, claiming "the people I served impacted me more than I changed them"--the author claimed that this all came from a place of unfounded modesty--I however can related to both these sentiments. And rather than coming from a place of modesty I think it all comes from a place which seeks to recognize the equality between the PCV and those they serve. I have an incredibly hard time receiving praise here because I feel my community members deserve equal (if not greater praise) everyday. So....taking all this into account, what is the 50 year legacy of Peace Corps according to Lindsey Green? As hippy-dippy as it may sound it is love and equality. If I leave anything behind I hope my family and community knows that I love and care for them. Despite the fact that I won some cosmic jackpot and was born an American it doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else. By living in and becoming a member of a community PCVs attempt to serve from a place of equality rather than a place of outsider-ness or superiority. If the legacy of PC is anything it is that America is a country that produces many people who want to spread love and understanding through service. I would love to write a book about fundamentally changing the access to health care in my community but I would also be OK if my entire service could be summed up by simply drawing a big heart.

Written on February 13th, 2011

There are a lot of things that I worry about when it comes to returning to America. Nose picking and spitting food (i.e. fish bones) on the ground while eating being two of them. I have also though about elements of professional life that are very different and how I will readjust--the most prominent being meetings. Let me highlight some aspects of the Gambian meeting (and let this serve as a warning to my potential future employees in America).

Starting Time: whenever someone gives me a time that a meeting is supposed to start I do a very intricate calculation in order to determine what time it will actually start. Factors to consider include whose supposed to attend the meeting, what topics are to be discussed, what day of the week it is, how often the group meeting usually meets and if lunch will be provided. Generally I take the proposed starting time as more of a suggestion of what time I should start to think about getting ready in my compound. This being said I am still usually the first to arrive and wait anywhere from 1 to 3 hours for the meeting to start. Hence my Peace Corps (and life) motto--"Bring a book."Agenda: A large portion of the "agenda" is reserved for people to give "remarks." Though this is a good practice everyone wants to talk so everyone gives their remarks which are usually very similar derivations of: greeting, thanking Allah for helping them meet, singing the praises of the group/previous speakers, giving advice to the group and relating a long and detailed story of how they came to join the group/attend the meeting. All of these remarks take up so much time that everyone is either exhausted or argumentative when the actual meetings business is commenced. For example at the meeting of skills center representatives I attended yesterday the remarks took from noon to 6 pm with a short prayer break. The only other business completed in this time was the chair reading the groups constitution in English and then translating it into Wolof. By 6 pm everyone was starving so we closed and ate lunch. (Yes, lunch at six o'clock at night, I was about ready to eat my arm) Then they decided to take a break and meet again from midnight to 3 am to plan for the next years activities (the main purpose for calling the meeting in the first place). I didn't make it all the way to 3 am and bowed out and went to bed at 2.Multi-Tasking: If I remember correctly it has been somewhat acceptable in America to multi-task during meetings i.e. check email on Blackberrys and respond. But beyond that everyone at least makes a show of paying attention. Here multi-tasking takes on a new meaning. Naps, reading books (usually this is just me), taking and making phone calls, hair braiding, brewing attaya, breastfeeding, playing games on cellphones are all common forms of multi-tasking during a Gambian meeting.Networking: In America you get a business card. In the Gambia you get this text message: "RAMATULIE DEFINATELY, ITS TODAY THAT I MEET U, BUT REALLY U ARE IN MY HEART. I REALLY LIKE U TO ACCEPT MY KINDLY LOVE. DAMALA NOB BU BAAX." Enough said.

Written on February 1, 2011

My experience with drama is very very minimal to say the very least. One line in two years of elementary school plays and a sixth grade turn as a man in the "Prince and the Pauper" has not an experienced actor made me. This past weekend however, lack of theatrical experience aside, I found myself organizing a drama tour with my peer health club. This past November six of my students acted in a drama on HIV/AIDS bike trek. Thanks to the extreme enthusiasm of a few teachers and the enjoyment of the students my group continued the drama and decided they wanted to take the drama to the villages from which the students come everyday to go to school. A few months later after revision and translation into Wolof myself, twenty students and six teachers spend a Saturday going to four different communities and presenting a thirty minute lecture and drama on HIV/AIDS addressing how the disease works, transmission, protection and stigma. We were quite a sight rolling into each village with a huge stereo set and speakers and all the students crammed into the back of a pick-up truck. Once in each village we would set up the speakers and blast music in an attempt to attract the attention of as many villagers as possible. Mr. Bah, one of the peer health club advisers, would implore all of the students to "entertain the people." This manifested itself as dancing, clapping and yelling. Once we had amassed a crowd of men, women and hundreds of small children the program would start. Four students gave a lecture on HIV supported with visual aides they made themselves. Afterwards the six students would act the drama called, "I'm Not a Sickness I'm a Son" in Wolof and the program ended with more clapping and dancing. After going through this in four villages we were all exhausted but the students seemed extremely energized by the village sensitization. For both the students and their parents, friends and family in their home villages it was very powerful to see/show what they've learned in school about HIV. This topic is still very taboo in the Gambia, as is talking about sex, so for the students to talk about these topics openly in front of their elders was difficult. If anything is to change however about the attitude toward HIV there needs to be a conversation and the first step to start that is for people to start feeling comfortable to say "sex," "HIV" and "condom" out loud. I hope in some small part our program helped start that conversation.

Written on January 27th, 2010

Today I want to tell you all about my friend Abdullahi.

Abdullahi is one of my neighbors in KJJ. I've known him since about my second day living here when he helped me fix my bike tire. He's a husband and father of five. He's active with the skills center, often comes to our literacy classes and is a self taught English speaker, he's never been to school.

All of this being said I don't usually spend that much time hanging out with 'Lai though wherever he sees me hes happy to see me and likewise. A few months ago when I came back to KJJ after finishing the HIV/AIDs bike trek he came by my compound and we were talking about the bike trek and some of the things we had taught the students about HIV. We talked a lot about how a very important way to protect yourself is to know your HIV status and to go for Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) which is available for free in some health centers. At the end of our conversation he mentioned that he wanted to go get tested so he could know his status. I told him that I would support him as much as possible in going to get tested and we agreed that whenever he was ready I would go with him to Kerewan to get tested. After that, I got really busy with schools and holidays and Lai got busy in the fields. A few weeks ago however he approached me again about going and we made a plan to go today.

At 9 am Lai showed up in my compound dressed in a nice white complet and all ready to go to Kerewan. As we waited by the side of the road for a car we talked about some of the reasons AIDS is a problem in Africa/The Gambia and some of the things that have reduced the prevalence rate in the US--like condom use and people getting tested, both men and women.

Testing in the Gambia is a huge problem because of the high stigma associated with having HIV. All pregnant women are asked to go get tested as a means to counter mother to child transmission and therefore the majority of testing comes from pregnant women. Testing of men however is practically non-existent and for men to voluntarily go for testing is uncommon.

This is what makes Lai such a gem. He decided to go get tested on his own so that he could know because, "It's good to know about yourself." Once we got to the health center things were a breeze. I had met the man who does VCT coincidentally the week before so as always in the Gambia it was helpful to already have that relationship. It was a little nerve wracking going through the process with Lai and I could tell he was nervous also. I had to cover his eyes when they drew his blood and when they gave him his negative result we high 5'd and hugged--two things Gambians don't do. After it was all over Lai told me how happy he was to know his status and beyond that how he wanted to tell all his friend about his experience so they wouldn't be afraid to go get tested. Within two hours of being back in KJJ he had talked to three people who now want to get tested and just wanted me to call the doctor to make sure they had as easy a time as him.

I am so awestruck and humbled by the quiet determination of my friend. He has no reason to be so concerned about this other than he just wants to do the right thing and protect himself, his family and his village.

I sometimes would get the sense in America that people saw HIV testing as unnecessary, something for druggies and promiscuous young people, but if my experience with my friend Lai taught me anything its that we should all know our status if for no other reason than as a support to people around the world, like him, who are determined to fight stigma, raise awareness and live their life, without fear, with dignity and honesty. So I urge all of you to go get tested, know your status and think of my friend Lai who really is a shining example of courage and selflessness.

Written on January 21st, 2011

Yesterday I spent the morning at the senior secondary school attending a lecture on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and STIs with my peer health club students. It was very much a fly by the seat of your pants session. Clearly the group that organized it had some extra funds they wanted to use up so they decided to call in a local nurse from Kerewan to talk to the students. Don't get me wrong, this is all well and good, well intentioned and much needed but as I've noticed lately with my work here, myself and the people I work with sometimes enthusiasm over the different that will be made overrides planning and consideration. I'm certainly guilty of getting so wrapped up and excited that I don't really take the time to consider important factors like my audience, their needs and sustainability.

This lecture came after almost six months of work on my part and the part of another agency to educate the students abut HIV/AIDS. Something we hadn't talked about at all is TB, so a session just on that would have been great but throwing STIs, HIV and TB together just caused a lot of confusion and repetition of information. I hardly could follow the presenter so I'm sure that the students didn't do much better. Because the presentation was so bad I found myself zoning out and thinking about what conclusions I can draw after a year of attending events at Gambian schools.

I think my most interesting observation has been that though all Gambian students are English language learners, i.e. they don't speak English at home, teaching and curriculum here is not geared towards ESL. Though English is the official language of the Gambia in reality so little of the population is literate in/speaks English that assuming that students will learn effectively without any attention given to their English learning status is really just setting them up for failure. The natural reaction to this system is for students to just memorize what they learn which means they can answer questions if they've memorized them but have very little ability for original or abstract thought. In addition asking questions is seen not as a tool for learning but a failure of the students. At this lecture the presenter threw out hundreds of very scientific terminology for STIs (including pus) but refused to answer students questions when they raised their hands asking them to write their questions down for the end of the lesson, effectively telling them not to ask any questions.

For me, coming from a background where inquiry and questions were celebrated this orientation is both extremely frustrating and discouraging. I wonder how many things would be different here if people celebrated rather than demonized what we don't know.

It's a very very exciting day for me here in the Gambia. For the past few months I have been working to develop a health and nutrition education competition for the women in my village. My goal is to provide them with basic health and nutrition education in a fun and interactive way. They get points for participating in the different elements of the competition and at the end we will have a big community celebration where the women will share what they have learned and win prizes. Most importantly the women in my village, many of whom have never had the opportunity to go to school, will get a chance to educate themselves and be seen as resource people by the community. I've spoken a ot about how much the women in my village inspire me. But after a year in Kerr Jarga these women are also my friends. We laugh together, cook together and talk about life, theirs and mine, this is my small way of trying to help them and thank them for their friendship and support. I am truly humbled by the way they have all embraced me.So where do y'all come in? Unfortunately though health knowledge is free running this competition will not be free. So I am trying to raise money for my project through Peace Corps Partnership. A program where people can go to the Peace Corps website and donate to my project. I would really appreciate any support you all could provide. The total I need to raise is $764.79 so every little bit will help. A ot of you have asked me how you can help me in my work here and this is a way that you really can make a difference in the lives of the amazing women of Kerr Jarga. I promise to keep you all updated on the competition with pictures and blogs.So.....if my pitch has peaked your interest you can follow the link below to donate!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=635-069

Written on November 18th, 2010

For someone who was a vegetarian for a large portion of my young adult like I have witnessed my fair share of ram slaughter. Wednesday marked my second Tobaski spent as a PCV in The Gambia. Tobaski is the holiday that falls two lunar months after the end of Ramadan and its a BIG holiday--Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all rolled into one. The days agenda includes praying, asking Allah and each other to forgive us for any of our known or unknown offenses, eating as much ram meat as humanly possible, showing off the newest and fanciest clothes, shoes and hairdos and going from compound to compound, house to house asking for money, candy or groundnuts.

