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.