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.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Gossiping In Gambia
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
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
Will You Be My Baby Mama?
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!
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!
One Wedding and One Funeral
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.
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.
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