The morning started with the men, older women, children and Ramatoulie, (the toubab exempted from normal social norms) going to the big mosque in the village for communal prayer. I always go back and forth on whether its acceptable/OK for me to use my toubab card to go pray/observe prayer when (1) I'm not Muslim and (2) all other women my age can't go pray. For Tobaski though I wanted to see what that experience was like and my little sister Fatou was pretty insistent that I go with her. So I wrapped up my head, put on my fancy new complet and headed off. When we got there we set up our mat among all the older women from our side of the village and they all clucked about my clothes and braids and helped me put on my shawl correctly.

The communal prayer was a very moving and powerful experience for me. Now people may want to debated the ethics of participating in a Muslim prayer service as a non-Muslim but for me this wasn't about being a Muslim or not. As we stood and knelt and placed our foreheads on the mat I thought about my blessings and how my experience here consistently reaffirms my belief that kindness and understanding is what can connect us all and that these ideals are more powerful than religion, race, gender and nationality. Finally, I prayed because I could think of no better way to express my joy and gratitude for the place the community of KJJ has made for me within it. After the prayer I shook hands with all the women who truly provide me with so much inspiration and motivation to continue my work here. Any lingering fear of how my act of prayer would be received was assuaged when I came across a teacher from our village later in the day. He told me he had seen me shaking hands with the old women at the end of the prayer. He said that he was very touched and he though "That's what a human being should be." I don't think I can get any better affirmation than that that I made the right decision.

After prayer came the ram sacrifice which starts the feasting of Tobaski. Every compound slaughters at least one ram, with larger compounds having more so in my village of 60+ compounds there were at least 100 rams slaughtered. That's alot of meat. After they are killed and cleaned children are sent all around the village with platters and bowls with piles of meat to be given out for charity. We gave away probably half our ram but received the same, if not more, back in the end so its probably safe to say that my compound, of about 15 people consumed a whole ram. Now half the compound has diarrhea (luckily not me) but that's a story for another day. The entire morning we spent cooking up "sauce" (potatoes, oil, onions, pepper, Jumbo, mustard and vinegar) which we inhaled hungrily around 4 pm with the two neighboring compounds. We all squatted around our bowls and dug in, scooping out sauce with our fingers and little pieces of bread. A very Gambian Thanksgiving.

After lunch was time for the adults to sit around and drink attaya while the kids put on their fancy new outfits and go salibo--which is basically trick or treating. They go from compound to compound in groups of four or five and collect minties, dalasi or groundnuts. The minties they consume immediately while the dalasi and groundnuts (which they sell for dalasi) will either be divided up amongst them or used to buy milk and attaya and radio batteries for a party. The difference between salibo and trick or treating however is that once the sunsets adults head out too. I went with my host sister, Mbayang, and some other girls from our part of the village. We walked along in the moonlight, ran into other salibo-ers, stopped to admire each others outfits and walked on. We stopped into the compounds of friends and family and asked for their forgiveness then they would give us dalasi and we would walk on. After about two hours we had been all over the village and pulled in over D100. By salibo or Halloween standards that's a good haul.

Back in my compound by 11 pm I lay out on my mat, stared up at the almost full moon and listened to the music blaring from some compound on the other side of the village. I had health, happiness and a belly full of ram--if that isn't being blessed I don't know what is.

Written on November 8th, 2010

Last week myself and eight other volunteers set off on an HIV/AIDS Education Bike trek from Barra to Farafenni (over 110 km). We stopped at five schools along the way, teaching 160 students at each school for a total of 800 students. At the same time two other teams of ten volunteers were doing the same thing in the area surrounding Farafenni and in the Central River Region (CRR) from Janjanbureh to Farafenni. In one week our group of volunteers, supported by counterparts from the National AIDS Secretariat, reached 15 schools and over 2,500 Gambian upper basic (middle school) students, teaching them a 4+ hour lesson on HIV/AIDS risk, transmission, protection and stigma. What a week for Peace Corps The Gambia!

Along with Erica, I was in charge of the planning and coordination for the team that went from Barra to Farafenni. This meant feeding, housing, coordinating and motivating our team of PCVs and two members of the Gambian Cycling Association, Edi and Musa, who joined our team. Based on how inspiring and motivated our fellow volunteers are it was all in all a relatively easy task to keep it all going and together during the week. For the month before Erica and I lived and breathed bike trek but once everyone else showed up our job was made so easy. We had a team of amazing, strong, motivated and competent volunteers who all stepped up and gave their all to make this project a success.

So how did we spend our days? We would wake up every morning and go to the school where we would be teaching for the day. In teams of two PCVs we would break into four classes of forty students each. For the next 4+ hours we would work our way through the lesson "HIV/AIDS: Finding your own voice." The lesson featured lecture, games, drawings and diagrams and drama all aimed at teaching the students about HIV and encouraging them to feel confident to talk about HIV with their friends and family.

For most of the week we taught Grade 9 students and teaching in the Gambian classroom definitely presented its fair share of challenges. For one thing learning here is very strongly focused on memorization and regurgitation. Independent and abstract though is not really fostered and students often fear contributing unless they know the correct answer so getting them to "take a guess" is very difficult. The classroom atmosphere is very teacher centric--the teacher stands at the front of the class and talks at the students. The way we as Americans teach students is in a very child centered way and this is completely foreign to the students. It takes them a while to realize that we're not going to chastise them if they get the answer wrong or yell at them for asking a question if they don't understand something. Additionally, though most of these students understand a fair amount of English there was still a pretty high language barrier. We asked all schools to put two teachers in each classroom to observe and also to help translate things into local language when that became necessary. When the teachers were present, both physically and mentally, it worked out great but when that wasn't the case teaching and classroom management were definitely difficult. There were, despite the challenges, many times during the week when you could see something in a students mind click with understanding. When explaining how HIV attacks the immune system we drew a picture of the human body, the picture looks kind of like a football play with viruses coming in to the body to make it sick and how the immune system, or "blood soldiers", attack the virus to keep the body healthy. On the first day of the trek, at Essay Upper Basic School, I walked into the classroom at the break and came across a group of students all drawing the picture for each other and explaining how HIV works. later in the lesson we played a game called "Hyenas and Goats" where the students take on the roles of baby and adult goats and hyenas to show how the immune system (adult goats) protects the human body (baby goat) and how when HIV takes away the immune system, opportunistic infections (hyenas) can come harm the body. Many times during the week as students got all excited playing this game you could see the wheels of understanding starting to turn in their heads.

Just as the wheels of our bicycles turned this week as we rode from Barra to Farafenni, everyday as we stopped in Essau, Berending, Kuntair, Kerewan and Salikenne, we were able to experience many moments where students started to see, understand and discover on their own. The lessons were never perfect and in every class we were lucky if we had five or six really engaged students--but nonetheless it is those five or six who could make the difference and who will make a difference. As we were planning the bike trek the biking aspect was for the most part merely a way to get from one school to the next without having to find money for a bunch of fuel. But, for me at least, as the week went on biking started to take on a greater significance. As we moved from one place to the next I would find myself looking out across the plains of grass, baobab trees and mound of groundnuts and breathing deeply. I often found myself reflecting on my life here, my service and what type of impact my work and time spent here is having on this little country. I don't believe that I will ever be able to look back and say, "Then, that was the moment that I changed the lives of the people in Kerr Jarga." Rather it will be moments like this, project like this, that touch a few people, a few students, and help them start to think about thing a little differently. Maybe they just understand a little better how HIV is transmitted of how to protect them selves--maybe they remember that we told them they had a voice to speak loud and proud about HIV. No matter how a project like this impacts them the most important thing is that they realize they are the one who controls their future. They are in charge of their own development and they can really make a difference. If one student realized that by the end of the week than the hours and kilometers of biking and my very sore butt as a result will all have been worth it.

Written on October 27th, 2010

Last week Thursday found me spending the day in the town of Barra--on the far west end of the North Bank where I catch the ferry to go to Kombo. Erica and I had decided to meet at our favorite (and the only) bar/brothel to get a bunch of work done for the HIV/AIDs bike trek. Trust me the irony of our meetings location did not escape us. As I was heading back to KJJ I stopped in the car park to grab a small gift for my family and settled on one of the first watermelons of the season. At 20D (less than $1) it was an excellent choice. It was only later that night as we were sitting around under the stars, chomping on slices with juice running down our faces that it dawned on me, "It's the middle of October and I am eating a watermelon."

Granted the seasons here are very different so the fact that October is when watermelons start to get ripe is more amusing than amazing. The more surprising realization was that I hadn't eaten any watermelon since last November. With electricity, green houses and Americas "super market culture" you can get almost anything all year round, even when its not in season, as long as you're willing to pay the price. Though I'm not a frequent watermelon eater in Vermont in the middle of February I have been to my fair share of brunches where fruit salad prominently features watermelon when there are four inches of snow outside. Here that most definitely is not the case, we eat what you can buy at the market and what you can buy in the market is what can be grown NOW. This inevitably means a lack of variety in our diet but also we get our fill of things when they are in season. For example, right now my family has pumpkin coming out our ears so we have pumpkin at every meal. During the weeks when mangoes were ripe I was averaging two or three mangoes a day. Though I am getting understandably sick of pumpkin I remind myself to enjoy it now because once its finished that's another year before I'll be able to eat it again.

The seasonality of produce here makes going to the market a constant surprise. Two weeks ago at the big market on Saturday I found huge, delicious, juicy cucumbers--a pile of three--for 5D (about 10 cents). Last weekend I searched high and low but no cucumbers to be found. Next time I come across them that will definitely make my day but who knows when that will be.

In my daydreams about home food plays a prominent role, especially spinach, tomatoes, asparagus and strawberries, but as I think about all those things I wonder if I would appreciate them more in America if they were not constantly available to me? I understand and strongly support the argument that we should consume locally available foods rather than eating strawberries in February which come to us via gallons of fuel and subsequent environmental pollution. But there is also something to be said for variety as a marker of good nutrition. A diet consisting of rice, tomato paste, onions, oil and pumpkin is arguably far less balanced and nutritious than eating rice, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, onions, carrots etc. For people in the Gambia and America the factors that prohibit us from eating a balanced diet are in many ways the same--money and preference--but when it comes to access that is where things split. Gambian families don't necessarily have access to a variety of fruits and vegetables all year round while for most Americans they just need to step into the produce section of their local supermarket and they have a cornucopia at their fingertips.

