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.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
One of These Things is Not Like the Other
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.
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.
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