25 Kilos of Flour Later....

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.