Now I'm not arguing in favor of using gas guzzling trucks to ship watermelons from California to Vermont in the middle of the winter but I think it's important to realize that all the talk of buying locally and seasonally comes from a position of privilege and choice. Where for some it's not a fashionable trend their buying into but rather the stark reality of how they live and eat.

All this being said next time it's snowing and you really want Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries of breakfast, DO IT, all the while thinking of how lucky you are that you live in a place with economy and infrastructure to support eating strawberries or watermelon in the winter.

Written on October 13th, 2010

Two weeks ago one of my many aunts here had a baby boy. He is beautiful and healthy, a huge relief after she had a very difficult pregnancy (her ninth) which culminated in our local health center deciding that it was to risky for her to deliver here. She therefore went to the capital, Banjul, so she could have the baby at the hospital there. I gave here the D50 (about $2) it took for her to get there and went to explain to her husband why she needed to go. When she brought home this tiny and beautiful, wrinkly person I knew it was probably the best way I've spent my money in a long time.

The new baby, Mbarra, made me start to wonder how the babies and young kids here perceive me. For the most part I'm fairly certain that the four and five year olds realize that I am (a) not from the Gambia and (b) have a biological family somewhere else that looks more like me. I think however for the babies and two year olds, maybe even three year olds things are a little less clear. I feel like they just see me as another adult in their world who looks a little funny and who can't really speak Wolof. An example of this is my baby host brother, Mam Goor, who is about fifteen months old. At this point I've been in his life since he was five months old. Therefore, I fully believe that he sees me as a member of the family and merely wonders why I look and act so ridiculous. Now that he can walk he comes of to my house and hangs out, I give him food, take care of him when his mom goes to the fields and sometimes even carry him on my back around the village. These actions all send the message that I am the same as every other adult women in his life. And in many ways I am.

Another small child who seems a bit confused by me is the three year old, host brother/cousin/child on loan from Senegal, Bakar Jeng. Bakar constantly blabbers away at me in Wolof and then gets furious with me when I don't understand. Kids in general will blabber at me in Wolof but they don't expect a response because they know I can't understand Wolof like other adults. Something about the way Bakar talks to me however makes me thing that he really doesn't see me as anything more than possibly an albino Gambian.

All this pondering also leads me to wonder how these kids who have such a close relationship with me will remember me after I am gone and interact with other toubabs in the future. The standard Gambian child reaction to white people is sheer and utter terror. Blood-curdling screams, frantic scrambling to get as far away as possible, tears, shrieking and frozen terror have all been my reception. But for these kids who I have the pleasure of spending everyday with they hopefully will not have such a violent fear of white people in the future.

I hope that for these kids their experiences with me will help them to understand and believe in the future that we really are all one people. (This is a favorite bumster line--along with "it's nice to be nice") Bumster or not this is a pretty accurate/positive statement for this situation. Having been in the Gambia for almost a year I have seen first hand how being an honest, open, kind and caring person can make you a member of a family, no matter how much paler you are. The moral of the story is that I hope these kids grow up to realize that though one of these things (Ramatoulie) does not look like the others here she is still one of us.

Written on September 10th, 2010

Yesterday as I was taking my bucket bath I was listening to the BBC and a discussion program where they were talking about a small church in the US which is planning on burning the Koran this weekend to mark the anniversary of September 11th. The timing of this outrageous act of insensitivity is ironic because yesterday was the last day of the Muslim lunar month of fasting, Ramadan and today is Koriteh, or Eid al Fitar, which is the day long celebration of the end of Ramadan. It made me feel sad that people from my country would feel entitled to completely disrespect all Muslims around the world so heinously because of the horrible actions of a few extremists.

I also found myself reflecting on my Ramadan experience and what it has taught me about Islam. I was gone for the first two and a half weeks of Ramadan but when I got back from vacation in Cape Verde I found KJJ to be very different from when I left it. During the month of Ramadan the entire adult population of KJJ (above the age of 12-13) fasts from before sunrise at about 5:30 am to sunset at about 7:30 pm. During this period they don't eat or drink and they even try not to swallow their saliva--this results in spitting everywhere, health concerns abound but that's a blog for another day. Pregnant women, kids, chronically ill and the very old are allowed to abstain from fasting. Women don't have to fast when they have their period and if you're sick you can take a day off but you have to make the days missed up later after the month is over. Ramadan is very physically taxing and all of the adults in my compound have noticeably lost weight.

For some reason however Ramadan also imparted a vacation like atmosphere on my village. Since the only people eating lunch are the kids they just have left overs from the night before so without the burden of cooking lunch women's work loads are seriously diminished. This meant alot more time to sit around in the shade chatting and relaxing. Also napping during the day became even ore acceptable than usual.

What I enjoyed most about Ramadan was the meals I shared with my family at the beginning and end of the day. At 5 am I would be awoken by the sound of one of my moms or Ndene, my host brother, knocking on my door, "Toulie, Toulie kaay nu xeda." (Toulie, Toulie come eat the break fast) Stumbling out into the early dawn you could still see stars and it was always a little chilly, the six of us would huddle around the food bowl in an early morning daze. Few words were exchanged except the morning greetings and prayers for a successful day. It's hard to put into words why this time was so special but perhaps the best way to describe it is that it was a simple family moment and it was nice to be a part of it. After this very early morning breakfast I would open my windows and fall back into bed sleeping easily until 9--a very large feat here. The day would proceed from there pretty uneventfully: greetings, visiting and exclaiming how difficult fasting is. The day would begin to wind down at around 5:30 or 6 as everyone was so tired and hungry/thirsty they couldn't do much of anything. At around 7 pm we would all slowly gather in the middle of the compound collectively waiting for the sunset and mosques call to prayer signaling that we could eat and drink. To break fast we would eat bread and drink cups of hot sweet tea made from leaves found in the bush. About an hour later dinner would be served and we would all eat until the bowl was licked clean and fall into bed exhausted by the prospect of doing it all again tomorrow. (Maybe that was just me)

Last night we waited to break fast with more anticipation because it was the last day of fasting. The end of Ramadan is marked when you can see the sliver of the new moon. For some villages they wait for the imam to actually see it, so if the night is cloudy for example and you can't see the moon you keep fasting. Some places just accept that if someone somewhere, even in Guinea Bissau or Mali, sees it then Ramadan is over. Last night however we could all see the sliver of the moon clearly so today we party.

This morning we ate breakfast at 9:30!! and since then Yaay Sarjo, Mbayang and I have been cooking sauce (potatoes fried with goat meat, onion, pepper, garlic, mustard and Maggi) for lunch. My compound and the two neighboring compounds will all come together to eat lunch--kind of like a Gambian Thanksgiving. Therefore each compound cooks as much sauce as they can and it all gets put together so in the end everyone has enough to eat. Its 3:30 pm and its raining so lunch will probably still be a while--if this had been yesterday during Ramadan I would be fin but now knowing that lunch is there, cooking, almost ready to be eaten I am about to eat my own arm. But I know that in the end the waiting will make lunch taste that much better and as I've learned about Islam in the Gambia through this experience of Ramadan, it is the collective experience and sharing that makes this place so special. In conclusion, don't burn the Koran, just like everything else we can learn a lot from it if we take sometime to listen and understand.

Written at the end of August 2010

It dawned on me at the beginning of August that I had been in the Gambia for almost ten straight months. Time seems to have flown by as I adjust and settle in to life here but at the same time ten months straight in the Gambia....is well...ten months in the Gambia and needless to say I was very happy that Fern and I had had the foresight in June to plan a week long vacation to Cape Verde--a small country made up of a group of islands in the Atlantic off the coast of Senegal. Now first of all, I have to clarify our use of the word plan because it helps explain a lot of our trip; by plan I mean we bought plane tickets and took vacation days. I guess we figured if we could figure out Gambia a week in Cape Verde couldn't be that difficult.

And it wasn't--far from it actually--CV was everything we were looking for in a vacation destination even if we didn't know it. Beautiful, relaxing and completely different from the Gambia.

We flew from Dakar to the capital Praia (on the island of Santiago) on Tuesday August 17th. We got in in the early evening and took a cab (like an American cab with all the windows and doors working and AC!) to a budget hotel from Lonely Planet (a book that would save our butts many a time). Once settled in we set off for our first CV dinner at a restaurant that we would find out later was ridiculously overpriced. But it was our first night and we reveled in it--drinking a bottle of crisp CV white wine from the island of Fogo and listening to a traditional music performance. The next morning we were up early, actually an hour earlier than we needed to be because we didn't realize there was a time change between CV and Senegal, and at the airport to catch a flight to the island of Sao Vincente to visit the city of Mindelo. Our early time at the airport allowed us to rediscover a love of vending machines that we never knew we had.

Once in Mindelo we spent the next four days losing ourselves in its winding cobblestone streets, parks and pastel colored houses. We probably walked every street in the city enjoying the intermingling of colonial and modern buildings. The hotel we stayed at was right up the hill from the public beach so we were able to spend our afternoon lying in the sand, splashing in the waves and respectfully admiring all the Cape Verdians who were also enjoying a day at the beach. That was one thing that particularly struck me in CV was the amount of leisure time people had. One night after an amazing dinner of pizza piled with ham and pepperoni we stopped in a park to enjoy our post-dinner ice cream cones. While there we got to observe Mindelo's hoping nightlife which seemed to consist of walking around the park and/or watching people walk around the park. The teenagers were all dressed in their best outfits and walked and chatted in groups of three or four. Younger kids rode scooters or chased each other around and older women and men sat on the benches talking and no doubt gossiping about the scene. It was very refreshing to see after coming from somewhere where people, especially women, basically work from the time they get up to when they go to bed.

This outward display of enjoyment and relaxation emboldened us to truly embrace these virtues as well. We drank bottle of red wine at lunch, ate pizza, salami, cheese and crackers. We stopped in little bakerys to buy cakes. I spent a few hours one night eating a succulent grilled lobster. But more than anything else in Mindelo we had ice cream and coffee. The pursuit of these two things became a bit of a singular obsession. Once we got to know the city we would go on walks but really we would take walks between different ice cream locations. The ice cream truck at the beach came to recognize us and in one day alone we had probably six ice cream cones (in our defense however the cones are small one or two scoops--like gelatto). Hand in hand with our pursuit of ice cream was the pursuit of coffee particularly espresso in the form of cafe au lait but realistically anything that wasn't instant NesCafe. The best coffee we had in Mindelo was at a seedy-ish bar/cafe with Avril Lavigne posters on the wall across from the bright pink municipal palace. It was rich and creamy, so good that we had two--except two of these coffees on an empty stomach turned out to have the same effect as perhaps vodka shots and we left feeling giddy and a little intoxicated--but maybe it was just because Mindelo was so beautiful.

Our initial reason for traveling to Mindelo was not however the prospect of ice cream or coffee but the annual 3-day Baia des Gates (Bay of Cats) music festival. Friday the 20th was Fern's birthday and also the first day of the festival. We got up that morning eager to see what a CV music festival would be like--by 10:30 we were flying out of Mindelo on a public transport mini bus (aluguer) that took us over barren hills and on windy two land cobblestone roads to the Bay of Cats, "Baia". Turns out a CV event is very much like any event in the Gambia. When we arrived there at 11 it was very clear that nothing was starting until much much later (the stage was only 1/2 assembled). So we admired the bay--shallow turquoise water edged by black volcanic looking rocks which broke the waves off the shore, all with the backdrop of soaring black and brown hills. So after wandering around a bit and wading in the bay we headed back to Mindelo and amused ourselves with ice cream and wine until that evening when we headed back. Baia was transformed by 5 pm! Beautiful, eerie CV music was blasting from a band onstage, tents were pitched all along the shore and the entire area was ringed with stalls selling beer, grilled meat and even ice cream. We reveled in the fun concert atmosphere making friends with the Senegalese selling crafts and speaking to them in Wolof/Pulaar, dancing with a young CV man named Allen who danced like Michael Jackson, glove and everything, at a club stall called Delirious and eating all kinds of grilled meat. We listened to three concerts and by 2 am were so tired and full of beer and meat that we drowsily made our way back to Mindelo and fell into bed.

By the next evening (Saturday) we were back on the island of Santiago in Praia and up bright and early on Sunday to make our way to Tarrafal, a small town with a beautiful white sand beach 70 km from Praia on the other side of Santiago. To get there we took an aluguer which snaked its way all along the coast. It was breathtaking driving through the green hills and valleys, stopping in small towns with markets in the cobblestone squares. The smaller villages featured houses clustered around the road with their backyards opening out into nothing as the hill abruptly slopped down. Once we got to Tarrafal we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our trip there. Our reasonably priced hotel was right on the beach and the day we showed up happened to be the day of a hip hop festival so dance music was pumping out over the speakers was beautiful CV men and women, young and old walked along the beach chatting, swimming and dancing. Fern and I sat back mostly in awe. Donuts, chicken skewers, meat sandwiches, fruit and beer abounded and reveled in the bounty. Monday morning however brought a transformed, empty beach as all the beautiful Cape Verdians went back to life and work and we were left with a pristine white beach on which to lie in the sun, eat torta and read trashy books. We had been attracted to Tarrafal because the Lonely Planet claimed it had a fire grilled pizzeria and on our last night said restaurant did not disappoint. Tuesday morning we bid Tarrafal goodbye and headed back to Praia where we spent our last day getting our fill of wandering down cobblestone streets, shopping in Chinese shops (which we found everywhere--full of cheap clothes, jewelry and makeup) and eating donuts and ice cream. Wednesday morning (August 25th) we were once again at the airport to early and after a four hour delay found ourselves leaving Cape Verde behind and headed back to our homes--mud huts in the middle of Gambia. We both agreed that the vacation was just what we needed. Getting a little reacquainted with semi-civilization was refreshing but in the end I just wanted to get back to my village, get back to work, get back to my family and friends and get back to speaking Wolof. And in the end isn't the best part of vacation the fact that it refreshes you and reinvigorates you to go back home. So for that I would like to thank Cape Verde: its beautiful beaches, hills, people and ice cream.

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Written on August 7th, 2010

A wonderful part of being a Peace Corps Volunteer, other than getting to live in a foreign country and helping people, is having lots of free time to do things you've always wanted to do but never had time for. You can read all these books you've always meant to read but never had the time to, try new hobbies, practice drawing, write poetry etc.

One such activity for me is gardening. Despite my last name I've never really has a very green thumb. I love being outside and observing nature but I've never really been one for growing things. I'm the girl who couldn't grow a potted flower in a Ben & Jerry's pint container that you just had to water and I'm pretty sure my senior year at Beloit I killed a cactus. Also, gardening has always kind of intimidated me.

Here in the Gambia however its the rainy season. This means most members of my village are spending a considerable amount of time in their fields and when they're not in the fields they're resting/exhausted from all that manual labor. Needless to say they have neither the time or energy for health talks or demonstrations or project planning meetings. Also, school is out so I don't have peer health or health lessons to fill my days. This drastic slow down in my work, along with the arrival of seeds from Courtney in a package made me think I should get off my butt, face my fears, and start gardening.

I decided to set up the Lindsey Green Inaugural garden beds at the skills center because of the good fence and hand pump but realized after I committed that I had picked an extremely public space, meaning my successes or failures will all be out there for the village to admire or criticize. But as they say "What better place than here, what better time than now."

So this week my army of small boys and I tackled the skills center project under the watchful, and sometimes overly critical, eye of my counterpart, the chain smoking attaya drinking skills center manager.

We cleared a patch of land and made three raised beds. Today I planted my first crop with seeds from Grandpa Bill, carrot, beets, squash and beans. I'm cautiously optimistic that it will work but also prepared for absolutely nothing to grow.

My gardening exploits have obviously got me thinking about how much of my Peace Corps service is a game of trial and error. Everything is a risk and I feel like most activities have a fifty-fifty chance of success or failure. Though this is sometimes incredibly frustrating and discouraging I also think, when else in my life will I be able to so freely just try things for the hell of it and see how it goes-whether that's gardening, a shorter haircut or a community development project.

Though I've signed up to spend two years of my life helping the development of the Gambia, I also have been given the chance to try whatever I want, within reason, for the next two years. This freedom gives me the opportunity to try to make innovative change in KJJ but also to expand myself. If I want to try vegetable gardening why the hell not? If I want to try poetry I can grab a pen and write, if I want to have short hair I can do just that. When I get frustrated I feel its important to remind myself of this and to not let fear or self-doubt discourage me either. I might dry out/drown/kill all of my plants but whats the hurt in trying??

Written on July 14th, 2010

Since the rains really started to fall at the end of June almost everyday my compound empties out from about 8:30 am to 12:30 pm as everyone goes to work in the fields. In my village the main crops are groundnuts and coos (a type of millet-like grain). For the first few weeks only Baay Waly and the boys went to plow and sow the seeds but now that seedlings are beginning to pop up everyone goes out to weed and hoe. Today that included me.

Now that school has finished I'm much less busy with health lessons and peer health club meetings so why not spend the morning "working the land"?

Baay Waly's coos fields are about 1/2 kilometer outside of KJJ so after breakfast Yaay Amie and I walked into the bush. Once at the fields we all spent the morning bent over at the waist weeding and thinning the coos. For the record coos and grass/weeds looks exactly the same so in my mind this was not an easy process. As usual I was quickly deemed slow and incompetent so my host brother Ous had to lead me up and down the rows saying "Ramatoulie start here." While Alhagie walked beside me assessing and correcting my work. "Ramatoulie, get rid of this. Leave this. Reduce this. NO!!! Don't get rid of that, that's coos"

It was a beautiful day with a blue blue sky, white white clouds and green green fields and trees. I realize that I had the luxury of reveling in all this beauty because I will not be going to work in the fields everyday for the next few months. But nevertheless it was a nice day to be out in the bush.

We worked for about three hours pausing every so often to squat in the shade. After about an hour consensus was reached that I knew how to farm. Phew! I was relieved to know that at least for today I was considered a productive member of the family. After three hours of running after Ous I was told that I needed to rest and was sent to collect bissap leaves for the sauce for lunch. Upon returning I found some very antsy host siblings sitting in the shade of the donkey cart, so what's a good toubab to do? Teach them a song of course! So I proceeded to translate and sing "Old McDonald had a farm" in Wolof. The "eeyah-eeyah-oh!" was every ones favorite part and Yaay Amie even joined in the fun at one point doing a killer impression of a goat. So that was my day on Baay Waly's farm.

Written on June 28th, 2010

A few weeks ago I was talking on the phone to someone from home about my host family and she exclaimed, "I never realized you have two host moms" implying that she didn't realize that I live in a polygamous family. So yes folks, I have two moms, Yaay Amie and Yaay Sarjo. Yaay Amie is Baay Waly's first wife and she has four kids. Yaay Sarjo is his second wife and she has five kids but Yaay Sarjo's oldest is probably around 15 so its safe to say that my family has been a big happy family for a while now and has thus had a while to figure out how to live harmoniously.

The fact that my friend hadn't realized that my family was polygamous caused me to consider how, if at all, my life here is affected by this fact. The answer is not a whole hell of a lot, which is probably why I never thought to mention it before. From afar, coming from an American cultural context, it was very difficult for me to imagine living in a polygamous family and furthermore to imagine that I would mostly have positive things to say about it.

First, polygamy is common in the Gambia. According to Islam a man can have up to four wives. Here, it seems to me, the norm is about two. In my village if a man has multiple wives he has two, I can think of some with three and only a handful who have four.

Husband and wife relations here are very different than in America. This is a conservative, patriarchal society so the women are the "work horses" of the family, they cook, clean, raise the children and farm on top of that. The men are responsible, in theory, for financially supporting the family and they are the decision makers. Men and women don't share the same house or bed here and as for sexual rights men hold all the cards.

Due to the women's role in the family polygamy can actually end up being a benefit because having a co-wife means splitting all the work. In my family Yaay Sarjo and Yaay Amie alternate cooking so they only have to cook every other day. If one of them has to do something the other person can pick up the slack. For example, right now Yaay Amie has gone to Senegal for a week to attend her younger sisters wedding/naming ceremony. This is only possible because Yaay Sarjo is still here. For now Yaay Amie is mostly the only one to enjoy this benefit of polygamy because Yaay Sarjo has a ten month old baby but as they get older I think they both will be able to start attending programs out of town. In other compounds this division of labor also holds true and in most compounds there is so much extended family living together that work is split between the multiple wives of multiple husbands.

I think its important to note that my positive view of polygamy, expressed here, mostly comes from the fact that my two moms get along really well. As time goes on I realize more and more what wonderful people Yaay Amie and Yaay Sarjo are. They are kind, considerate and powerful in their own unique ways. They get along because it seems that first, they are friends, second,they help each other and third, they have some groups of friends that are the same and some that are different so they're not constantly together. The other weekend Yaay Amie's friend in Kuntair had an engagement ceremony and Yaay Sarjo and I went with her and spent the day at the program. Because we were gone all day we brought the baby, Mam Goor, with us and throughout the day I was touched by how Yaay Amie made sure Yaay Sarjo was doing OK by helping with Mam Goor and keeping us all fed and full of attaya.

Now, though I think polygamy works well in my family, I am in no way jumping on the bandwagon. As I frequently say, when turning down marriage proposals from already married men, "If I only get to have one husband, my husband only gets to have one wife." My number one problem with polygamy is that it represents an overarching societal patriarchy. Women here are not equal to men and do not have very many personal freedoms. From the time they are girls they have very little agency in deciding how they live their lives or spend their time. The fact that most Gambian women lack these freedoms and human rights can be difficult for me to observe on a daily basis. But this shouldn't lead you to believe that Gambian women are weak, rather they are very strong and from my perspective its because they find contentment within their situation. If you're going to have a co-wife you might as well try to be friends with her and in that friendship something beautiful and powerful can be found.

Written on June 26th, 2010

So tonight was the "Group of 16" World Cup game between the USA and Ghana. I went to Kerr Omar today to work on a project proposal with Asso and Mamet but made it very clear that I needed to be back to KJJ before the game. So at 6:30 I made my way over to the skills center where myself and most of the KJJ male population between the ages of 12 and 45 crowded around the tiny TV. The second I walked in it was very clear that no one was going to take toubab pity on me and support USA to make me feel better. Once Ghana scored in the first ten minutes all hopes of building some base of support for myself within the group was shot. After the first half when we were still down 1-0 Mr. Sanyand, the nursery school teacher, looked at me with deep pity in his eyes and told me "not to be sad." It was interesting because until then I hadn't really thought about how they were perceiving my cheering. I think that my presence is so strange (women never ever attend the matches) and the fact that I know anything/follow football is so unexpected that they assume I am a huge devotee rather than the textbook definition of a fair-weather fan. In addition however I was surprised at the surge of nationalism I felt after we equalized in the second half. Being away from the US in a place like this, representing America as a Peace Corps volunteer definitely makes me watch a game like this much differently than I would in the US. When I talked to my Mom briefly today she told me that they probably would watch and not root for America and I thought, "If I was home that probably would be me too."

After the pain of 90 minutes in an ever growing group of Gambian men with ever increasing levels of rowdiness I still had to sit through the 30 minute extra time. When Ghana scored at the beginning the room erupted in screaming, clapping and dancing and all I could think was, it sucks that were losing but witnessing this explosion of joy makes it totally worth it. As I walked home under the full moon to the calls of victory and apology I was a little sad (but I'm a Red Sox fan so I can handle it) but mostly excited that I would get to see Ghana continue to represent Africa in Africa's World Cup while living in an African village.

[As I type this now, last night Ghana lost to Uruguay in shoot outs. It was very disappointing. Since I was in Kombo I got to watch the match on a huge projector screen at a bar in Kombo. Right after the end of regulation time a huge storm hit and the satellite power cut out. We had to run four blocks in the pouring rain to get a taxi to go back and watch the conclusion of the match at the small Lebanese restaurant around the corner from the Peace Corps House. Needless to say the drizzling rain matched our moods afterwards.]

Written on June 6th, 2010

Today was the Islamic school equivalent of an end of year school assembly and school play all rolled into one. All of the kids and most of the village gathered under a big neem tree and one by one each kid went up and recited (in a very sing-y way) a portion of the Koran. The kids were all dressed in their best clothes--complets, clean jeans and even a "Barack Hussein Obama" shirt. My host brothers, Alieu, Ous and Alhagie were beautifully coordinated--not on purpose--in purple, orange and mustard yellow complets. As each kid came up they turned their eyes down, gripped the microphone tightly and put it as close to their mouths as possible in the hopes, I think, that this would muffle their recitation so not as many people could hear it. Like any good situation of public speaking there were forgotten lines and tears. But my four host brothers all did great. I took pictures of them all with my digital camera, like the good toubab older sister I am, and did feel a surge of pride every time on of them went up. I think its because I know what good, kind and happy kids they are and it was nice to see them each have their moment to shine. By lunch the program was over so we all shuffled home for a family lunch of bena chin and baobab juice. Quite a Sunday!

Written on June 1st, 2010

This past weekend I went on my first Gambian sleepover. I have spent time away from my site in other villages but always in the relative comfort of another PCV's house. This time however I was going to stay with my friend Asso in a village about a 30 minute bike ride from me. After lunch on Friday I set out, not before Yaay Sarjo and Yaay Amie independently verified that I had brought the right amount of complets for the weekends events. I was to stay over Friday night and then attend a big village religious event on Saturday and go home on Sunday morning. I predicted that the sleepover would be a test of my integration, patience, Wolof skill, flexibility and sanity, and in these aspects I wasn't wrong.

I wouldn't say that the principles of the Gambian sleepover are all that much different from the American sleepover: to spend time with friends, see a different family and how they live and escape your own life for a while, they just manifest themselves in very different ways. Here are some of my Gambian sleepover observations:

* As an adult spending the night at a friends usually includes chatting while you prepare a meal together. In this case I illuminated dinner with my head lamp while Asso killed and cooked a chicken for me--a huge honor.

* The imposed rest--while American sleepovers are usually defined by not resting/sleeping, here I was strongly encouraged/forced to rest 85% of the time. When we were not greeting, eating or drinking attaya Asso and her family were bringing me pillows, laying down mats and mattresses all in an attempt to get me to rest. Sometimes it seems the best way to show your gratefulness/comfort in someone elses home is to fall asleep on their bed/in their presence. Don't worry though, my Mom raised me to be polite, so I did take a considerable nap on the bantaba under a large mango tree. When I woke up they were all thrilled, Asso overfed me with greasy rice and then rolled out another mattress and told me to lie down while she brewed us attaya.

* Do you remember how as a kid a huge embarrassment would be if your Mom or Dad made you do a chore while you had a friend sleeping over? Asso's mom, Yaay Mattie, took this to a whole different level. Asso is in her late 30s, but like most Gambians of her age still lives with her family. At around 9:30 pm on Saturday night we were both showered and wearing our complets ready to go drink attaya and milk at the compound of our friend Mamet. (He and Asso are Wolof literacy instructors in the village and very active members of the women's skills group.) As we were about to leave, after feeding and bathing Asso's assorted children, Yaay Mattie told Asso that before we left she needed to cook the sauce for breakfast the next morning. So 10 pm found us in the kitchen hut in Yaay Mattie's backyard cooking chicken and chopping onion. This definitely makes me appreciate that at 35 I, inshallah, won't be living with my mother and even if that is the case she probably won't make me cook breakfast at 10 pm.

Written on May 13th, 2010

This (Peace Corps) experience can often best be described as a roller coaster in every sense that that word conjures. The most frequent roller coaster element of life here is the emotional mood swings that have become a part of my existence in a way they never were before. Today was one of those days where the best way to describe me would be "a mood swinging bitchy mess." Interactions/any venture out of my house is a an emotional minefield. A lovely morning of mangoes and attaya with fun women or an hour spent in bliss on my mat drawing with my host brothers will be decimated by one stray comment on the size of my butt or the way I speak Wolof. The pendulum swings back and forth at a break neck speed but inevitably on those types of days there comes a moment or interaction where I say--"That's it Lindsey, time to stop trying and call it a day." These moments usually happen at the pendulums extreme either an infuriating or beautiful moment. Luckily today's was the latter.

I had decided early this morning to cook dinner for myself and had bought a bowl full of bissap leaves (I was hoping they could king of imitate spinach) and some garlic and onions to make a kind of "development" spinach noodle curry. I really enjoy cooking dinner for myself three or four times a week because it breaks the monotony of rice and gives me a chance to supplement/balance my diet a little. Cooking can also however be a bit of a trying experience because like everything I do here I tend to attract a crowd of my host siblings who come in my house and all want to help/go through my stuff.

Today however was different, I put on a Bruce Springsteen based play list from my iPod and mentally prepared myself for the "kong kong" outside my door. Tonight however only my adorable and amazing little host brother Alieu showed up at my door. Alieu has become the kid who I spend the most time with, he has a great smile, little voice, pants that are constantly falling down and a killer rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Alieu came into my house proclaiming, "Ramatoulie, today I'm going to help you cook dinner because I know how." So Alieu perched on my food trunk and pet my new kitten, Biskrem, gently like I had showed him. The "help" he provided me was more mental than anything else. He poured the bissap leaves into my pot and then happily munched away on the excess ones. While we waited for it all to simmer down we danced to "Black Betty" and "Up On Cripple Creek." Alieu's smile erased all of the days frustration. When our "spinach curry" was ready I put Alieu's portion in a Tupperware and he proudly brought it outside to share. I had been able to convince him that he was instrumental in cooking dinner so much so that by the end he was proclaiming, "Ramatoulie, the dinner I cooked was very nice!" When the Tupperware was empty he licked the sides clean and handed it back to me, smiling with bissap curry all over his face.

If that's not enough to make you smile than I don't know what is.

Written on May 7th, 2010

I just made it through 36 hours of wedding/engagement celebrations in KJJ. The past two days have been all but consumed with Gambian matrimony and it has been a truly fascinating cultural experience. It all started yesterday afternoon. Baay Saney--a relative/close family friend--was sending his daughter Amie to her husbands compound (which is half way across the village). In the Gambia there are many different stages of marriage. First is the giving of the kola nuts which is basically an engagement, next is the "tying of the knots" where the two family heads/representatives finalize the bride price and the couple is then married. After the tying of the knots is the "chit" or wedding ceremony which is when the bride moves to her husbands compound. Years can go by between the tying of the knots and wedding because it can take a while for the husbands family to fulfill their bride price obligations and this must happen before the bride will be permanently given to the grooms family. Before that however the bride can be given on a "loan" to perform certain wifely duties so often, such as in this case, the bride moves to her husbands compound having already given birth to their first child.

But once the wedding ceremony actually happens that's a whole different experience. The brides family and friends will bring all manner of compound essentials (mainly laundry buckets, food bowls and fabric) and money to the brides compound. This is followed by a loud display of all these items. The griots (praise singers) and drummers come and all the women dance like crazy in celebration. After the gifts are displayed everyone eats a lot of cherey, bena chin and drinks attaya.

The attaya is essential because that night is the sabara--which is a whole night of drumming and dancing. Last night I headed to the sabara at around 10:30. At around 11 they started preparing the area, putting together a circle of benches and splashing the ground (and participants feet) liberally with water. At 11:30 they dug a hole in the ground--stuck a big stick in it and suspended a cheap camping lantern from it. Aside from the stars this was our source of light. Around midnight the band--a few standing drums, an under the arm talking drum, calabash guitar and man with a scratchy voice and scratchier megaphone was set up and got started. To my untrained ear every song sounds exactly the same but the women cheered and clapped at the different praises sung in each one. Women and girls ran up to the center of the circle stomping their feet, shaking their hips and moving their butts in ways I never thought possible. Bathed in the starlight it was breath taking and I tried to sit back and absorb the amazing energy. Of course I went up to dance a few times but the best part was in their joy and excitement they really could have cared less if the toubab danced. By 1:30 I could barely keep my eyes open so I joyfully stumbled home in the dark. But the dancing continued until at least 3:30.

Today was the second half of the wedding ceremony where the bride goes to the husbands compound. If she is going to another village a group of older women will usually go with her but because this was all within KJJ we all escorted her to her new compound. This took the form of a cross village procession of singing, drumming and dancing. At the husbands compound all of the gifts from the brides friends and family are unloaded and given away to the grooms family and friends. This is of course accompanied by more singing, dancing and drumming.

An added element to all of these wedding shenanigans is the ashobe. Think bridesmaids dresses on crack. Groups will all buy the same fabric and get outfits made out of it so you look out at a carpet of fabric. It always reminds me of the scene at the beginning of Garden State when he puts on the shirt that matches the bathroom wallpaper. For this wedding we all (myself included) were visions in orange. The older women (like my host moms) had one print and the young women (me and my host sisters) had another but they were both bright orange. Just consider it one more ridiculous and hilarious experience for Lindsey in The Gambia.

Written on April 27th, 2010

Oh food. Here in the Gambia it is both my enemy and my best friend. It sustains me, it makes me violently ill, it makes me feel happy, it makes me want to scream and vomit at the same time, it is a constant reminder of my "outsiderness" and a great comfort when the going gets tough.

So, you may be wondering, what exactly am I eating here. As far as Gambian food goes its rice, rice and more rice. My family eats rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On a handful of days (like the Prophet Mohamed's birthday) we've substituted rice for cheray which is a cereal called coos, pounded and milled into a flour like substance that's then sifted and cooked. Both cheray and rice are served with a few different kinds of sauces. My family rotates through two most consistently.

The first is called "chew" and its basically rice with fish cooked in an oil (vegetables or palm) sauce with vegetables (egg plant, cabbage, carrot, bitter tomato), onions, tomato paste, salt, pepper, Jumbo (an MSG cube) and hot pepper. Some days I like chew but it is by far the most common dish in my village so I get sick of it pretty quickly. The women love to cook it because it shows that they have enough xalis (money) to buy oil.

The second dish is called "mafe" or "domada" and this is rice with peanut sauce. The peanut sauce is made with peanut butter (which is made from the ground nuts they harvest each year), tamarind, tomato paste, hot pepper, Jumbo and sometimes dried salted fish. Mafe is definitely my favorite because a) the rice is not dripping in oil and b) I can feel all the protein seeping out of my body with every bite of peanut sauce I take. Mafe however is usually the Plan B meal for when the "Yah Boy" fish man doesn't come or there's not enough money for oil.

Another much less common meal is "sauce farine"--flour sauce--which I detest because it is a very watery version of mafe, though I do like the fish meatballs that are usually in it. For special occasions in village we get to have "bena chin" which is very oily spicy rice with meat and vegetables but because of the vat of oil it requires its to expensive for every day meals.

For breakfast we alternate between sweet and savory. Either it is some version of "mbaxal" which is spicy rice with pounded peanuts and green onion, spicy rice with fish or, my breakfast favorite, "churay gerte" which is a porridge of pounded rice and peanuts, salt and sugar.

When my mind or body just can't take Gambian food I have a trunk full of slightly more familiar alternatives. These can be found when I come into the city, in the form of yogurt, egg rolls, hamburgers, falafal, pizza and chwarma. Or in KJJ I have a trunk full of slightly more familiar alternatives. For breakfast I usually make oatmeal or cereal and tea with powdered milk. For lunch I always eat with my family but because we eat the same thing for lunch and dinner I can decide if I want to eat with my family for dinner or cook for myself. My "development cooking" experiments have so far been very successful. I've made curry a few times, macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles with vegetables and egg, tuna and my personal favorite, spicy creamy tomato sauce which is tomato paste, milk, hot peppers and whatever vegetables I can find. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the bags of dried beans I bought after swear-in.

When traditional meals aren't enough to quell my appetite I also have the comfort of cookies and candy sent from home as well as whatever fruits and snacks (salted peanuts, panketos-which are like donut holes, fish pies, oranges, cashew apples and mangos) I can find in village.

So for all my Jewish aunties out there--I am eating enough--and (most) of it is delicious.

Written on April 18th, 2010

So last night Fern, Erica and I, along with some other PCVs went to a beauty pageant--yes a Gambian beauty pageant. It was so ridiculous and amazing I don't really even think I can do it justice in writing. It was one of those times that I was sitting in equal amazement and shock that I had found myself experiencing this and I was eternally grateful that the stars had aligned for me to be able to witness this.

The pageant was called "Queen of Companies 2010" and claimed loosely to be a fundraiser for kids education, mostly it was an excuse for each of the sponsoring companies to get women who work for them to strut their stuff and show their knees.

There were two very Gambian hosts, a male and a female. The male host had some great one liners and hit relentlessly on his female counterpart. She spent the evening scowling and looking confused. The male host started the evening by declaring "Tonight I am going to be the king of all queens," and very clearly stated, "I was informed by an informant that information has been shared." I wasn't quite sure about that one.

The beauty pageant's opening consisted of the eleven contestants participating in a five song opening dance number which consisted of much arm flailing and confused dancing. They moved from the stage to the runway all the while competing for attention and strutting with a combination of grace and awkwardness. At one point the competition for the coveted spot at the end of the runway got to be to much a a girl fell down. After the awe inspiring opening number was the traditional dress portion where each of the girls danced their way out onto the runway and then introduced themselves. Most of them were between 18 and 20 and almost every ones interests included reading (something I've never seen a Gambian do) and surfing the net. They also often mentioned people they admired, popular options were "my mom" and Kofi Annan but the best was a women who stated, "Michael Jackson is my hero because of his love for children." She went on to express the aspiration, "I want to be a surgeon so I can help my people like Michael has helped our people with his music." I took this to be an indication of the lack of news accessible to Gambians--apparently MJs trial didn't make it over here.

After the introductions while each Queen changed into her "fashion" outfits we got a stunning performance by some rap group who lip synched to a song that was blasting over the speakers at a deafening volume while the back up dancers sulked around in their saggy pants and swung around weird yellow towels. After the stunning musical performance an executive from Youki, a Gambian soda company, came up and expounded, "If you try Youki today, your tomorrow will be very different." Seeing as Youki grapefruit has vastly changed how I consume gin packets I would say that is definitely true. After this the Queens did a brief runway show of their Western "casual" outfits. It started out in a very lady like manner with each Queen getting her chance at the runway. By the end however it devolved into women running into each other and bumping shoulders down the runway.

After the fashion portion there was more horrible lip synching and a very strange comedy routine. It was in English but you couldn't understand any of what they were saying. Basically it was two men in skin tight leggings goofing around on the runway and shaking their butts/clenching their butt muscles. They had a field day with all the toubab presence and proceeded to make jokes about us that we couldn't understand other than the brilliant lines, "Toubabs speak out of their butts and kill your mothers." To add to the annoying nature of their performance they stole the lollipop I was sucking on to stay awake. The next section of the beauty pageant consisted of the Queens giving presentations about the companies they were representing. Ms. Africell (a cell phone company) bribed us all with free lanyards and holders for our cell phones. Overall however whatever sales talents these women had was minuscule at best. They mostly just stuck out their boobs to emphasize the company name on their skintight T-shirts. By the time the product presentations were done it was probably close to 2:30 am and we had talent, Q & A and evening gowns remaining. The three of us took quick power naps on sofas in the lobby and were able to stay awake long enough to see half the talent section which consisted of the Queens lip synching to dated American pop and hip hop; think Whitney Huston, Toni Braxton, Beyonce, Cassie, J-Lo etc. They all forgot about the mic they were "singing" into after the first thirty seconds and then proceeded to dance with moves commonly seen in close proximity to a stripper pole. After a rousing number by Ms. Africell with a guitar as a prop it was almost 4 am. As the sun rose over the Gambian beauty pageant we made our way home exclaiming the whole way about the glorious ridiculousness of what we had just seen.

Written on April 8th, 2010

Dedicated to the past and present staff of The Planning Commissioners Journal

[In a recent email it was brought to my attention that I haven't really described the village of Kerr Jarga Jobe (KJJ) yet for all of you. So here comes my attempt to paint you a picture of a small Gambian village.]

KJJ is a small-ish village of between 60-65 compounds. Compounds can have anywhere from 5 to 35 residents and their respective houses. Houses are usually either square one room grass roof huts, like mine, or row houses with multiple doors that lead into 1 or 2 rooms with separate or communal backyards. Inside the house is used mainly for sleeping resting and seeking shade/temperature relief while doing work like shelling peanuts. I would say that 80-90% of socializing and 95% of work takes place outside. The backyard serves as bathroom, bathing area, kitchen and laundry room. The front or communal space in the center of the compound is used for socializing, working, eating, resting, fires for light and/or warmth, attaya brewing and sleeping under the stars.

My living situation, i.e. the fact that I have a house and backyard of my own is not the norm--usually only the head of the compound has this luxury. For everyone else their days, nights and even beds are shared with their mothers, children, brothers and sisters etc. It becomes easy to understand why American notions of privacy and personal space are not really understood here.

Now imagine yourself standing on Gambia's North Bank highway (a two lane road), your coming from the west and on your left about 1/4 of a kilometer off the road beyond the spindly trees and dry grass you will see the beginning of KJJ. The village center with the grand mosque is probably 1/2 to 3/4 km from the NB road but with time and growth the village has moved from the center out towards the main road. My compound is on the outskirts of town and my compound as well as those around ours represent the most recent settlement in town. There are already compounds being built beyond mine closer to the main road so eventually the village will probably start at the NB road rather than 1/4 km off of it. I suspect because the village has slowly expanded towards the road village resources--water taps, communal sitting spaces under large trees and bitiks (small variety stores essential to Gambian life) are spread out to all corners/sections of the village.

About 100 meters from my compound is the KJJ cooperative which is basically a huge parking lot with a high concrete wall around it where all of the peanuts grown by this and surrounding villages are stored until they are bought en masse by the government. Next to the cooperative is the tap my family uses and next to the tap is the village market under a big tree where every day about six women sell ingredients and vegetables to make lunch. On the left of the cooperative is the "main road" which runs from the NB road all the way into the center of town. On this road is the skills center, small mosque, small school, milling machine, my favorite bitik, the big tree where the guys who sell fish come in the morning, the district chiefs compound (with electricity) and finally the road ends in the town center.

The town center is only notable because of the large mosque with a domed robins egg blue roof which faces a large covered bantaba (a bench on steroids). Now that I think about it the "village center" is historically where the village started. The alkali's (village leader) compound is on the opposite end of the "square," but for all practical purposes it represents the norther edge of the village. Beyond the "square" and mosque the village gives way to an open savanna dotted with baobabs and one dirt path/road leading to our neighboring village, Torro Alhasan.

Aside from the hug bantaba in the center of town, the water taps and to a certain degree the skills center there are not any other public spaces in town. But at the same time even private space is public. To get most places you walk through peoples "private" compounds. The blurring/lack of distinction between public and private space is also assisted by the fact that basically everyone in the village is related in one way or another. The two most common family names are Jobe (as in KJJ--the family that founded the village) and Cham. Here, as it is everywhere else in the country, people don't move somewhere unless someone they know and are related to already lives there. My family is a fairly new addition to the village hence why we life on the edge of town, but my host father moved here because his sister is one of the district chiefs wives. This coupled with the fact that most marriages are arranged means that people move between compounds through marriage. Many who live in the village were also born here and the women who have left have left because they were married to people in other villages. Since my village is fairly close to the city there are a fair amount of people who move back and forth but this is mostly men seeking work and kids whose families send them to live with relatives in Kombo to go to school.

So there's a snapshot of KJJ, I hope I did The Planning Commissioners Journal justice! If you're dying to know more come visit!!

Written on April 5th, 2010

About a week ago Wells was visiting me. Inspired by al of his Ag-Fo-ness while we were biking to Kuntair I stopped and with the help of my tall friend collected some moringa seeds. Since I now have seeds sitting on my table waiting to be sown I decided that I should probably get to digging that compost pit I've been meaning to dig since about my first day here. On Sunday I was able to spend the morning on some preliminary digging/hacking at the ground with my machete but blisters, lunch, attaya and dancing at a wedding ceremony forced me to postpone pit completion until today. After a morning of weighing screaming babies and stuffing my face with rice and greasy fish I started finishing what I started. As usual everything I do here attracts a crowd. Pretty soon I had Bakar Jeng perched on my plastic lawn chair overseeing the work and Alieu my five year old, three foot tall shadow friend/host brother wielding a shovel because whenever I touched it he exclaimed, "Ramatoulie, you don't know and I do."

So we shuttled piles of dirt from by the compost pit around the dividing fence to a sunken in spot by my bathing area. Next we swept all the dead leaves and grass which I had been avoiding cleaning up from my backyard into the pit, next went in all of the food scraps I had saved in a tomato can and finally a bowl of foamy kidney beans from a failed attempt at chili. On top was some top soil I saved from Alieu's shovel wielding. As all this was going on Alieu kept reminding me that when we were done I should say thank you to him. So after top soil were we done?

Of course not--we were left with the piece de resistance--animal poop. Something that cannot be found in my backyard but abounds everywhere else in my compound. I went outside to consult Yaay Amie and Baay Waly and was told that everyday Yaay Amie sweeps goat and chicken poop out of the kitchen so if I just give her a tomato can she'll fill it for me--everyday. Judging my work complete I turned to Alieu to say thank you when Alieu asked--"Ramatoulie can I bring you cow poop?"

Never one to pass up that offer I agreed and Alieu and my other host brother Ous scampered off with my shovel and a big tray to collect it. I sat on my stool in the shade waiting and soon enough they were back with Alieu balancing a heaping tray of dried cow poop on his head. Just picture a three foot tall person with a 6 inch circumference tray plate heaped with cow poop on their head, wearing pink stripped saggy gym shorts that were once probably owned by a Florida retiree and an enormous proud smile. We carefully transported the tray through my house and into my backyard and dumped it into the pit. Then I turned to Alieu and Ous and said thank you.

Let the composting begin!

Written on March 29th, 2010

I recently taught my host siblings how to play crazy eights. It really wasn't that difficult because they play a very similar game here which is like a souped up version. Jacks skip, 10s reverse, 2s mean the person next to you takes two and Ace elicits the question "Are you strong?" if the next person can't also throw down an ace they take three card. All of this is done rapidly with rampant cheating and cards being slapped down everywhere. So introducing crazy eights only required me to implore them all to not cheat and wait for their turn.

We play sitting in a circle on my mat in the shade and when ever someone wins I sing "Champion, Champion" in a deep voice. Since we started our card games I noticed that my second mom-Yaay Sarjo- would often come and sit near us and curiously eye our game. Though she never joined in.

Today after lunch it was the kind of hot that makes me wish clothing was optional, the wind was blowing hard and hot so it provided absolutely no relief and made doing anything but sitting seem like a horrible task.

I was laying on my mat in the shade about to pick up pen and paper to write a letter to the walking ladies (Hi guys! I miss you), when Yaay Sarjo who was sitting near me brewing attaya said with a little hesitation in her voice. "Ramatoulie, teach me how to play cards." I was blown away, I sensed that she wanted to learn but was truly impressed that she actually asked.

Yaay Sarjo is illiterate, she's never been to school and I'm pretty sure she can't even recognize numbers. So I sat down to teach my illiterate mom to play crazy eights all the while explaining in kindergarten Wolof at best.

But she got it! Before I thought her eyes looked crazy but now I just think there is a depth of understanding behind them. After two games she was recognizing the numbers, distinguishing pretty well between the four suits. When some other younger girls came along to play she told them off when they tried to help/play for her and by the end she had beaten me!! The only thing I could think of to say in order to convey how impressed I was with her was, "Yaay Sarjo! Mus nga, yow am nga xel." Which translates to, "Yaay Sarjo you are a cat, you have a mind." Which is the only way I know of in Wolof to say you're smart--something tells me however that Yaay Sarjo understood.

Written on March 25th, 2010

So a few days ago I came home from a brief trip to my friend Wells' village. We were doing a CDDP sensitization and VDC training there for three days so I decided to spend the night with Wells rather than biking back and forth. As always in KJJ, where things are usually moving at less than a snails pace, when I leave a ton of changes suddenly and inexplicably take palce. ie. Baay Waly finally built my shade structure outside my house and surprise I have a new sort of pseudo host brother.

He is about 3 and his name is Baboucar "Bakar" Jeng and through him I am seeing KJJ and the Joof clan in a new light tuned by almost three months of calling this place home. As Bakar and the rest of my family navigate how to integrate him into my family I find myself wondering, "Is this what they felt like with me too?"

Granted I can wash my own hands and use the bathroom by myself but other than that my negotiation of the Joof's and my place within the family is much the same. My language skills are better than his, if I do say so myself (yes I can speak more Wolof than a 3 year old). But a lot of the family culture stuff I was just as lost on as little Bakar. Where to sit around the food bowl, when it's acceptable to take a nap, who to take seriously (Yaay Amie) and who to joke with (Baay Waly), and where you fit in in the fracas of it all.

So if you had to sum it up it's taken the presence of a slightly developmentally impaired three year old Senegalese/Gambian with a slight pot belly and a great smile to show me how far I have really come as Ramatoulie Joof. I know where I'm expected to sit around the food bowl, who to seek out for different information/conversation, how to peel the vegetables for our staple dish "chew" and where to put my mat around the fire. Not to say that I'm funny integrated or 100 percent sure of what's going on but at least I've learned to live with the uncertainty.

Written on March 20th, 2010

Another day another CDDP (the World Banks Community Driven Development Project) meeting that I have to mentally prepare myself for. As we plod through the packet on VDC (Village Development Committee) organization I'm struck by how slowly development goes here. I think it's partially because of culture but another large part of it is a lack of education. This lack of education effects the training in two really important ways.

It means we have to go really slowly to make sure everyone is understanding. This means asking endless clarifying questions ie. when talking about the responsibilities of every position in the VDC.

Me: Who is the chairperson? [Chairperson raises his hand.] What are the responsibilities of your job? [Chairperson lists responsibilities.]

Me: Ok, well here are the things a chairperson is commonly in charge of. [I read off a list of things.] Now, who can tell me the responsibilities of the chairperson?

[Another couple VDC members struggle to regurgitate the information I just gave.]

Also, because CDDP is a World Bank program all the training manuals and information is in English so I present in English and then one of the other people at the meeting (Lamin/Baboucar) has to then translate it into Wolof. Needless to say it is an incredibly slow process. At the end of the day I often don't feel as if I've accomplished anything. So personally I am working on realizing that developments slow pace here can mean months and months of meetings where I don't feel as if anything is being accomplished to build a base for a successful project months down the road. And that project may be as simple as a coos milling machine or a covered well but for this community it's vital. These are all things I should probably start meditating on every morning to ensure my continued sanity and stability.

Written on March 3rd, 2010

So there are lots of elements of sleeping here that I find amusing. First, every night without fail at least one and usually a number of my host siblings fall asleep outside around the fire. This happens for a number of reasons:

1) their little/run around/work all day

2) they can't sleep very soundly with 2 to 3 people to a bed with at least 4 people in each room

3) it gets dark here around 7:30 or 8 pm and we don't eat dinner until at least 9

They usually fall asleep on a mat on the ground. To get them off the mat and into bed the tactics are usually to yell their name, yell at them to go to bed, hit them hard/repeatedly while yelling and finally if none of these tactics work dragging them by the arm (while still yelling) into the house while ordering them to wash and go to bed. I think its pretty clear that I don't really believe that this is the best/most effective method for getting the kids to go to bed. Basically you let them go to bed/fall asleep when they're tired/wherever they are and then yell at them for falling asleep not in bed. It is kind of funny to observe and it make me wonder what they might do if I ever fall asleep by the fire.

Beyond the going to bed habits of my host family I think my sleeping habits are also kind of amusing. I go to bed every night by 10:30 at the latest but I usually go into my house shortly after dinner, around 9 or 9:30. I have been doing this literally almost every night for the past two months but they are still really shocked every time I say I'm going to bed. This shock is followed by an insistence that I stay and chat. The few times I have stayed to chat our "chatting" consists of sitting/lying in silence and staring at either the fire or the sky. So though chatting is also really not that much of an interaction they still insist that I must stay and chat which really means stare awkwardly at each other in silence.

Written on February 28th, 2010

So for the past week and a half I have completely packed up and emptied my house. The roof of my house has been torn off (think thatch piles and a stick frame) and replaced. Baay Waly cemented and white washed and today we just needed to sweep out the debris and I would be ready to set up shop. So like a good Gambian women in the making I grabbed my grass broom, bent at the waist and started sweeping. Pretty soon there after my youngest host sister Fatou, whose about 7 or 8, came over and wanted to help.

Fatou is a typical 7-8 year old in that she has a big personality/attitude, a sense that she knows how to do most everything and no attention to detail or attention span to do the job thoroughly/efficiently. Her sweeping strategy encapsulated all of that. Her "sweeping" was basically creating huge dust clouds whenever her broom happened to land with no methodology of how to best tackle the task. She also didn't really listen to my fragmented and grammatically in correct orders in Wolof and at one point she tried to tell me what to do. This is really not surprising behavior for any 8 year old but it nonetheless was an exercise of patience.

We must have looked amazing and crazy to an outsider. A cloud of dust following behind me as I firmly say in Wolof, "The outside, give and bring!"

When I really want to say, "Take this full dust pan outside, empty it and bring it back."

Instead of having any meaningful communication or teamwork we just continued as we were and eventually my house was clean.

Written on February 28th, 2010

In celebration of feeling normal here are somethings that no longer elicit a profound response from me.

* pit latrines

* eating rice three times a day

[this doesn't mean I particularly like these things]

* food bowl (eating from one huge bowl with my family)

* public transportation

* surviving spending the day speaking in Wolof

* spending time with my family

* fetching water and carrying a bucket on my head (not that I'm good at it)

* bucket baths (I now kind of like them but that might just be because after I feel clean)

* lowering my expectations and not feeling bad if all I did today is drink attaya and shell peanuts

* bike rides

* being hot and sweaty always

* speaking in Gambian English

* GI issues and generally strange/ridiculous bodily functions

Written on February 18th, 2010

So I just got back from walking around Kerr Jarga with Mberry and Menghe selling "naan mbourou"--"drinking bread." Which is pounded rice, baobab juice, sugar and milk in a drinkable bag. It was ironic to me how the entrepreneurial spirit of kids here is much the same as that of kids in the US who set up a lemonade stand on their street corner. But this desire for lemonade stand businesses doesn't end for people here at high school and in many cases it justs gets more intricate.

But first I think its important to talk about the variety of things kids sell. "Naan mbourou" is one but panketos (donut holes), ebee (cassava, lemon, palm oil etc.) stew, salted peanuts, icees, fish pies etc. The list goes on and I think the most interesting thing is the intricacy of the dishes. It is way more than what a twelve year old in the US could produce. Beyond these things the women here will also sell "small things" for making lunch like salt, pepper, Jumbo (a MSG seasoning cube), tomato paste, oil etc. But for all their entrepreneurial ambitions its rare for them to have any sense of making a profit, inputs and outputs. Today when Mbayang was making "naan mbourou" she asked me to loan her D20. I asked her how much she thought she would make and she wasn't sure she would even make back the D20 she wanted me to loan her. I ended up loaning her D10 and total she spent D40 to produce the 41 bags that she sells for D1--so she is going to make one dalasi in profit. Even though shes an intelligent girl she could not really understand that she needed to come up with a way to get a greater return for her efforts. This makes me wonder if the illiterate women who sell "small small things" for making lunch ever make any money or if their just recycling their inputs over and over again without any personal gain.

Written on February 14th, 2010

Lately here I've been going to a lot of naming ceremonies (ngente). A week after a baby is born here the family has a huge celebration--inviting the entire village and extended family--to eat a lot of food and celebrate the babies birth. The baby goes through a ceremony where the head is shaved, prayers are said and the babies name is announce. Ngente can be a fun experience but it can also be exhausting. There's a lot of waiting around for things to happen, being force fed and more waiting around as people chatter at me in Wolof, half of which I understand and half of which goes right over my head. Ngente is really interesting however for what it reveals about Gambian "host" culture. From what I've observed in my short time here it is in many ways considered the ultimate in politeness to give your honored guests extreme privacy. For example yesterday my Peace Corps Wolof teacher Gibril had an ngente, he invited all of his students to come. His village is only about 15 kilometers from mine so it was really easy for me to get there but some of the other people in my group came from 2 or 3 hours away. In America if I had a guest come from that far away I would be eager to have them involved and in the middle of the party. Gibril however brought us to the ceremony, quickly showed us the baby and then whisked us away to a compound half way across the vilage where we drank attaya, had lunch and "relaxed" for five hours. By six we were sick of sitting around so we took it upon ourselves to head back to the ngente much to the dismay of the creepy guy "minding" us wo wanted us to wait, wait, wait for Gibril to come for us and while were at it drink more attaya. This isn't the only time that I've been "segregated" as a way to show me respect and sensitivity. Recently I went to my toma (a fellow Ramatoulie's) house to help her cook lunch and when it was time to eat she made me take my personal food bowl inside to her rooom to eat while everyone else sat outside--needless to say it is definitly a cultural element I am getting used to. These situations more than anything also make me wonder if Gambians wouldn't see Americans as bad hosts?

Written on January 30th, 2010

Dedicated to Beth Ritter

So I know in the US we all have our fair share of unpleasant travel experiences. I know that Beth in particular has had a lot of bad luck when it comes to trying to get from point A to point B. My experience today however might take the cake as far as absurdity in travel is concerned (and I know that I can only look forward to more experiences like this in the next two years.)

So today, Saturday, I decided that I was going to go visit my friend Erica who lives in a village that is about 20 km west of me.

I left my house after breakfast around 9 and headed out to the main road to wait for a car. Last weekend I had to wait about 15 minutes for a car so I wasn't expecting to have to wait for to long. Between 9 and 9:45 one car drove by and it was full. I talked to one of the other ladies who was waiting for a car and she explained to me that since it was the last Saturday of the month it was seet setall. Seet Setall is a nation wide campaign for everyone to spend the morning of the last Saturday of the month cleaning their villages and surrounding environs. This means that any public transportation on the roads faces a potential fine because this means that they are not in fact in their villages cleaning up. I was unaware of all of this so I had unwittingly decided to travel at the worst possible time of the month.

Finally around 10:30 a car came with space, I got on and breathed a sigh of relief assuming that I would make it to Erica's in about an hour. Oh how foolish of me. About 5 k down the road we got stopped at a police checkpoint. The driver explained that he was just bringing all of us to the neighboring town to go to the market. So we continued on down the road dropped off a bunch of people and then pulled over in the shade while the driver got out and walked back to the police checkpoint, for no reason that I could figure out.

Once the driver returned we continued another 10 k down the road and then around 12:15 the driver pulled over in the shade again, got out and walked away. I was able to figure out that we would now have to wait until 1 for Seet Setall to be over and then we could continue on. We had stopped in this particular patch of shade because just around the corner was another police checkpoint.

So 1 finally rolled around and we continued on. I got out of the car soon thereafter in Erica's village and four hours later had finally traveled the 20 k. We promptly ate lunch, got back on another car and went to Barra to get cold beers. It was really quite a Saturday. Now I know never again to try to travel on Seet Setall and I guess that's a lesson it's best I learned now rather than later.

Written on January 27th, 2010

Being sick is an inevitable, but unglamorous, aspect of life here as a PCV in The Gambia. Yet it is something that I feel like I would not really be compelled to write about due to its inherent messiness. Today was my first day being sick in village. Nothing serious, just a combination of a long bike ride in the hot sun, dehydration and eating of some questionable meat and rice. I woke up in the middle of the night every hour on the hour to go spend some quality time with my pit latrine. And once I woke up this morning I knew that my best option was really to just stay in bed. Six hours of lying in bed later I'm feeling better and as an indication I have begun to analyze the cultural aspects of being sick here.

In the US when you're sick its usually a given that people leave you alone, and allow you to rejoin the world at your own pace. I would not say that the same goes here. Notions of privacy are pretty non-existent. Though I had closed my front door as I lay in bed everyone and her mother from the village stuck their head into my open window to say matter of factly,

"Ramatoulie you are sick."

Yes that is generally what's happening when I'm sprawled across my bed with my arm flopped over my face. Not only did I have many visitors make astute observations of my invalid status, also at one point three small children were peering through the window at me as I tried to sleep, at another point one of my friends Ida came to my window beseeching me to buy panketos (small greasy doughnuts).

At around 3 my loud second mom Sarjo yelled at me through the window to: get up, open the door and eat rice. I opened the door, took the rice from her and sat in my backyard regarding the bowl for a while. I considered my options: take a couple spoonfuls, throw it down my pit latrine and pretend I had eaten or attempt to explain that I was the kind of sick where eating really only makes things worse. I decided to explain that today my stomach (not me mind you) didn't want food. She tisked and sent me back to bed. An hour later she tried to get me to drink strong sugary attaya but again I successfully bowed out by blaming my stomach.

Aside from being force fed while being sick the second interesting aspect of being sick here is the way you talk about being sick. In the US I would say "I feel like crap. I want to hurl." and you would nod and leave me alone.

Here people are so superstitious that even saying you are sick is kind of frowned upon. You say things like, "My head hurts," "My stomach is running," "My body is tired," or "I have a little malaria today." When someone asks you if your better you say you are, even if you really aren't/ This can make it all very confusing because I end up saying, "Yes I'm better, no I'm not sick my stomach is just running." and then flopping on my bed.

But I guess the best survival method is laughter and it is all pretty hilarious especially when you've made it out the other end.

Written on January 24th, 2010

1) weighed adorable (and sometimes screaming out of fear of me) babies

2) went to a naming ceremony, held a 1 week old baby, watched its head be shaved, ate lots of food, danced

3) drank attaya (a strong tea served in a shot glass with lots of sugar)

4) shelled peanuts

5) took a beautiful bike ride on a packed red dirt road among baobab and tall grass

6) got mistaken for a former, male, tall and 1/2 Brazilian volunteer and had to explain in Wolof, while riding a bike, that I was not in fact Pateh

7) filled out birth records--probably not legal or helpful

8) ate lots of icees

9) sat under a big tree and read

10) went to the market

11) did I say drink attaya--I do that a lot

12) fetched water

13) went to a Gambian style track meet--one event was racing with buckets of water on your head

14) saw a man walking his goat on a leash while riding his bike

15) made french fries

16) eating oranges, bean sandwiches and drinking semi-cold Coke

Written on January 15th, 2010

Sometimes living here things happen that I don't find particularly remarkable or funny but that cause me to pause and think "people back home would get a kick out of this." Today was one of those days. Since I moved into my house at my permanent site there has been a small hole in the corner of my small backyard. I didn't think much of it other then choosing to place my plastic lawn chair not next to it because you never know when a small hole might become big and I didn't want to deal with that or exacerbate it by sitting near it.

Anyways, the other day my host father was in my backyard for another reason and noticed it. He explained to me that it was a rabbit hole and then, as far as I could understand with my elementary Wolof, he said that he would fix it later.

Well later was this morning/evening. He began by pouring and entire bedong (jerry can) of water into the hole. Right at the end a rabbit popped out of the hole, I screamed and he dropped the bedong but we didn't catch it. The sighting emboldened my host father however and he proceeded to pour three more bedongs into the hole. This was in no way a successful approach for drowning the rabbit out--it merely enlarged the hole. At this point I was 45 minutes late to bike 10 kilometers for a batik making workshop so we had to leave the rabbit for the day. To ensure that it didn't leave the hole he stuffed it with two pairs of old pants. Upon my return this evening the rabbit operation recommenced. Our tactics didn't change much to begin with, we had just attracted more spectators. My backyard is small (probably 2 yards by 5 yards) but there were six to ten people crowded around a hole in one corner--like the Gambian version of a clown car.

Two bedongs later new tactics were introduced. Neem leaves (a bitter/semi-poisonous leaf used for many things here including mosquito repellent) were pounded and stuffed in the hole in the hopes that the "bitter taste" combined with the water would draw it out.

No luck.

Next a pick/stick was taken to the hole and it was significantly enlarged. Still no luck. Also, I failed to mention it but all of this happened after sunset by flashlight. Anyways, defeated my host father stuffed the hole with the old pants, filled it with dirt and we called off the search.

As I write now I sit at a a safe distance from the hole for fear that (1) it might all collapse as I doubt the structural integrity of two pairs of pants, (2) the rabbit might finally come out and I know it won't be happy. I know I wouldn't be six bedongs of water later.